It seems like someone at Davidson accidentally shipped a development file for Mega Math Blaster onto a retail CD!
That's right, my CD of Math Blaster Ages 6-9, a 1998 re-release of Mega Math Blaster that I got as a kid, contains a file called MEGAMB.APP. You can view it here.
I've been trying to reverse-engineer the Blaster series' engine, which is called Atlas Game Engine. I've posted my findings here, but here it is again:
The Atlas Game Engine is a proprietary game engine developed by Davidson & Associates for use in their games in the Blaster Learning System. It was originally developed for the classic Mac OS and Windows.
Much of the game data is stored in three game files that use the game's ID as the name. They contain the extensions DLL, BAP, and RES. The DLL file is referred to as the "personality". It contains platform-specific game data. The RES file contains the audiovisual assets for the game, which are in the standard WAV and BMP formats. The BAP file is the actual application file. It contains text and script data.
On my old Math Blaster Ages 6-9 CD, I discovered the file MEGAMB.APP! It's dated 7/8/1997, and appears to be the BAP file in its uncompiled form. Seems like it was put on the CD by mistake. This could help significantly in reverse-engineering the engine. Here is the file.
Game Extractor directly supports extraction of the RES file's resources. It works not just with Mega Math Blaster, but other Atlas games as well. One that doesn't seem to work is Reading Blaster 2000 for some reason.
That's right, my CD of Math Blaster Ages 6-9, a 1998 re-release of Mega Math Blaster that I got as a kid, contains a file called MEGAMB.APP. You can view it here.
I've been trying to reverse-engineer the Blaster series' engine, which is called Atlas Game Engine. I've posted my findings here, but here it is again:
The Atlas Game Engine is a proprietary game engine developed by Davidson & Associates for use in their games in the Blaster Learning System. It was originally developed for the classic Mac OS and Windows.
Much of the game data is stored in three game files that use the game's ID as the name. They contain the extensions DLL, BAP, and RES. The DLL file is referred to as the "personality". It contains platform-specific game data. The RES file contains the audiovisual assets for the game, which are in the standard WAV and BMP formats. The BAP file is the actual application file. It contains text and script data.
On my old Math Blaster Ages 6-9 CD, I discovered the file MEGAMB.APP! It's dated 7/8/1997, and appears to be the BAP file in its uncompiled form. Seems like it was put on the CD by mistake. This could help significantly in reverse-engineering the engine. Here is the file.
Game Extractor directly supports extraction of the RES file's resources. It works not just with Mega Math Blaster, but other Atlas games as well. One that doesn't seem to work is Reading Blaster 2000 for some reason.
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