Track Files - Stunts - ADG Mod 4

[@LGR]

Really dug this episode, brought back lots of memories of diving into 90s racing game files with a hex editor and trying to make sense of any of it. Rarely with success :P

[@Pixelmusement]

+LGR Yeah, I never had success hacking stuff as a kid, but that's because I never understood concepts like Run Length Encoding and such. Experience with coding has taught me those things though and going back to those old games I have a LITTLE more success now, such as when I pulled the graphics from the Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers game to see if there was anything unused. :B

[@Komeuppance]

Same... good times!

[@realcundo]

Thanks for the video! Spent ages playing Stunts and since I needed new tracks I went through the same process of finding out how they are stored. Wrote my own editor -- it was in 80x50 VGA text mode with custom font for tiles. There was a mouse support too and it was much more convenient to use than the built-in editor. Good times!

[@lilwyvern4]

It's always delightful when a game designer doesn't needlessly obfuscate things. There's something utterly fascinating about a game that leaves its data in a form that is readable to the naked eye.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Torcularis There ARE legitimate reasons to do it, but at the same time, for something like this where editing is encouraged, obfuscating is pointless. :P

[@lilwyvern4]

@@Pixelmusement Of course. I'm well aware that my opinions on such topics are naively optimistic. I also have no coding or design experience, so my opinion amounts to effectively nil.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Torcularis You can still offer perfectly valid opinions as to what you prefer as a consumer of gaming media. :B

[@krcroft]

Played this a ton in my teens during the early 90s and enjoyed exchanging tracks with friends. Had a fun time building long tracks with a ramping curve at the end that would cause the F1 car to get sucked up into the sky, apparently breaking the physics. Stunts was a blast and one I still come back and play a couple times a year. Never gets old!

[@Darkstar2342]

We did stuff like that back in school a lot, creating our custom tracks with roads on water and overlapping tiles. But we were too lazy to write an editor so we just used a hex editor (with a large, hand-written list of all tiles and their byte values)... Some other fun thing we liked to try: make a track so complex that it takes as long as possible to load when starting a new game against the computer. The reason was that the computer selected the track they will be driving randomly, but pre-selected right before the race starts, from then on everything is predetermined. If you have lots of loops and crossings, the AI sometimes took minutes (remember, it was all 386's back then) before you could race, and it was still fun because you usually couldn't know beforehand which path took the shortest amount of time. More often than not we got bored before reaching the goal ... But sometimes, one of us would find a new (legal) shortcut that was a few seconds faster than the current best one, which was reason enough to celebrate :-)

[@SLiPCoR]

O boy there is few things more satisfying than that first hex editor shot, you literally can see the track... thanks for making this :)

[@IllidanS4]

Oh, the hours I spent in the editor, annoying my parents with the music played via the PC Speaker. Thanks for this video, very interesting!

[@AmyraCarter]

Stunts was one of the first racing games I played. I was very young and never really played it much, so I missed out on a lot. That said, and to speak of another game that is basically all about making your own racing challenges, TrackMania is definitely worth perusing and playing, though the in-game editor has its' limitations. In fact, the original Trackmania's largest limitation was in having to *_PURCHASE INDIVIDUAL PIECES_* with the in-game currency, Coppers. Not easily obtained either. That was scrapped in Sunrise, and then Coppers would become currency used to get stuff from ManiaPlanet sites for tracks, car models, and so on. The limitations of the TM editor were mainly in how one could not place objects in whatever way they wanted to, or terraform as they wished, which are still present but are less of an issue in later titles, like Nations/United, both the first iteration and the Forever iteration. Turbo has a simplified interface as far as I know (I haven't played it in-depth as of yet), and then there's TrackMania 2, which is fully tied into ManiaPlanet. I've no experience with it. I use a semi-external editor for TM United Forever. Semi-external means that it's an external loader but all the editing action happens in-game, but TrackMania Unlimiter (latest version is called 'Infinity') allows the user to do a LOT more than the standard editor. Rotate pieces, move them, and scale them on three axes. Can use any of the seven environments' pieces in any environment (some environments will have some outside environmental pieces look weird-needing scaling to not have issues), can change the map size, change the car type, change the rendered background, remove the track base (doing so will make mouse movement impossible until after pieces are placed since black/null spaces are given some mouse cursor forbidden element that I don't know enough about), among so many other things. It's really neat to be honest, though it can and will cause crashes if your computer doesn't like something you do (the eraser tool triggers crashes a lot), or if you have some sort of overflow issue. Anyway, I like games like this with level editors. I honestly wish there were more racing games that had this feature, but don't. Imagine the likes of Rock 'n' Roll Racing with this feature. I know Motor Rock had something like this, but that's a game that will never see the light of day again. A shame really since it had more potential than Interplay/Blizzard would of liked to admit... Oh, and one thing with TMInfinity; you can place track pieces under water. Well, sort of; you can place independent water tiles as normal pieces and place track pieces underneath. It does drive slowly as one would expect, but it doesn't shift the POV to above the car, which I've always found to be jarring, especially when using the cockpit POV. I started a track project with a half-sunken city in mind as the theme, flooded roadways and tunnels, it's great fun, lolz (Yes there are _dedicated_ underwater track pieces like tunnels and under the forced water tiles tunnels won't flood.)

[@BeyondTheScanlines]

The fun of editing within Stunts. Takes me back quite a lot. It's surprising how straightforward the format is (presumably for ease of processing on slower PCs of the era), but still fun with for editing. Surprised to learn about the alternate editing tools though - certainly a rad way to overcome the inbuilt one's limitations!

[@orinokonx01]

As someone who spent hours playing Stunts, I appreciate this :)

[@malokegames]

I played a lot with this editor back in the days... I'm not much into racing games but Stunts is my favorite racing game of all times, mostly because of its realism feeling and editor. I love games with editors :]

[@Theshadowpoison]

Really interesting! It reminds me how the first ever custom Doom WAD level was created. It really shows the awesome power of hex editing.

[@danielwalley6554]

Amazed to find someone going this deep on this game.

[@AndrewTJackson]

Dude!!! I just got notification of this video! This is one of my favouritest-est-est favourite DOS games and why I was so elated when I found Track Mania Turbo!! I'm downloading this to watch later.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Andrew Jackson Did TrackMania improve much after their initial games? I have the old TrackMania Sunrise but didn't care for it for a variety of reasons as the track layouts felt bizarre, there was a poor selection of vehicles none of which were licensed, the car speeds made no sense, and I found the track editor very cumbersome to use. :|

[@AndrewTJackson]

@@Pixelmusement I really enjoy playing TrackMania Turbo. I have the demo which I've played so much I started pushing the boundaries and exploring the world, discovering some texture tricks that they used for the scenery, how their world appears to be constructed, their skybox, clouds, acceleration rates, and proved that their Earth is flat by driving off the end of it. :-) I'm waiting for a Christmas sale to buy the full version, it's a bit $$ for me right now. *Edit: I have only played the latest one, TMT, so I can't comment on improvement or regression.

[@AmyraCarter]

@@AndrewTJackson I have not played Turbo, but Nations/United (same engine but United is the expansion) is an improvement over TM1 and Sunrise.

[@AndrewTJackson]

@@AmyraCarter +Pixelmusement IMHO, this is well worth the watch: "Trackmania [PF] - Hyperion's Wrath | PRESS FORWARD" kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3yaimqwrrWSibs

[@JFD62780]

Honestly, I'm amazed how accurate this game generates V8 engine noises through the Adlib!

[@HordurSmariJohannesson]

spent hours upon hours in this editor back in the day, amazing video

[@Gatorbox]

Never played Stunts but I'm fascinated by track editors and "tricking" games into loading data and options that would otherwise be walled off from normal play.

[@BubblegumCrash332]

I spent days on the track editor as a kid. Love it

[@WhiteRhinoPSO]

If you ever do make that spiritual successor to Stunts, please post something about it on your channel. This was one of my favorite games as a kid, and hearing anybody talk about it is a huge nostalgia trip.

[@Pixelmusement]

+White Rhino PSO I probably won't; I have too many original ideas I'd rather pursue including a proper, story-driven sequel to PixelShips, but you never know. :B

[@AceMcLoud42]

25 years ago, I made 16 megs of tracks, and the program cannot browse it :))

[@Ahnonymos]

I always hated using the in-game editor, so it's exciting to hear that the track data is stored that way / alternative editors are available. I had no idea lol. Also not gonna lie, but I love the way the music for this sounds on the PC-Speaker. Stunts is a gem.

[@SuperJustinChannel]

A successor of Stunts sounds like my kind of jam.

[@MindstormXL]

I know it can't load the old files because its a totally different game engine but Trackmanias a pretty good spiritual successor to Stunts.

[@Pixelmusement]

+MindstormXL The only TrackMania game I've played (and own) is Sunrise and it didn't impress me for a variety of reasons, mostly the lack of any semblance of realism and the editor being super-clunky to use. Have they improved on any of that over the years with the later games?

[@AmyraCarter]

@@Pixelmusement TrackMania Nations/United. Way better.

[@MindstormXL]

@@Pixelmusement Well theres Trackmania Stadium 2 which is free with other scenarios of traclmania 2 being paid for, Im not suure about the editor though because I havent actually tried it.

[@sjakila]

I had a way of making a waterpiece appear as other pieces. Don't remember how, but it was fun. Should try it again sometime.

[@legionofdoom2009]

Ever played Crashday? It's a combat-racing game from 2006 (re-released on Steam a year or so ago) which has a track editor very similar in capabilities and simplicity to the one in Stunts.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Taiga Aisaka Never even heard of it until now... If it's on Steam and works on Win10 I might check it out. :o

[@dreamchaser3342]

Crashday is great, played it back in like 2008 or so

[@MrBenMcLean]

Wow. I never knew the track format was so simple. Maybe I'll make an editor one day :D

[@PzAufklLehrBtl3]

Next ADG episode is Gabriel Knight then? It had a very weird shaped big box.

[@jinx2131]

Just came on to comment the same thing - don't think there is a stranger box out there!

[@ianeborn6823]

Hmm... I was thinking about Stonekeep, with its holographic-inset--but looking it up, that Gabriel Knight box is rather odd, so you may well be right!

[@kallesiukola7925]

Or Armored Fist.

[@MrBenMcLean]

Can you share your isometric track tiles on OpenGameArt.org please? I'd love for Ultimate Stunts to be a thing if it could recreate the original physics. Unfortunately I don't believe that's ever going to happen. Not only did Ultimate Stunts not recreate the original physics, but the game also hasn't been worked on in years AFAIK. It's as much abandonware as the original, only it's unfinished on top of that.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Benjamin McLean Ah. I didn't realize Ultimate Stunts hadn't been working on in so long... ah well. As for the track tiles since I have no intention of ever using them myself I uploaded them to my website and added a link to them in the video description! ;)

[@sirlight-ljij]

Now we are talking. This is some real dos science, with original research and links to external references. If there was a DOS magazine listed in scopus, I bet you can try publishing your works someday.mes-online/play-stunts-online/play/

[@MultiYiff]

I wonder if you could pull out data track for the DSI logotype sequence and see if it is playable. Should be awesome if we can drive at logotype and in space! :)

[@Niberspace]

Mind blowed. Subbed

[@kevinfishburne]

I was 200. I have this game, or is it Stunt Driver... Hex editing data files of old games is fun. Game Genie manually but for data files and not memory addresses.

[@bad4brain]

Really cool game

[@valentinbeholder]

I was play this game like mother...... thank you for explain that :O

[@alefpetrescu]

I don't quite understand what's the point in making a game that reads original track files. Making something new is easier (I did), not to mention that Ultimatestunts is worse than the original, which wasn't particularly good to begin with. Maybe in 1990...

[@ericfuentes7163]

Ohh yeah man! Have you modded the car's performance already? I know how. I did this as a kid, with XtreeGold. No one taught me how.

[@Domarius64]

Not impressed with "Ultimate stunts". When you add more graphical detail like that, suddenly you have a whole lot of work to do, to make it look good. Otherwise it looks amateurish. A stunts remake should keep the low poly flat shaded look, and just make it high resolution, like 80's video games looked on the movies, like Tron - way more smooth than they actually were, but still retro looking.

[@Pixelmusement]

+Clint Hobson I don't disagree, but I also don't mind when devs decide to spruce up the look, so long as functionality and gameplay don't both suffer at the same time. Reviving an older game with modern sensibilities is a tricky thing to do and everyone's going to have their own opinions as to how it should be handled, thus why it's nice when devs add enough options to make it possible to play an updated game all pretied up with particles and high-res models and textures, while still having options to turn all of that off and go back to the original look. :B

[@MarquisDeSang]

Omikron