Bookworm Adventures Volume 2

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Bookworm Adventures: Volume 2
Developer: PopCap Games Publisher: PopCap Games Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X Released in US: July 30, 2009 This game has uncompiled source code. This game has debugging material.

To do: Decompile the LUC files, there's more in them, they are compiled with LUA 5.0.2 but likely stupidly headered.

Bookworm Adventures: Volume 2 is a sequel to the previous word-based Bookworm RPG from three years before.

Debugging material

To do: Enable this if possible.

Developer cheats

main.pak/scripts has a file called cheat.luc, it appears to be developer cheats, functions are modify HP, level up, modify XP, instant kill, complete chapter, complete book, modify tile architectures, set particles, nuke profile, status testing, load debug profile, add items, beatdown multiplier modifiers, die, save, get selected chapter, modify treasure count, bypass/repeating tutorials, give player+enemy buffs/debuffs, enabling minigames, enabling bestiary, delete words, forcing an attack and hiding treasures, the game also looks for this file on bootup.

Beta support

Some files mention BETA_BUILD, this likely refers to builds distributed from PopCap's game beta testing page and is also a flag for what current build type is used when released to the public.

Crash handler

If the game crashed, a popup saying Fatal Error will appear to report the crash and see a log. A file called crash.txt will be created or replaced in the game's root install directory, being the exact same said in the error message box.

LUA error handler

If an LUA or LUC has an error like file missing or damaged, the game will say: Oops! A lua error occurred and the game needs to shut down. Please contact customer support and provide them with your lua.log file. It will be created or replaced in the game's root install directory.

Bad string handler

To do: Where is this detected? The LUC/LUAs and/or plaintext data?

If the game detects a bad string, this will show in red: Someone passed in a string with invalid characters. Probably because they forgot to save the file as plain text and it contains some specially formatted Word characters. This is bad. We can't render those. I'll let the program continue, but it may result in messed up text. This would probably be a bug for Steve if you get this. I'll let the program keep running though, as this is just cosmetic.

Cheat detection

BattleEngine.lua in main.pak/scripts mentions CHEAT or YOUCHEATED in flagging terms, the game would most likely detect the use of memory editing or some sort of cheat format like the developer cheats and force your best and longest word to be CHEAT and YOUCHEATED, it would be impossible to get YOUCHEATED as your longest word during legal play since that word is not in the in-game dictionary.

Uncompiled LUA files

INSTALLROOT/scripts/common mentions few plaintext, uncompiled LUA files along with mostly compiled LUAs, the game also supports loading uncompiled LUAs, but prioritizes loading the compiled LUA files with the extension LUC first when possible.

Leftover source binding file

main.pak/scripts has a leftover .vssscc file.

Version list

• 1.0.4.8465 = Initial release!

No revisions were pushed, PopCap.com got the version with a newer build date and Steam got the version with an older build date.