Micro Machines
| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | Editable |
| Sprites? | Editable |
| Fullscreen? | Editable |
| Sound? |  Partially editable |
| Music? | Partially editable |
| Text? |  Not editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | N/A |
| UI/menus? | Not editable |
| Demos? | N/A |
Micro Machines is a top-down racing game published by Codemasters in 1994 and developed for DOS by Big Red Software. Players race miniature vehicles (sportscars, powerboats, Formula One cars, tanks, helicopters and more) over household courses such as desks, bathtubs and pool tables.
The DOS release consists of a launcher (MICRO.COM) that runs the Codemasters logo intro (SM.EXE) and then the game itself (MICRO.EXE, compressed with PKLITE). All track data lives in the GAME1 directory. There are 9 rounds (one per vehicle class) with 3 or 4 races each, 29 tracks in total. In the file names below, n is the round (1-9) and m the race within the round (1-4).
Most graphics are compressed with Micro Machines Compression. Palettes are standard 6-bit VGA Palette files (768 bytes). All music and sound effects are embedded in the sound driver modules; the game only passes tune and effect numbers to them.
File formats
The following file formats are used by this game.
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| compress.pi? | Micro Machines Asset Arena Format | Front-end graphics (faces, logo, vehicle miniatures, fonts, trophy), split into 7 compressed 48 kB slabs |
| intro.pal | VGA Palette | Palette for the menus and front-end graphics |
| bitsfile.ph0 | Micro Machines BITSFILE Format | Shared race graphics: wheel puffs, HUD digits and icons, position labels, banners |
| gfx1.gfx | Micro Machines Logo Format | Codemasters "Absolutely Brilliant!" logo intro graphics, used by SM.EXE |
| antifont.bin | Empty file | Font for the copyright line of the logo intro. Shipped as a 0-byte file, so nothing is drawn. |
| font.bin | Micro Machines Code Card Format | Not a font: the code card copy protection module (x86 code plus symbol graphics and the card table) |
| driver?.bin | Micro Machines Sound Driver Format | Sound drivers with embedded music, sound effects and instruments (0 = none, 1 = AdLib, 2 = PC speaker) |
| settings.dat | Micro Machines Settings Format | Control, sound and smoothness options and key bindings |
| game1/round?.pal | VGA Palette | Palette for each round |
| game1/round?br.pr? | Micro Machines Tileset Format | 16×16 tiles for each round (compressed, two or three files per round) |
| game1/round?br.ct | Micro Machines Meta-tile Format | Builds 96×96 pixel meta-tiles out of 6×6 tiles |
| game1/round?.col | Micro Machines Collision Format | Collision mask for each meta-tile |
| game1/round?.dir | Micro Machines Direction Format | Terrain type and AI driving direction for each meta-tile |
| game1/round?br.lev | Micro Machines Tile Properties Format | Respawn position, respawn heading and flags for each meta-tile |
| game1/round??.map | Micro Machines Map Format | Track layout (meta-tile grid and track progress plane) for each race |
| game1/round??b.brk | Micro Machines Brake Point Format | AI braking and speed hints for each race |
| game1/round?br.vh0 | Micro Machines Vehicle Format | Vehicle sprites and crash animations for each round (compressed) |
| game1/strt_pos.bin | Micro Machines Start Position Format | Start position of every race |
| game1/cheats.bin | Micro Machines Cheat Spot Format | Hidden cheat spots, activated by pausing the game on them |
| micro.exe | PKLITE compressed EXE Format | The game. Vehicle physics tables, track names and all menu text are stored in here. |
| sm.exe | EXE Format | Logo intro, holds the palette and draw list for gfx1.gfx |
| install.dat | Plain text | Installer script, one COPYFILE line per file |
Notes
- The game never allocates memory. Every file is loaded into a fixed buffer, so a modified file must not be larger than the buffer it is loaded into (see the individual format pages).
- The race world is built in memory from three files: the .map picks a meta-tile per 96×96 pixel cell, the .ct file turns each meta-tile into 6×6 tiles, and the .pr? files hold the tile pixels.
- Typing 25011968 on the options screen enables the developer cheat (10 lives, and F12 in the pause menu saves a SCREn.RAW screen dump).
External links
- re-micro-machines - HTML/JavaScript port with a file viewer and a level editor, with full documentation of all formats