How to TheXTechize the old game - TheXTech/TheXTech GitHub Wiki

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please read this article CAREFULLY, it's important to do NOT make a mistake. Every word in this article is important to PROPERLY convert SMBX-based games into TheXTech-compatible format.

What there are packed games? There are several projects such as "Sarasaland Adventure", "Super Talking Time Brothers", "Yoshi's Archipelago", etc. that get shipped with the modified game assets and have their own SMBX game executable, modded in most cases.

In short words, the Packed Game is a whole and runnable copy of the SMBX game that contains modified resources and different episode(s) than the default SMBX distribution has. You can't simply take the episode from it as it will don't work properly, mainly because every packed game provides the major replacement of global SMBX assets including music and sounds that was been impossible to replace until modern engines allowed that.

This manual will help you to convert the packed game into TheXTech-compatible format. While TheXTech allows you to play old episodes in as-is form without conversion, packed games do require you to convert entire default GFX assets (everything inside the "graphics" sub-directory) into the PNG format. All important hardcoded image resources will be automatically extracted and converted into a compatible format too.

Important note: There are only games based on the SMBX 1.3 supported. Games based on the SMBX2 or SMBX-38A are NOT supported.

  1. Download the conversion kit archive and mix the content with the packed game's root:
    • Download and unpack the archive of desired SMBX-based game at any convenient directory. If you already have it, just use it as-is.
    • Download the conversion kit.
    • Unpack ALL the content of the conversion kit archive (thextech-convert-kit.zip) into the root of the SMBX-based game that you want to convert. Every file inside is important. Keep an eye on your antivirus, it may steal some of these files into its quarantine, so, be careful.
  2. Make sure the old game executable is named "smbx.exe" (or "asmbxt.exe" and "a2mbxt.exe"), otherwise, you will be not able to convert hardcoded resources into the compatible format. If the main game's executable has a different name, please rename it to "smbx.exe" by yourself.
  3. Depending on your system, run the conversion script in the terminal (or command line):
    • On Windows, you need to run the gfx-convert-win.cmd script. You can double-click it and the terminal window will open.
    • On Linux, open the terminal in the game root directory and run the bash gfx-convert-lin.sh script.
    • On macOS, open the terminal, change the directory into game root (type cd, then type a Space, and then, drag and drop the directory of the game into the terminal. Then, hit Enter), and then, paste into terminal the bash gfx-convert-lin.sh, and hit Enter.
  4. The script will ask you, whether is need to remove all old GIFs while the conversion process or keep them?:
    • Press the Y key to remove all old GIFs after conversion. If you choose this, you will be unable to run the game using your old executable.
    • Or press N to keep these old GIFs after conversion.
    • Once the conversion process will finish, you will see the message in the terminal that tells about finishing the conversion process. Simply press any key, and close the terminal.
  5. Download the compatible executable of TheXTech to run the game:
    • Open THIS page if you want to use the stable version of TheXTech, or THIS page if you want to use the development version (if you want to test new features before the next stable release).
    • Find the "Plain engine" (or "Plain runtime") section and take the version that is compatible with your platform. If there is no pre-built executables for your platform, you may want to compile it from the source code following the manual.
    • Open the archive, and the sub-directory isnide (if presented), take all its content:
      • For Linux: It will be a thextech at Linux archives. Places it into the game's root directory among other files.
      • For Windows: It will be the thextech.exe and multiple DLL files. Unpack all these files into the game root directory. They should be placed among other files in that directlry.
      • For macOS: It will be an app bundle named TheXTech.app. You should follow THIS manual to make the game work. Treat your recently-converted game as an assets pack, mentioned in the manual.
    • P.S. You can use the Andriod version of TheXTech to run the game (You can put all the content of your game into the phone's storage, but any without executables), and then, select the directory of the game via the launcher screen of the game.
  6. Try to launch the "thextech" application, the game should work now.
  7. Optionally, edit the "gameinfo.ini" file and change the game title and character names for consistency, overlook, and other options.
  8. If you met certain unexpected behaviour during a playthrough, it's possible a violation of the bug compatibility. You can re-enable any past bugs using a special compat.ini file, created at the episode or at the level data directory.

Notes

  • TheXTech unlike the original SMBX doesn't have any truly hardcoded GFX assets, all previously hardcoded GFX are now located at the graphics/ui directory.

Extra

You can turn the packed game into the full-featured TheXTech assets package, there are the next steps you need to process:

  • Optionally, create the individual icon for the game, and update it in the graphics/ui/icon directory. There are versions of the icon for different sizes, and icons for three formats
    • A set of PNG of different sizes
    • ICO for Windows
    • ICNS for macOS
  • Create a different logo for the game (Edit the graphics/ui/MenuGFX2.png, or use the different one, specified in the gameinfo.ini file)
  • Create a nicer animated background for the Android launcher: You can select any picture as the launcher background, and you can make it animated: your picture should contain set o frames in vertical sequence.
  • You can quickly pack the game assets without unnecessary files (game saves, logs, settings, executables) if you run one of two scripts:
    • Bash script create_package.sh to pack the game into the tar.gz or 7z format.
    • CMD script for Windows create_package.cmd to pack the game into the 7z archive. You are required to install the 7-zip on your computer and make sure the 7z.exe is available in the PATH environment.