Alley Cat

From ModdingWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Alley Cat
Alley Cat.png
There is no image of a modified version of this game — upload one!
Levels?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Tiles?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Sprites?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Fullscreen?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Sound?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Music?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Text?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Story/cutscenes?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
UI/menus?Emblem-important.png Partially editable
Demos?Unknown

Alley Cat is a platform game by Bill Williams. This page describes the 1984 IBM PC edition and the Tandy 1000 edition investigated by re-alleycat. Both use 320×200, four-colour graphics.

All original graphics, music tables and text are embedded in the DOS executable: CAT.EXE for the IBM PC edition or TANDYCAT.EXE for the Tandy edition. There are no separate asset archives or level files in the documented versions. The format pages below describe structures inside those executables, not additional files required by the game.

Rooms are assembled by program code using embedded images, scenery lists and gameplay tables. The alley is room 0; the game dispatches the other rooms through a table for rooms 1–7. Changing graphics or selected tables is possible through binary patching, but replacing a room's behaviour also requires changing code. The partial-editing ratings refer to this manual process; the repository supplies a viewer, not an asset importer or level editor.

Tools

Name Platform Archives Levels Graphics Music Sounds Text Saves .exe patch Notes
re-alleycat Web browser N/A No Export Play No View No No HTML5 port and asset viewer. Exports mapped images as PNG or original bytes; browses strings and raw data; reconstructs IBM and Tandy title music. Requires the original executable. Tandy assets are supported by the viewer, but the Tandy game is not playable in the port.

File formats

Filename Format Details
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Executable Format Executable container, version identification and data-segment address mapping
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Image Format Packed two-bit sprites, tiles, title lettering and score digits
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Sprite Table Format Frame pointers and optional dimension tables
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Scenery Format Background shape lists and furniture groups
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Text Format NUL-terminated menu and pause strings
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Music Format IBM PC title melody and PIT divisor table (IBM only for the documented layout)
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Tandy Music Format Tandy three-voice title music, duration lists and arrangement
CAT.EXE, TANDYCAT.EXE Alley Cat Sound Table Format IBM PC secondary tunes and procedural sound-effect tables (IBM only for the documented layout)

Notes

  • Multi-byte integers are little-endian. Most addresses in the RE notes are data-segment offsets, not file offsets; see Alley Cat Executable Format.
  • The viewer recognises two exact SHA-256 hashes. Editing either executable changes its hash: the stock viewer then offers only text and raw-data inspection, and the stock game loader rejects it. Testing modified assets in the port therefore requires adapting its identification logic as well as changing the bytes.
  • The viewer catalogue is not a complete inventory of named assets. The RE notes report 217 catalogue entries with byte-identical Tandy counterparts; this does not establish that every embedded image has been found.
  • The title's moving cat is driven by game logic, rather than a documented input-recording file. No original demo-file format is identified in the repository.
  • The score and high score are runtime data; no separate high-score or save-game file is documented. Browser settings and remembered executables are port storage, not DOS asset formats.

External links

Retrieved from "https://moddingwiki.shikadi.net/w/index.php?title=Alley_Cat&oldid=13007"