TheXTech

TheXTech - it's a platform game engine written in C++, is a full port of source code of SMBX 1.3 which was originally written in Visual Basic 6. Created by Wohlstand after one month since original SMBX source code was been released for two purposes: providing a free and open-source, cross-platform and accurate implementation of the SMBX Engine to allow playing of old levels and episodes, created for an original game, with the same behavior as the original game had; get a more convenient research model for a PGE Engine development.

Differences with the original game
While the game is an accurate port of an original game, it has several differences and enhancements:


 * First off, it's written in C++ while original (as we already know) is written in VB6.
 * Doesn't have an Editor. Instead, since 1.3.2 it has a deep integration with PGE Editor that allows to use it with the same functionality as in the original editor (the "magic hand" functionality was kept to allow real-time editing of the level while testing, it's needed to use IPC communication with PGE Editor to get the ability to use it better).
 * Full support of UTF-8 in filename paths and internal text data (original game had only 8bit ANSI support).
 * For graphics and controlling, it uses an SDL2 library while the original game has used WinAPI calls and GDI library.
 * It uses PGE-FL that has better file format support.
 * A support for WLDX world maps is allowing unlimited credit lines and custom music without it being necessary to use a music.ini for music replacements.
 * Some LVLX exclusive features now working: vertical section wrap, two-way warps, custom "star needed" message, warp enter the event, ability to disable stars printing in HUB episodes for specific doors, ability to disable interscene showing when going to another level through a warp.
 * Built-in support for the episode and level wide music.ini and sounds.ini to override default music and sounds assets.
 * World maps now support a custom directory to store any specific resources like custom tiles/scenes/paths/levels and not spam the episode root folder with world map resources anymore.
 * Default config format is INI, old config.dat format is no longer supported, mainly because of incompatible key code values (SDL_Scancode versus VirtualKeys enum of Windows API).
 * Game saves now using the SAVX format instead of a classic SAV. However, if you already have an old gamesave, you still can resume your game by using a new engine now (next gamesave attempt will result a SAVX file, old gamesave in SAV format will be kept untouched).
 * Built-in PNG support for custom and default graphics. Masked GIFs are still supported for backward compatibility, however, without making an unexpected auto-conversion like SMBX-38A does.
 * Checkpoints now have multi-points! You can use them in your levels multiple times without limits!
 * It does use of lazy-decompress algorithm to speed-up the loading of a game and reduce the memory usage.
 * For music and SFX, the MixerX library is used to give support for a wide amount of sound and music formats!
 * It doesn't embed any graphics: there are NO truly hardcoded graphics, everything is now represented by external graphics!
 * Some internal limits have been expanded.
 * Built-in GIF recorder by F11 key (F10 on macOS, F11 is reserved by system UI for a "show desktop" action).
 * As of 1.3.2: The maximum section limit has been extended up to 201.
 * As of 1.3.2: The 20 entry limit for layers lists to show/hide/toggle has been removed.
 * As of 1.3.2.4: Allows customizing the outro level music.
 * As of 1.3.3: The Purple Yoshi's Ground Pound can be changed to Alt Run by adding  to settings/thextech.ini, preventing accidental deaths while duck-jumping.
 * As of 1.3.3: Supports playable character calibration files to customize hitbox offsets and metrics.
 * As of 1.3.4: Supports the compat.ini files to tune the compatibility for levels and episodes by enabling or disabling certain bugfixes and features.
 * As of 1.3.5: Has an ability to manage game saves from the game menu directly.

Version history
Development of TheXTech was started after a week after releasing SMBX's source code to the public. The versioning starts at 1.3 to continue the history of the original SMBX game in a new form.

Cheat Codes
TheXTech has the same Cheats as SMBX 1.3, with the addition of some alternative codes. All codes with a 'y' (for example "moneytree") have a counterpart where it is replaced by 'z' ("moneztree") for QWERTZ-compatibility.

Italic Cheats can be used in the latest development build, but are not part of the current release yet.

Building the Game
To build the game, follow one of the following guides from the GitHub page:


 * Building on Windows
 * Building on Linux or xBSD
 * Building on macOS
 * Building on Haiku
 * Building on Emscripten

For a build intended to be shared, install the ninja-build dependency, and replace the following line:

cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ..

With:

cmake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=MinSizeRel -DUSE_SYSTEM_SDL2=OFF -DUSE_SYSTEM_LIBS=OFF -DUSE_STATIC_LIBC=ON -DPGE_SHARED_SDLMIXER=OFF ..

After following the final steps of the guide, create a  with the following content:

[Main] force-portable = true

And place it along with the executable in the same folder as the assets.

Custom Default Sets
Currently, TheXTech doesn't support individual "graphics" folders for episodes like SMBX2 does. In order to make episodes with their own SMBX sets like "Yoshi's Archipelago" or "Super Talking Time Bros." work, they need to be patched by taking the following steps :

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.


 * 1) Download the conversion kit archive and mix the content with the packed game's root
 * 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.
 * 3) Depending on your system, run the conversion script in the terminal (or command line):
 * 4) On Windows, you need to run the gfx-convert-win.cmd script.
 * 5) On Linux, you need to run the bash gfx-convert-lin.sh script.
 * 6) The script will ask you, do remove all old GIFs while the conversion process or keep them? Press the Y key to remove all old GIFs after conversion, or N to keep. Once the conversion process will finish, you will see the message in the terminal that tells about finishing the conversion process.
 * 7) Find the "plain runtime" section at the downloads page and take the version compatible with your platform. Take the executable file (thextech at Linux archives, or thextech.exe and all DLL files at Windows archives) and put it at the packed game directory.
 * 8) Try to launch the "thextech" application, the game should work now.
 * 9) Optionally, edit the "gameinfo.ini" file and change the game title and character names for consistency.

Planned Features

 * Improving Controller Support and allowing multiple key bindings. Until then, antimicro or xboxdrv can be used as workarounds. Done since version 1.3.5.
 * Making the Purple Yoshi's Ground Pound be usable by other Yoshis with a yellow shell.
 * Copying and erasing savefiles within the title screen. Done since version 1.3.5.

Links

 * An official forum post
 * A first announcement
 * A video showcase