roadmap.md

OpenShadowFlare roadmap

This is the working map for reconstructing ShadowFlare.exe. It is meant to help us choose the next useful piece of work, not to lock the project into a schedule. We will learn more from the retail game as we go, so later sections will move around when the evidence tells us they should.

The rule is simple: get one small part behaving like the original, test it, and only then build the next part on top of it.

Current track: the small C99 game

The implementation under shadowflare/ is now the active replacement track. It uses the mature src/SF_EXE/ reconstruction as a strong behavioral reference, checks uncertain details against retail, and is intended to replace SF_EXE once it reaches the same playable coverage.

This version deliberately has a smaller shape: plain C99, fixed caller-owned memory, integer game math, TWL/TAL at the platform edge, and an 8 MiB main-RAM plus 4 MiB video-memory ceiling. Rendering primitives stay in render/, all HUD and interface composition stays in ui/, and the game must remain easy enough for a junior contributor to follow without learning a framework first. The standing details and measured screen budgets live in shadowflare/RULES.md and shadowflare/README.md.

The front-end, Remote Town map, player movement, retail PEOPLE actors, collision, pointing, speech bubbles, and interactive script-driven choices are live. All seven MCT type-zero objects are live too. Their sparse static or animated Character/OBJECT resources, shadows, state channels, judgement, depth, hover tint, authored nameplate, and opaque-pixel picking remain separate from both OBL scenery and PEOPLE actors. Object clicks are consumed through the retail interaction range instead of leaking into movement. The Warehouse now runs its authored status-zero sentence and opcode 41 through a one-shot game-service request. Its existing left Special Item panel opens without closing an independent right Inventory; only the UI layer changes panel state. The transport object now follows that same route. Opcode 37 opens its authored left panel, all 51 destination records come from Table 40, enabled rows are packed into ten slots per page, and a right Inventory stays independent. Remote Town's default row resolves MCT entry 200 and relocates the hero without leaking its click into movement. Opcode 38 only closes the matching service. Ostare's opening chain reaches its four opcode 10 starter drops, with the original item definitions, artwork, palettes, bounce, and landing sounds. Those drops can now be hovered, approached, and picked up into the player's fixed 9x4 inventory, including retail dimensions, gold stacks, failure bounce, and pickup sounds. Harley's complete Explanation branch also runs from the shipped SCS data. The authored bottom HUD now reads level, life, mana, experience, and walk/run state from the player owner. Its initial values come from a streaming scan of retail's parameter tables, and HUD clicks cannot leak into world movement. The first right-side inventory panel now exposes those owned items using the authored Status and Item sheets, keeps the left-hand world live around an x=160 camera anchor, and consumes its own input. Items can now be taken from that 9x4 owner, carried under the pointer, placed or swapped, and dropped back into the live world without turning the UI click into a move command. All nine visible equipment regions now use that same pointer owner. The new hero starts with the table-backed Leather Cloth in the body slot; weapons, shields, body armor, and accessories validate their retail slot and level rules, equipped weight is live, and only the active CAF appearance parts are drawn with their original color strengths. The lower HUD now has its own fixed 4x2 belt owner with the original staggered pockets. Pointer pickup, swapping, the 1 through 8 shortcuts, and right-click medicine use share the same item-transfer path as the backpack. A new hero receives the full retail loadout: Leather Cloth, four Tablets and four Capsules in both backpack and belt, and five mines in the separate 5/10 counter. Full life or mana leaves a medicine untouched, successful use plays the authored sound, and mine pickups fill their counter instead of entering the bag. Backpack and equipped items now share the retail three-update information overlay too. Its active Item.Ibn definition supplies the name, price, combat values, durability, weight, requirement, and elemental strengths. Pointer-relative placement, the translucent backing, faint frame, tier color, and wide Gold/medicine layout stay entirely in ui/. Low-condition weapons and armor now compose Status.njp pattern 16 over backpack, equipment, and pointer-held icons too. The exact 0–9% threshold, eight-update blink halves, and permanently visible broken state live in a small game rule; only the marker composition lives in ui/. The left-hand Special Item panel is live now as well. X opens its authored 9x10 grid, either side can remain open on its own or beside Inventory, and the same pointer owner moves items directly between them. Special Item placement, single-item swaps, partial Gold merges, hover information, and condition markers use the ordinary shared rules. Its fourth retail save container is decoded into a separate fixed owner and its required definitions stay in the active resource request. The shared Status/Magic window now has both retail tabs. S and the HUD button open Status with the saved identity, current pools, table-backed base values, valid equipment bonuses, affinities, and elemental marker. M or the top tab opens Magic's four six-spell pages, including availability states, saved levels and experience, table-backed MP/effect values, help text, arrows, and the authored large icons. Learned spells drag into eight persistent save-owned slots, while the small gameplay bar keeps retail's dynamic position beside left and right panels. Every gameplay load starts on normal attack as retail does. UI state only emits actions; persistent spell ownership remains in game/, table scanning in data/, and samples 57/58 reach TAL through a small general world event queue. Both tabs coexist with right-side Inventory, replace Special Item on the left, and share the same camera and input offset.

The player's owned companion has its first complete C99 owner now. Table 60 selects one of the six companion types, tables 800 through 805 build its level-backed profile, and only that type's idle, walk, run, artwork, and shadow cells are retained from PARTNER. It enters beside the hero, follows through the same collision-aware edge controller used by other actors, routes around live PEOPLE, and keeps following while inactive. Space and the exact bottom-left HUD strip toggle the retail active/inactive state. The active type, all six level and experience rows, and the defeated countdown restore from their original save fields. Combat, death presentation, timed revival, Moon, swapping, and companion dialogue remain later slices rather than being folded into the follower.

Selecting a retail save now streams and verifies its ShadowFlare0005 envelope without allocating a payload buffer. The plain player record and exact backpack, belt, visible equipment, hidden alternate-weapon slots, and Special Item cells all populate the same fixed game owners used by new characters. The four development saves currently in the retail tree have been decoded through the complete save path. Quest state, unlocked transports, and all 1,000 persistent script/conversation values now reach the interpreter before its first periodic pass, so one-time handoffs such as Ostare's starter items stay complete. Mine count, walk/run pace, scenario, and authored entry reach the world owner as well. The three Remote Town saves also pass the complete asset-and-owner restore path. The load hand-off now recovers to the same selected row when a save belongs to a map which has not reached the C99 runtime yet, rather than closing the whole application after the honest asset-load failure. The remaining save work belongs to systems which are not in the small runtime yet: warehouse pages, automatic-item pages, and writing saves. A slice is only done after the C99/TWL/TAL tests, a release build, a practical check when visible behavior changed, and a fresh measured budget when assets changed.

The shared scenario-transition seam is live now. Authored teleporter discovery, its saved Table 40 row, activation sound and fades, opcode-27 label, cross-scenario transport rows, and opcode-17 contact exits all converge on one fixed travel request. The runtime releases one scenario before loading the next, while player, inventory, companion, quest, script, and transport owners survive. The actual Remote Town south gate now reaches Near Remote Town and its authored return trigger completes the round trip.

The first outdoor enemy slice is live. Near Remote Town's 127 MCT enemy rows decode into a fixed world owner with their authored identity, state channels, judgement, direction, colors, life, experience, loot row, and AI control name. The entry vicinity retains only the idle directions and NJP/SDW cells it can actually present; this is a general screen-space preload rule rather than a scenario list. Visible living enemies join ordinary depth sorting and their judgement rectangles join the shared collision query. Enemy Hole records remain in the registry without requesting nonexistent visual resources.

The first retail enemy-controller slice is live. Control.aid is scanned without retaining its 90 KiB file image, and Near Remote Town keeps only its three referenced control lists and 48 actions. Every live enemy resolves its exact Shift-JIS MCT control name before the world starts. The event evaluator now applies the retail life/target conditions, priority quirk, reverse file order, weighted random draw, and fallback events. Actions zero, one, nine, and ten drive wait, patrol, retreat, and player/active-companion approach through authored durations, speed scaling, target refresh, integer random turning, and the same collision route used by the player and PEOPLE. Retreat uses the exact 10,000-unit stop boundary, event 14 while moving, event 9 on completion, and the retail companion-target no-step quirk. Its center-point projection keeps sub-unit precision using integer fixed-point math. Only enemies within the retail inclusive 0..5000 living-target range run their controller. Walk chart one is retained for all eight directions of each prepared resource, and blockers move with their owning enemy.

Enemy pointer presentation is live too. The configured click square tests the opaque pixels of the current CAF cells, enemies retain their higher retail default click priority, and hover adds the original +300 pale tint. The UI draws the authored name and color over the proportional life fill, with the native-element marker from StatusIcon.njp. Enemy animation and movement now invalidate the world presentation even while the player stands still.

The three direct enemy attacks share one live path. Actions two, three, and four select presentation variants zero, one, and two, each with its own MCT range, chart, speed, packet columns, and completion event. Action three is covered by shipped scenario data and its real second-chart artwork; action four remains covered synthetically because no retail scenario references it. The controller faces the retained player or companion target and advances the selected CAF with the retail ten-entry speed table using integer ratios. It scans every crossed frame for the three sound bits and the 0x40 impact marker, holds the final frame for one update, then publishes its retail event. The marker performs a fresh directional target search instead of trusting the target seen at animation start. It builds the retail 77-word packet, preserves the original random draws and 20..98 hit clamp, and sends an ordinary hit through the player or active-companion defense and damage receiver.

The alternative direct-special branch reaches its exact enqueue boundary too. The presentation retains the full target vector at action entry rather than reducing it to one of eight directions. When MCT value 21 is enabled and value 25 selects the current variant, the marker skips ordinary targeting, consumes the two retail visual draws, applies the effect-kind 0/4/5/7/default packet switch, and publishes all 22 constructor arguments into a fixed eight-entry frame queue. Overflow is explicit, ordinary updates only reset the queue's count, and no target backend or renderer owns this combat state.

The receiver streams only tables 7, 11, 24, 25, and 26 into a compact fixed owner. Physical and elemental defense scaling, equipment durability rolls, the revival item, hit/death state, reaction chance and duration, event 17, and common hit and revival sounds now stay in game/; neither the enemy renderer nor the target backend owns combat rules. A focused test covers the packet, damage tables, both receivers, and the live marker-to-life/audio seam.

Attack art has a separate predictable lifetime. An action whose resource is not resident publishes a small request and waits. Between update and draw, the runtime may replace one inactive attack resource in the video-memory tail, then binds its immutable eight-direction CAF timeline back to every matching enemy. Near Remote Town's resource-one Goblin bank costs 842,596 bytes, leaves the main screen arena untouched, and can be rewound without touching the fixed framebuffer. This is a generic resource/chart boundary, not a list of special maps or Goblin IDs.

The immediate target is the fixed generic-effect actor owner and its bounded OPTION resource bank, followed by enemy presentation actions five through seven. Retail dispatch is now proven: raw direct-special kinds 0/1/4/5/6/7 map to resources 0/1/0/0/4/0, not the 10001+ projectile controllers. The integer-only descriptor boundary preserves projection, bounds, direction, packet and collision policy. The next slice should load only the required resource, advance actors without allocation, and keep their state outside the renderer. Hit/death CAF presentation can then consume the reaction state already published by the receivers.

Where we are now

The compatibility-DLL milestone is complete. All fourteen DLLs build, reproduce the original 763 exports, and run without forwarding into the retail DLLs. Their Win32-compatible sources live in src/reconstructed/.

The detailed DLL scorecard remains in fidelity/inventory.json. It is kept machine-readable so tools/verify_fidelity.py can catch export, ordinal, and standalone-status regressions instead of making us maintain another table by hand here.

The portable executable already has a solid front half:

• portable windowing, input, audio, and presentation through LWL, LAL, and LGL
• a backend-neutral graphics API with a 640×480 software renderer
• an optional F12 profiler for portable game/audio memory, presenter-owned video memory, software framebuffer time, and presentation time
• the title screen, its smoke animation, music, fades, and menu sounds
• new-character creation and the complete saved-game selection flow
• full retail save-row summaries (Level, Job, Sex, Name, HP, MP, and EXP)
• the original initial loading screen
• Remote Town's ground, static objects, shadows, player sprite, and music
• click-to-move movement, walk/run switching, matching animation, static collision, and camera following
• the in-game Settings, Help, Mission List, and Map screens
• the shared Status/Magic window, derived character values, elemental display, four spell pages, drag-and-drop bar, and live spell selection
• the inventory, equipment, belt, Special Item, tooltip, and retail save owners
• working Menu, Status, and Item HUD buttons with UI-owned item-drop clicks
• the authored Remote Town exit and return loading transitions
• ordinary melee and basic ranged combat through death, rewards, and pickup
• the player's table-backed owned companion, including its PARTNER visual, depth sorting, collision, scenario travel, retail follow distances, enemy acquisition, ordinary melee attack, damage reactions, death, timed revival, capped table-backed progression, Space/HUD activity control, and the original bottom-left life and active/inactive display

In other words, the game can reach the world and the player can now walk around it, leave through the south gate, and fight the first Goblin outside. Remote Town loads all seven PEOPLE records, their movement and collision, the first human and companion conversations, and Ostare's four opening item drops. The world renderer also uses the retail display lists and full judgement rectangles, so large scenery such as walls and houses occludes actors correctly.

Gameplay now receives a proper player-data handoff too. New characters are initialized from the retail parameter tables, while selected saves contribute their complete plain 0x160-byte character record. The first gameplay HUD layer now reads that owner directly: the original bottom bar, level, life, mana, and walk/run state are visible in the world. World pointing now uses opaque sprite pixels, the retail click priorities and range square, and the opening quest's items can be approached and picked up into a real inventory owner. Equipment and combat can build on those owners rather than temporary values.

The current reverse-engineering notes live in:

• reverse/shadowflare-exe/functions.csv
• reverse/shadowflare-exe/globals.csv
• reverse/shadowflare-exe/status.md
• documentation/exe-analysis.md

Those files should be updated whenever a slice teaches us something new. Raw decompiler output and tool projects stay under reverse/; only understood behavior belongs in the portable source. The older work in reverse/references/ is handy for finding leads, but it must be checked against the retail game before we treat it as faithful.

A few ground rules

Faithfulness comes before improvements. Widescreen layouts, higher-resolution assets, new renderers, modding features, and quality-of-life changes can all be useful later, but they should not blur our picture of how ShadowFlare actually worked.

src/SF_EXE/ stays platform-neutral. It can use the C++ standard library, LWL, LAL, LGL, and GAPI, but it should not grow Win32, Cocoa, X11, DirectSound, or other platform code. Platform details belong in the small general-purpose libraries that own them.

The old DLL boundaries remain visible in the portable executable. When we need behavior that came from a DLL, it is ported into the matching static library under src/SF_EXE/libs/. It must not be copied into the executable's state, renderer, or world files just because that is convenient at the time.

The retail executable is our oracle. Function addresses, data layouts, update order, timing, coordinates, sounds, and odd edge cases should come from evidence. A reasonable-looking replacement is not automatically a faithful one.

Finally, timing-sensitive game logic should preserve its original cadence. Retail game state is driven by the DBF thread's roughly 30 Hz update, while the portable shell presents at 60 Hz. The runtime uses separate fixed-step clocks so rendering and window presentation do not decide how quickly the simulation runs.

Current milestone: scenario coverage and the Episode 2 playthrough

The player's 22 ordinary spell actions, Increased Power, and Land Mines are now reconstructed, and the main Episode 1 route is covered through its Epilogue. Work has moved back to the script-driven scenario layer for Episode 2: each new slice should unlock shipped behavior through the shared world owners, rather than adding map-specific shortcuts.

The ordinary melee, basic ranged, and owned-companion encounter paths are now proven in the live outdoor world. The companion can acquire and attack enemies, be selected by enemy direct attacks and runtime effects, play its retail hit and death charts, fade out, wait 900 updates (or 600 while the authored backpack item is present), and revive beside its owner through chart seven. Kills credited to the owner or companion add one companion experience point, use table row 18 for level thresholds, obey the player-level cap, rebuild the table-backed profile, and fully heal on a level gain. The defeated countdown, active level, and active experience stay in the retail player record. The Table 60-sized level and experience arrays after the magic save block now keep the other five companions' progression too.

Remote Town's Swap Dogs choices now run their authored opcode 45 instead of stopping at an unsupported branch. The active row is stored, the selected row is restored, the defeated countdown is cleared, and the PARTNER actor is rebuilt at the hero with full life. The periodic town scripts then expose the old dog and hide the newly owned one. All six shipped opcode-45 calls remain data-driven across their three scenarios, and a save/load regression keeps the selected dog and every inactive progression row intact.

The companion Check Status choices now run opcode 3 as well. The selected Table 60 row and its saved level build the retail multiline status text, and the result stays an ordinary actor speech bubble rather than becoming a new menu. Closing it writes the command's result operand and follows the authored status-one release branch. All six calls across the three shipped scenarios remain script-driven, including retail's slightly odd magical-stat labels.

Syria's normal recovery callback is complete now too. The script itself decides whether life, mana, or the optional condition needs attention, then uses opcodes 20, 7, and 8 to play her resource-9 chart-three blessing and restore the live party pools. The hero uses the derived equipment-adjusted maximums; a living owned companion is fully healed, while a defeated companion stays defeated. PEOPLE one-shot and repeated frame ranges now have their own small controller, preserving the first and final frames and returning to idle at the retail update boundary. Her authored sample still comes from opcode 16.

Player death and recovery are now reconstructed. Retail locks ordinary input, plays chart four facing direction eight, holds its final frame for 120 game updates, then returns the hero to the current scenario entry through a revive transition. That transition restores both life and mana to their maximums. The portable menus no longer interrupt that locked action, so Save & Exit cannot preserve a dead actor. Saves made by older builds which already contain zero life are repaired through the same revive reset when they enter the world.

The save-owned foundation for that path is complete. PlayerMagic keeps the 22 availability values, levels, and experience counters plus all eight magic-bar slots behind one boundary. New characters receive the retail 0/1/0 array defaults and empty -1 slots. Existing retail saves restore the block after the three progress arrays, and new saves rewrite it without disturbing later unknown state.

Scenario spell rewards now use that owner too. Opcode 67 records the exact learned state in the saved availability array, while opcode 69 queries that stored state for script branches. The temporary All Spells debug switch stays outside both operations. A shipped query-and-reward path from scenario 04100000 covers the interpreter, world hook, and persistent owner together.

The first class-system boundary is live as well. Scenario 03900003 uses opcode 71 to map the saved Mercenary, Warrior, Hunter, or spellcaster job to its menu selection, and opcode 70 to write a chosen advanced job back to the same player-record field. The operation deliberately leaves level history and derived parameters alone, matching the executable's narrow handler.

The matching equipment-color service is reconstructed too. Script opcode 72 opens the authored center panel used by all three shipped armor-color NPCs. Main hand, off hand, and body colors update live against the retail 16-color strength table; OK keeps them, while Cancel, right click, and Escape restore the opening snapshot. The color index remains in retail item-state word 49, so dyed equipment survives the ordinary save/load path without a portable side channel.

The selection side is complete too. S and M open the two tabs of the authored left-hand Status/Magic panel without pausing the world, shift the camera into the visible half, and can stay open beside the right-hand inventory. Status uses pattern 5 for the saved identity, current and derived stats, elemental affinities and marker. Magic's four six-spell pages use the retail Status, MagicIcon, and MagicBarIcon artwork, availability states, level/experience/MP/effect rows, description tables, arrows, hit rectangles, and samples 57 and 58. A learned spell can be dragged into one of eight saved bar slots; assigning it elsewhere removes the old copy. The bottom gameplay bar follows the retail left/right-panel offsets and selects either a learned spell or normal attack targeting. The UI state only emits intent, so saved spell ownership and future cast logic remain in the world boundary.

The first complete targeted cast is now reconstructed. Right-clicking a pointed enemy with Fire Ball selected validates its learned state and MP, deducts the table-backed cost, locks the player in action 23, and creates the retail family-zero effect packet. The existing effect-10001 owner keeps responsibility for the delayed launch, samples 19 and 20, projectile travel, collision, and impact. A successful packet contact awards one practice point; misses and cancelled casts do not train the spell. The saved magic block already preserves the resulting level and experience.

The targeted cast path now supports Ice Bolt too. It reuses the command and action boundaries without pretending the spells are identical: action 24 uses Table 20 row two, effect 10002, packet subtype one, impact presentation 21013, resource 10000040, and launch sample 94. Both spells share only the parts retail actually shares, and both have live shipped-world coverage from selection through contact-time practice.

Plasma is complete as the first multi-wave cast. Action 25 uses player CAF charts 11 and 12, Table 20 row three, and a family-zero packet whose defense field and presentation differ from the two projectiles. Effect 10003 receives the hero origin and target angle, then owns the Table 205 wave count, four update spacing, 250-plus-200-unit placement, permanent obstruction cutoff, randomized primary charts, three visual layers, sample 21, area contacts, and receiver-time practice.

The ground/self casting command and Hell Fire are complete. Retail does not route every spell through pointed-enemy selection: the ordinary world-click path validates the selected spell, saves the cursor angle and ground coordinates, and enters spell + 22 with no character target. Hell Fire now uses that path as action 26, including its warning, delayed two-layer burst, area contacts, samples, camera shake, and receiver-time practice.

Ice Blast is complete too. It continues the targetless ground command as action 27 but uses CAF charts 11 and 12, Table 20 row five, effect 10005, packet subtype one, and presentation 21013. Retail analysis showed that the click controls facing only: effect 10005 captures the hero on update three, then runs its three authored layers, area contact, camera shake, and six pulse sounds around that position.

Heal is complete as the first restorative spell. Action 28 stays on the targetless command but resolves at the chart-11 0x40 marker instead of queuing an attack controller immediately. It always shows effect 21020 and resource 11000060; missing HP restores the Table 17 percentage, plays sample 17, and trains the spell, while full HP still spends MP and shows the visual without restoration, audio, or practice.

Moon is complete as the first sustained companion spell. Action 29 toggles at the chart-11 marker and keeps its state in the live player rather than the save record. While active, Table 200 supplies its maximum-MP drain and thirteen companion stat percentages. Resource 11000040 follows a living companion and pauses during its defeated and revival presentations. Kills owned by the local hero slot, whether dealt by the hero or companion, train Moon while it is active.

Berserker is complete as the first sustained player spell. Action 30 toggles at the same authored chart marker but keeps its own Table 201 level and MP rate. Its twelve percentage rows are applied after equipment to the one derived player profile used by movement, action timing, physical and magical combat, hit checks, and defense. The shipped table boosts speed and offense, reduces physical defense and evasion, and leaves maximum life and mana alone. The red Player/Common/Powerup animation follows the hero while active.

Moon and Berserker feed one retail-style mana-rate controller. Their rates are added before maximum MP is scaled every third update, they share the one fractional remainder, and zero MP switches both off before rebuilding player and companion profiles. The same resource boundary now includes equipped life/MP rate parameters and the two authored five-point recovery special items, with the separate retail life remainder and living-player clamp. This also fixes Moon practice to use retail's local kill-owner test instead of requiring the companion to land the final hit.

Energy Shield is complete. Action 31 toggles its runtime flag at the chart-11 marker after paying the ordinary cast cost, but cannot activate when that cost used the last MP. It has no Table 202 or separate pool: Table 17 scales the physical-defense input, ordinary damage is routed to MP without spillover, and effect-family damage still reaches HP. Zero MP shuts it off, owned kills train it, and the yellow Player/Common/Powerup pass follows the hero after Berserker's red pass.

Earth Spear is complete. Action 32 returns to the pointed-enemy path and sends its exact subtype-three packet, fixed cast origin, and target angle to effect 10010. Table 206 drives the eight-update stone-ridge line, including authored spacing, placement collision, first-wave cutoff, area contacts, sample 22, camera shake, random ordinary impact presentation, and receiver-time practice.

Flame Strike is complete. Action 33 uses the pointed-enemy command, charts 13 and 14, and its exact magical subtype-zero packet. Effect 10011 now receives the cast through the player boundary and uses Table 204 for its full-circle homing fan, including the source visual, authored delay, travel, turning, collision expiry, samples 19 and 20, and receiver-time practice.

Dread Deathscythe is complete. Action 34 keeps the pointed command but sends the exact subtype-one packet to effect 10012. Table 204 owns its warning fan and straight projectile fan, including retail spread math, even-count offset, directional dual presentations, scenery and target expiry, samples 94 and 20, and receiver-time practice.

Lightning Storm is complete. Action 35 uses a pointed enemy only for its angle and sends effect 10013 a fixed hero origin with anonymous effect identities, while its packet keeps the real player source. Table 204 drives four radial shells with independent obstruction cutoffs, all three visual layers, random primary charts, area contacts, sample 21, and receiver-time practice.

Medusa is complete. Action 36 uses the pointed-enemy path and exact subtype-two packet. Effect 10014 owns its delayed straight resource-10000070 projectile, including the 180-unit launch offset, scenery and target expiry, samples 22 and 20, and receiver-time practice.

Sonic Blade is complete. Action 37 accepts only equipped weapon subtypes zero, three, and one, then uses their ordinary 5/6, 15/16, and 19/20 attack chart pairs at the retail attack-speed rate. Effect 21025 supplies the immediate charge pass. A first-chart 0x40 marker launches resource 10000090 through effect 10015 with its seven-update lifetime, samples 154 and 20, and exact physical packet; the normal weapon sample still occurs at action counter six.

Mud Javelin is complete. Action 38 returns to the normal Table 20 casting timeline on charts 13 and 14. Its effect-10016 request carries the pointed enemy, the exact magical subtype-three packet, and the retail randomized hit presentation. Resource 10000110 owns the tracked projectile and sample 19; resource 10000111 owns the finishing area burst, sample 22, and camera shake.

Identify is complete. Action 39 uses charts 11 and 12 and shows one-pass effect 21028/resource 11000230 at entry. Its 0x40 marker opens Inventory on the independent right side and changes the common cursor into the retail Identify pointer. Only an unidentified backpack item completes the command; the item flag and its retail save mirror change together, one practice point is awarded, and right-click or closing Inventory cancels the mode. Recasting while it is already active does not spend MP again.

Magic Shield is complete. Action 40 toggles its runtime flag at the chart-11 marker and drives the authored resource-11000240 player aura. Effect-family hits use the retail reduction, practice threshold, effect 21029, sample 60, selected-magic MP-cost quirk, equipment discount, and immediate empty-MP shutdown. Ordinary scenario travel preserves the live shield while death and a fresh game clear it.

Counter Burst is complete. Action 41 toggles at the chart-11 marker, resets its authored resource-11000250 aura, and excludes Magic Shield without rewinding the inactive counterpart's old frame. A valid living-enemy source runs the retail combined-reflection packet, effect 21030/resource 11000251, sample 60, training threshold, selected-magic MP-cost quirk, equipment discount, and empty-MP shutdown. Ordinary travel preserves the runtime state; death and a fresh game clear it.

Explosion is complete. Action 42 pays the ordinary targetless command cost and waits for the chart-11 marker before handing the clicked walkable point to the owned companion. The companion plays its PARTNER chart-six departure, relocates at the chart-seven boundary, then runs the authored two-layer burst, samples, camera shake, 640-by-640 enemy check, retail packet, and spell practice before returning to ordinary AI. The original spell-21 scaling-level and owner-magical-defense damage quirks are kept deliberately.

Elemental Strike is complete. Action 43 returns to the pointed-enemy command and charts 13 and 14, then queues effect 10021 immediately with the first chart-13 0x40 frame converted into its launch delay. Its family-zero packet uses the player's magical attack, magical defense, hit rate, affinities, and spell-21 tables, while the effect request keeps retail's zero display-height offset, null source judgement, random ordinary impact, and effective level. The shared controller uses Table 207 to launch one, three, or five homing rays and tracks each ray through its four timed elemental stages, collision, presentations, samples, final camera shake, and receiver-time practice. The same controller remains shared with the already proven enemy-owned cast.

The portable testing path now has its own F12 debug menu instead of changing the retail Escape menu. The FPS counter, All Spells, Infinite HP, and Infinite MP overrides are separate runtime-only switches. Debug availability, bar assignments, and effective resource pools never enter the retail save record, so testing unfinished combat cannot silently change a character.

That completes the retail player's 22 ordinary spell actions.

Increased Power and its Hunter ranged redirect are complete too. Direct local kills charge the runtime-only state to 50, or to 30 while special item 98000001 is owned. P and the authored HUD cell both activate 900 updates, reset the charge without consuming that item, force movement speed tier nine, add two effective spell levels, raise the receiver's defense input by 20 percent, block Moon, Berserker, and Energy Shield, loop the common Powerup aura, and play sample 76 every 15 updates. The readiness cell uses retail's two-frame 1000/800 pulse. Ordinary travel preserves the state; death clears the active timer, and neither charge nor time is written to the character save.

While active, Hunter action 20 consumes one 33-percent random roll at action entry. A successful roll snapshots at most 100 living enemies whose judgement intersects the player's 4000-by-4000 square and enters action 21 on the same chart-ten timing. With no captured target it falls back to ordinary action 20 without rerolling. Every crossed marker builds the one physical packet with presentation 20006 and launches an independently delayed effect-9000 diagonal strike at each captured character number. The complete volley costs one main-hand durability and keeps sample 3 at counter six.

Land Mines are complete as the remaining player combat shortcut. B and the authored HUD cell spend the separate saved counter and place static OPTION resource 1000 at the hero after the ten-update lockout check. Counter 40 arms enemy-and-scenario-object collision and starts sample-54 warning beeps; contact or the 300-update lifetime advances into the Table-23 area packet, resource 1001, sample 29, expanding 1002..1004 rings, and paired 1005..1008 bouncing debris. Mine pickups, the equipment-derived capacity and damage bonuses, map transition cleanup, and the exact post-magic retail save field share the existing item, receiver, renderer, and save owners rather than bypassing them.

Completed foundation: make Remote Town feel like a game

This slice touched nearly every piece the rest of gameplay will need: input, world coordinates, actor state, animation, collision, camera movement, and depth-sorted rendering.

The first goal was simply to make a new character walk around Remote Town as the original game does. That work grew into the common movement, interaction, and display-order foundation used by the player, PEOPLE actors, ground items, and scenery. The HUD, inventory, and ordinary combat milestones described later now build on that foundation.

What the retail path taught us

The first implementation pass traced a complete movement command through the original executable:

• 0x00441c00 converts the primary-button screen point with RKC_RPGSCRN::CalcWorldPos;
• 0x00413ec0 divides the result into eight 45-degree directions;
• both new-character tables produce speed tier five, which the retail factor table turns into a 20-unit walk step and a 40-unit run step per 30 Hz gameplay update;
• chart zero is idle, chart one is walking, and chart two is running;
• the R binding switches the persistent walk/run movement mode;
• the starting player judgement rectangle is [-80, -80, 79, 79];
• GND judgement bit zero and status-one OBL rectangles block the player;
• 0x00454210/0x00454930 form one shared movement controller for players, PEOPLE actors, and enemies. It uses direct collision sweeps plus stateful obstacle-edge steering rather than A*; enemy intent still comes from RKC_RPG_AICONTROL;
• the normal camera uses the projected player position minus the 320-by-240 screen center, without another map-edge clamp. Live half-width panels move that anchor to 480-by-240 and restrict world input to the visible half.

The interaction path is traced too. 0x00449240 uses the judgement-rectangle distance from 0x004143c0 and the player's 159-unit interaction range. A distant click starts controller mode one, follows the actor, and opens status zero only after the two bounds are close enough.

Those findings are recorded in the reverse maps rather than being left in a scratchpad.

The portable actor loop

The portable side needs a player actor with clear, ordinary state: current position, destination, direction, motion state, animation chart, animation frame, and the few counters the retail loop actually uses.

The gameplay update now:

1. accept a movement command from portable input;
2. turn the screen position into the same world position as the retail game;
3. advance the player at the retail rate;
4. resolve the movement against the same map and object bounds;
5. select the matching idle or walk animation;
6. update the camera;
7. pass the resulting state to the existing world renderer.

The game state remains at 30 Hz, but the 60 Hz presentation now interpolates the previous and current actor snapshots. This removes the regular camera judder without changing movement distance, collision, CAF timing, or scripts.

Input handling belongs in the runtime adapter, game decisions belong in the gameplay/world code, and any reused DLL behavior belongs in its matching library. The renderer should only draw the state it receives.

What is covered now

The slice is finished when all of these are true:

• screen/world conversion and all eight directions have deterministic tests;
• five retail-cadence movement steps move a walking player exactly 100 world units, while running covers 200;
• idle, walking, arrival, and return-to-idle chart timing is covered;
• the complete retail Remote Town GND judgement plane is decoded and tested;
• static ground and object collision uses the retail dominant-axis integer sweep and keeps the last walkable contact point;
• the controller uses the original quadrant table, one-pixel probes, movement/wall direction pairs, and corner transitions to follow an obstacle edge. There is no added A* fallback;
• live town actors use their decoded judgement rectangles as movement blockers. The actor being approached stays solid too; interaction finishes at the retail 159-unit rectangle distance before the two actors collide;
• camera placement is rebuilt from the live player position. Static scenery, people, ground items, and the player share the retail combined display lists; the final full-judgement-rectangle sort correctly puts actors behind Remote Town's houses and long wall segments;
• held input replaces the destination, releasing after the retail ten-update hold threshold stops the hero immediately, and an ordinary click remains latched;
• a native live run reaches Remote Town and moves the camera and player from a ground click;
• the retail Remote Town fixture crosses the full sacks footprint, covers the exact Ostare-to-Malse approach with live actor blockers, walks longer trips as successive click-sized legs, and completes rendered companion choices plus Harley's two-message explanation branch.

This gives us the first genuinely interactive gameplay milestone: we can walk around Remote Town. Any collision corner that looks different in a side-by-side retail check should be kept as a small movement follow-up rather than worked around in later actor code.

Completed foundation: load and run Remote Town from its data

The order below follows dependencies. Each heading is still meant to become several small commits rather than one giant implementation.

Remote Town began as a carefully reconstructed first case. The loader now accepts an explicit decimal scenario ID, entry value, and local-player number instead of embedding scenario zero or entry zero in the code. It resolves the retail %08d scenario directory, reads that scenario's MCT, SCS, and overview NJP, and selects the MCT entry key as local player + entry * 4, matching 0x00426200.

Remote Town remains the default start. The first nonzero fixture is Table 40's Wasteland of Pillars: scenario 6, entry value 4, MCT key 16. A fresh world now loads its f00_07 ground, object, and pattern resources, its 35 type-zero objects and two PEOPLE records, entry position (35105,-6156), direction 7, and music index 1. Missing directories or entries clear the partial world and report an error. A catalog regression also checks every one of Table 40's 51 rows against its shipped decimal scenario directory and single-player MCT entry key.

The scenario-local half of the world now has one explicit owner. ScenarioWorld loads and releases the MCT, SCS data, map collision, map patterns, overview, exploration mask, dynamic objects, PEOPLE actors, and ground items together. The player record, equipment, backpack, belt, Special Items, item definitions, quests, missions, and transport flags stay outside that owner. Script data is handed into the existing interpreter runtime after a complete scenario has loaded, so its callbacks never point into a temporary or moved runtime. This is the transaction boundary the live map-change path will use.

Live changes now use that boundary too. A same-map destination keeps the retail fast path and only relocates the player. A different scenario is fully prepared before it replaces the old map, then its script data is adopted by the stable interpreter runtime. Failed preparation leaves the current map, script, player, inventory, equipment, belt, Special Items, missions, quests, and transport flags untouched. Successful changes restart the scenario's BGM and return directly to the new world once its synchronous load is complete. An earlier pass had mistaken the Epilogue/VisualNN presenter at 0x00417bd0 for the ordinary map loader. Retail only shows its black crossed-swords loading image while work is actually pending; the current synchronous portable load is normally too quick to expose an intermediate frame. The separate story and briefing presenter now comes from script opcode 64 instead, so those authored pages still appear where the scenario asks for them.

The next slices identified the three resource preload lists, the variable common entity record, and all four entity-group shapes. Objects and PEOPLE decode with their retail resource IDs, names, positions, judgement boxes, directions, custom CAF part masks, and type-specific tails. Enemy records retain the 15 values before their fixed 32-byte AI-controller name and the 56 values after it. Placed items expose their category, definition ID, and minimum/maximum quantity. The loader follows the object, PEOPLE, enemy, item, entry, and footer sequence directly; every one of the 209 shipped MCT files passes that path, covering 5,203 objects, 163 PEOPLE actors, 18,788 enemies, and 84 placed items.

Placed items now have their runtime side too. ScenarioWorld creates them as one actor per MCT record, assigns the retail 18000000 + local ID script identity, resolves their Item.Ibn visuals before committing a map change, and keeps their three script-controlled state channels live. They use retail mode 1: already settled, fixed runtime bounds, no bounce, and no landing sound. Both animated Animation.* item resources and the static Pattern.njp/Pattern.sdw layout are supported for drawing and opaque-pixel selection. Leaving a map releases these actors with the rest of its ScenarioWorld; a failed load keeps the current set intact.

Enemies now cross the same scenario boundary for the first time. The Wasteland of Pillars fixture creates all 66 records, loads their shared Character/ENEMY CAF/NJP/SDW resources through the general character cache, and keeps their common MCT state, identity, bounds, direction, name, part colors, and AI-control name. Their retail default action renders chart-zero idle frames at active-map cadence, and enabled judgement rectangles are live player blockers. The 34 resource-less Enemy Hole records found across the catalog are preserved as invisible, non-colliding actors instead of being rejected or assigned made-up graphics. This is intentionally not called enemy AI yet: target selection, movement, attacks, health, drops, and the AI event interpreter remain separate slices.

The data side of that interpreter is now in place. The portable RKC_RPG_AICONTROL boundary decodes all 64 lists, their fixed 18 event buckets, and 1,338 action candidates from Control.aid. Every shipped MCT enemy name resolves through exact byte-name lookup, and each runtime enemy keeps the resulting stable list index. The nine parameter and six condition values stay raw until their executable consumers prove names and units.

The executable-owned event selector is reconstructed separately from the data library. It applies the proven life-percentage and target-range conditions, preserves retail's reverse temporary-list order and later-lower-priority quirk, draws with parameter two as the weight, and falls back to event zero for the same event set as retail. It is not attached to live enemies yet: doing that before selected-action storage and complete movement/presentation consumers are present would create a convincing but incomplete behavior path. Enemy life, target queries, and the native dispatcher are now ready behind that boundary.

The live actor now has the initializer fields needed by those next steps. Pre-controller MCT values 1 through 4 are the spawn-relative patrol rectangle, value 8 initializes both current and maximum life, and post-controller value 54 scales AID movement speed in thousandths. The post-controller triples used by presentation actions one through six are named too: target distance, chart/speed selection, and the four effect-construction values. All other initializer words stay indexed until another executable consumer proves them.

Native actions zero through eleven now have an executable-owned controller behind the live-actor boundary. It reproduces timed waiting, bounded patrol requests, movement and idle phases, speed scaling, and the exact event 11/12 holding states. Its tests also cover the six shipped zero-duration patrol records, which must not consume random state. The two three-variant animated action families preserve their presentation mappings and entry-only counter reset, while action eight keeps the presentation already in progress. Actions nine and ten emit typed retreat/approach requests with the retail player-versus-scenario-actor modes, target lookup rules, stop distances, refresh/random-turn parameters, and event 14/15 timing. Action eleven emits the 90-update fixed-point return using the AI list's walk speed. This includes the unused action-four, action-eight, and action-eleven paths.

The generic destination selector used below that dispatcher is reconstructed for modes zero through six. Fixed points, inclusive bounded patrols, player and scenario-actor approach/retreat, target refreshes, random turns, and the rectangle-edge projection all preserve retail integer and random-state behavior. It emits a destination only; collision and stepping continue to belong to the shared movement controller. Presentation-side targeting, damage, animation completion, and live enemy attachment still have to land together before this code drives a live enemy.

The two retail target searches are reconstructed as one shared service with separate ranged and default entry points. Both search player slots before companions regardless of distance and preserve strict-nearer tie ordering. The ranged path uses active-state-one same-scenario players followed by the four exact companion character numbers, inclusive judgement-bound limits, optional living checks, script activity, and owner mode. The default path keeps its looser nonzero player state and does not apply the companion script-active gate. The evaluator and dispatcher now consume the same typed target result rather than maintaining look-alike boolean queries.

Presentation actions one through six now have their own passive controller. It reproduces entry-only target acquisition and facing, direct versus effect chart selection, the ten exact animation-speed multipliers, truncating frame timing, and the part-zero scan across every newly crossed frame. Impact bit 0x40 and the three CAF sound markers are returned as typed events. The last frame is drawn once before idle action seven and completion events two through seven are restored only over an event of minus one, including the native fast-frame skip and resource-less completion paths. Every visual enemy across the retail MCT catalog has a valid speed index and referenced chart. Effect construction itself is now decoded. Actions four through six expand their MCT type, subtype, parameter, and additive through Table.Tbd tables 18, 19, 21, 35, and 70 through 78, build the exact 77-word packet fields the executable writes, preserve the twelve shipped type-specific constructor variants and random draw, and emit a typed spawn request. Type 12 repeats the default target lookup at impact and keeps the player-slot versus companion-character distinction. Unwritten stack words are marked instead of being given invented meanings, and the catalog's disabled type -1 stays a no-op.

Direct impacts are decoded through the damage-owner boundary too. Their impact-time search is deliberately separate from animation-entry targeting: it accepts nonzero-state players across the facing sector and its two neighbors, then falls back to active type-five actors in the exact facing sector. Players still win even when a companion is closer. The resolver builds the exact written words of the shared 77-word packet, consumes the visual draw before the clamped 20-to-98-percent hit roll, and emits distinct damage, miss, sample-six, and event-17 requests without applying them early. Successful damage requests retain the attacker's current position passed to the retail target callback. It also preserves the MCT-controlled special branch, its two random draws, all shipped effect-number switches, and its bypass of normal impact targeting. The shared packet-to-damage calculation underneath those callbacks is reconstructed too. It keeps the immediate damage override, effect family, all four ordinary packet/receiver combinations, tables 7 and 11, opposing- and same-element modifiers, separate physical and magical defense words, minimum-one clamp, source lookup request, and every conditional random draw in retail order.

The enemy side of that receiver boundary is reconstructed as a passive result. It decodes the enemy's native element, physical and magical defense, two reaction defenses, and always-suppress-displacement flag from the MCT initializer. Local source ownership, client minimum-one prediction, authoritative damage attribution, tables 24 and 25, effect element banks, reaction stages, reflection, the two configured effects, the 20-percent random hit effect, samples 61 and 119, source status 73, on-kill statuses 7 through 9, death metadata, and presentation actions 10 and 11 all keep retail ordering and random draws. Effect requests also distinguish a real combat packet pointer from the null pointers used by receiver-side visuals.

The player profile feeding the shared damage function is reconstructed too. It carries the character number and three already-derived combat values, then builds all eight elemental affinities from the retail two-dimensional anchor formula. Equipment combines definition and rolled instance values, a two-handed main weapon suppresses the off hand, accessories use their rolled values, and identified multi-cell category-two backpack items provide their passive values. Every channel clamps to -10..10. The trace also corrected two adjacent mistakes: saved item metadata is an identified flag rather than the tooltip color tier, and the two-handed weapon classifier uses raw weapon field 0xcc, not the unrelated field at 0xdc.

The player receiver is reconstructed as a separate passive boundary. It keeps local ownership, Increased Power, Energy Shield, Magic Shield, life and mana routing, the category-four revival item, exact helmet/body/off-hand/boots durability checks, equipment and Counter Burst reflection, tables 25 and 26 reaction selection, packet effects, training, audio, death action, and random draw ordering. The attached death presentation plays its retail gender voice once on the first action update: sample 13 for male and sample 14 for female.

The owned companion uses a third receiver at retail address 0x0045f9f0, not either of those paths. Its family-one profile, owner-slot life mutation, actions 7/8/10 rejection, tables 24 and 25 reaction, action-five hit stages, action-six death, distinct effect owner kinds, sample 119, event four, and random draws are reconstructed separately. All three passive calculations are attached to their own live actors. Companion action five uses PARTNER chart three and its collision-aware impulse; action six uses chart four direction eight, creates effect 21010, holds its final frame, and fades over 60 updates. The persistent countdown then starts action eight at the player's position, restores maximum life, and plays chart seven direction eight before ordinary AI resumes.

Enemy kill accounting also preserves the companion side of 0x004134a0. Eligible owner or companion kills add one point, table 800 + type row 18 provides each threshold, and the cap is player level / 3 + 2 up to 35. The kill point is awarded before player leveling while companion thresholds are applied afterward, so a shared leveling kill uses retail's new player-level cap.

The marker-to-sample lookup checks the exact 25-by-3-by-10 resource override table first, then the three ten-chart fallback rows; all 59 populated overrides are preserved and chart three's sample 86 is the only fallback. Live hit and death actions return those samples to the world audio owner, and death also uses the resource-specific 25-entry voice table.

Ostare's first type-one behavior is covered too. The people tail gives him a 30-update idle pause, a 30-update walking limit, speed 10, and a small spawn-relative movement rectangle. He now alternates chart-zero idling with a short chart-one walk to a random point inside those bounds, as the original update path does.

The MCT is now structurally decoded from beginning to end. The last PEOPLE value is retained as reserved state: retail copies it into the actor initializer, but its PEOPLE update and render paths do not read it. The enemy parameters without proven consumers deliberately remain indexed until their actual AI and combat paths establish names. Partners and other runtime categories are created outside this four-group MCT sequence and still need to be traced at their actual owners.

We need to finish the general MCT path around 0x00427b50 and the scenario transition path around 0x00426200:

• load GND, OBL, LST, NJP, SDW, and CAF resources through reusable code;
• preserve the original pattern-number relationships across those files;
• connect the reconstructed enemy AI event evaluator to proven enemy life, target, and selected-action state, then implement its native movement actions on top of the shared movement controller;
• release the old scenario in the same order the original does;
• support returning to the title cleanly when loading fails.

Remote Town should then be one input to the loader, not a special hard-coded world.

Completed foundation: give gameplay a real player record

The menu used to carry only enough character information to enter the world. The first player-data slice established the real handoff without pretending that the complete save format is already understood. It now:

• decodes Table.Tbd through the first portable RKC_RPG_TABLE library;
• preserves the retail 0x160-byte character record, including fields which are not named yet;
• exposes the confirmed name, gender, job, level, life, mana, and initial parameter fields through one PlayerData owner;
• creates new characters from tables 900 and 901 as 0x00440f70 does;
• reads the same 0x160-byte record from a selected .Ssv;
• passes the selected name, gender, and save path from the front end into the world instead of keeping a separate runtime gender variable;
• sends script level queries to PlayerData;
• keeps PlayerActor responsible for movement and animation only.

The encrypted payload after the character record holds inventory, scenario state, equipment objects, flags, and other dynamic data. It can be mapped a piece at a time as those systems gain real owners. This milestone does not claim full save loading or writing.

Completed foundation: draw the gameplay HUD and world-pointer feedback

The first layer is live. 0x004039f0 supplies the exact Bar.njp patterns, screen coordinates, digit placement, and 206-pixel life and mana calculations. The renderer draws those packets after the camera-driven world and before actor speech. The lower interface owns y=400 through y=479, and the companion strip additionally owns its exact y=393 through y=408 rectangle, so those clicks no longer pass through as movement commands.

The companion part of that layer is live as well. New play sessions start the owned companion inactive, matching the retail player runtime. Space or the exact bottom-left HUD strip toggles it. Inactive companions keep following and colliding, but they do not acquire targets and enemies or hostile effects do not select them. The HUD uses patterns 29 through 32 for the right-aligned 109-pixel life fill, its low-health pulse, and the ACTIVE/INACTIVE label. The state stays intact between maps and is not written into the character save.

The retail window class loads the ordinary system arrow and never replaces it with another cursor. LWL already supplies that native arrow on every desktop platform. What changes during play is the feedback drawn into the world, not the pointer shape.

That feedback is live now too. The configured range square is tested against opaque NJP pixels in the current CAF frame. An exact cursor-tip hit wins inside a priority group, then the nearest candidate, while the five configurable retail priorities choose between target types. Disabling the range restores exact-tip picking. People keep their pale tint and nameplate. Ground items now receive the same tint, their Item.Ibn name (or quantity plus Gold), and the original yellow target square. Empty ground and people use the original white square at their different strengths. Conversations suppress it.

Escape now opens the original in-game settings panel as well. It uses the authored Status.njp frame, retail text and hit coordinates, priority reordering, and the original effect/BGM slider scale. Pointer, shadow, occluding-object, and audio changes apply while the panel is open, and changed settings are saved back to SFlare.Cfg on exit. The old fullscreen row is intentionally blank, but its space remains so none of the following rows move. When a left-hand panel, right-hand panel, or both are visible, Escape closes that complete gameplay-panel set and restores the centered camera instead. Only another press with no gameplay panel left open reaches Settings. Save and Return and Save and Exit now open their original confirmation states, write the retail save envelope, and only leave gameplay after a successful write. Their deferred transition runs before the next UI update can consume more input. With Save Image at Game End enabled, they also write the paired 391-by-114 BMP from the player-centered world view before any HUD or menu is drawn. Help now opens its original full-width reference screen from either the menu row or H, including the animated player preview and the menu-owned CLOSE tab. The Mission List is live from both its menu row and Q. It reads all 48 titles and their description tables from Table.Tbd, shows only script-started missions, keeps the original two-page layout and lock states, and opens the retail detail panel when a title is clicked. The Settings Map row and N now open the original half-width map too. It uses each scenario's authored overview, keeps unexplored ground black, reveals the same 68-by-46 area while walking, and retains the original marker blink, scrolling, recentering, frame, and dismissal behavior.

The remaining layers are:

• identify the experience field and table calculation, then draw its clipped fill;
• reconstruct quick-slot ownership and values instead of painting placeholders;
• finish the remaining message-window variants;
• darkness and other final world overlays;
• resizing behavior through the fixed 640×480 GAPI surface.

The bar currently shows full new-character life and mana from PlayerData, the centered one-to-three-digit level display, and the persistent walk/run indicator. Damage/healing lag colors, bar particles, condition icons, and other transient values can be added when the corresponding gameplay state exists. HUD coordinates and visibility rules must continue to come from retail draw packets; the interface stays separate from the world camera.

What follows the HUD slice

1. Finish the remaining town actor behavior

The next visible milestone is a Remote Town with its original NPCs and other dynamic objects.

This will require the first portable slices of RKC_RPG_AICONTROL, RKC_RPG_TABLE, and more of RKC_RPGSCRN:

• create actors from the scenario entity records;
• load their animation, palette, and judgement data;
• reproduce idle animation and facing;
• reproduce each actor's bounded idle/walk behavior where its MCT tail enables it;
• place actors in the same shadow and visible-object passes as the player;
• finish actor-to-actor collision for enemy movement. PEOPLE movement now uses the same live hero-and-actor blocker set as retail, excluding only the actor currently moving;
• preserve the reconstructed active-map update rules when later dynamic actor classes are added. The player now updates first, followed by ascending PEOPLE IDs, and PEOPLE continue updating while offscreen;
• extend pointer hover, pale tint, nameplates, and selection from people and ground items to the remaining dynamic actor classes;
• verify the town population and positions against the retail game.

That path now builds all seven Remote Town people records and resolves their shared or individual Character/PEOPLE resources from the MCT table. Ostare's part mask, idle pause, bounded walk, shadow, depth pass, hover tint, nameplate, and actor-anchored speech bubble remain the detailed reference case. Malse and Syria are selectable and run their real first conversations. All seven use the same type-one updater: only Ostare wanders, Malse ignores scripted turn requests, and the others can turn without autonomous movement. They update offscreen in ascending character-number order after the player, matching the active-map entity loop.

The same MCT also contains seven type-zero dynamic objects, separate from f00_01.Obl: local IDs 0, 200 through 204, and the named Warehouse at 300. They now have their own portable actor and Character/OBJECT resource owner. Mixed-case retail filenames are resolved without platform assumptions, static NJP/SDW pairs and CAF animations stay distinct, and the MCT height, draw flags, opacity, and color strengths feed the shared depth-sorted shadow and visible passes. Active object judgement joins the same live blocker set as PEOPLE actors.

The three common values before the CAF part tables are understood now too. They are initial visibility, pointer, and judgement state, not part overrides. The scenario script addresses those channels through its 100-, 300-, and 200-million key ranges. Remote Town's periodic companion sentences use the same state path: the player's own companion stays absent while the other three town companions become visible, selectable, and solid.

The first outdoor periodic-state override is reconstructed as well. Opcode 56 keeps its own effective visible, pointer, and judgement triplet instead of overwriting those MCT-backed script channels. Near Remote Town now swaps its paired objects 1030 and 1031 from saved flag 71 on every status-kind-five pass, and the same common owner covers all 66 shipped calls across 13 scenarios.

The shared scenario random command is no longer a gap either. Opcode 39 keeps the retail operand order, one-draw call order, wrapped inclusive span, and common destination writer. The script library receives the draw from the world instead of owning a second generator, so the 611 shipped spawn, branch, and setup calls remain in the same random sequence as native gameplay work.

The first authored periodic effect command is connected now too. Opcode 30 evaluates its fourteen script values in the DLL boundary, then hands them to a small world-side builder for the exact owner-zero effect request, projected origin, combat-packet fields, and shared-random impact choice. This covers all 411 shipped calls across 33 scenarios and lets Near Remote Town's authored spawn-and-sound sentences use the existing effect runtime instead of a scenario-specific visual shortcut.

Its packetless sibling is connected as well. Opcode 36 evaluates seven values and creates the exact explicit-position one-pass request, including retail's negative-direction fallback and lower-right-plus-one point judgement. The three shipped effect numbers resolve to their real OPTION resources, all 353 calls across 26 scenarios keep their audited shape, and Near Remote Town's first six placed effects now enter the ordinary depth-sorted effect pass.

The two remaining shipped presentation commands are connected now too. Opcode 64 opens the authored Epilogue or Visual01 through Visual06 page, fades it over 120 presented frames, freezes rather than cancels the current player action, blocks ordinary world input, and waits 300 frames before Return, Escape, or the primary mouse button can advance it. Multi-page Visual02 uses the same counter reset as retail. Opcode 65 refreshes the screen-space falling-streak emitter from evaluated RGB and count values; it uses the shared retail random stream, per-particle opacity, the original DDA line path, and the 479-pixel expiry boundary. The shipped catalog contains all seven visual IDs and 22 particle calls across 21 scenarios, including the two distance-driven density expressions.

The basic writable arithmetic set is complete now as well. Opcodes 13 through 15 preserve retail's wrapped multiply, signed quotient and remainder, operand order, and zero-divisor no-write path. Corpus coverage holds all 388 shipped calls across their original scenarios, giving later spawn and encounter sentences the calculations they expect before their native actions run.

The paired enemy-group searches are reconstructed too. Opcodes 31 and 32 scan an inclusive authored range for the first registered active or inactive enemy, skip character numbers which do not exist in the current scenario, and write -1 when there is no match. The world keeps a zero-life enemy active through its complete death chart and 120-update fade, just as retail does, and only publishes the inactive state when the actor expires. Corpus tests hold the 134 active searches across 90 scenarios and 34 inactive searches across 13 scenarios to their retail operand shape.

Type-zero pointing and the first two object services are now live as well. Static objects use their opaque NJP pixels, animated objects use their current CAF cells, and both share the retail range square, display ordering, pale hover tint, and MCT-owned nameplate data. Clicking object 200 runs its real status-zero sentence and opcode 37. That opens the left-hand transport panel, whose destination names and scenario/entry values come from all 51 rows of Table 40. The panel compacts enabled destinations into ten rows per page, uses the retail frame, row and arrow patterns, plays sample 58 for navigation, and moves the player through the scenario entry table. Its shifted right-hand world view keeps updating and accepts world input while the left panel owns its clicks. Remote Town starts with only its own row enabled, exactly as a new retail character does.

The matching discovery path is live too. Periodic status-kind-5 sentences use opcode 34 to measure the hero against each teleporter's hidden activation object. Overlap enables that scenario's Table 40 row, immediately adds it to the compact transport list, and survives the normal save/load round trip.

The matching transport-point presentation is live now as well. Opcode 27 draws the SCS message above its authored type-zero object with retail's 6-by-12 centering, bottom anchor, three-pixel black backing, one-pixel shadow, RGB, and opacity. Opcode 46 drives both Remote Town transport visuals from zero to 1,000 in steps of 50 and back again, including the hidden-animation stop at zero. The activation sample uses the script's one-shot latch. Leaving removes the label and opcode 38 closes only the matching transport panel; an open right-side inventory and its camera anchor remain intact.

The named Warehouse object follows the same pointer and range path. Its status-zero sentence reaches opcode 41 with argument zero and toggles the existing 9-by-10 Special Item owner instead of creating a second warehouse inventory. UI ownership stays in the runtime controller; scripts only request the service and the world only owns scenario data and relocation.

2. Grow scripts, conversations, and town interaction

NPCs become useful when the scenario script can drive them. The reconstructed RKC_RPG_SCRIPT DLL is the reference here; the portable version belongs in src/SF_EXE/libs/RKC_RPG_SCRIPT/.

The script work should grow from real Remote Town interactions:

• load the compiled .Scs data;
• recreate script variables, temporary flags, and persistent flags;
• implement the interpreter loop at 0x00430f80 one exercised opcode at a time;
• split the native game actions reached by the opcode switch into small, named engine hooks;
• support conversations, choices, messages, gates, warps, and quest flags;
• add shops and services when their scripts first require them;
• preserve wait states and update ordering instead of running a whole script in one frame;
• save unknown opcodes and data instead of silently discarding them.

Episode 1 map initialization now follows the loader rather than a convenient portable ordering. The local player and resolved entry exist before status kind 7 runs, and that status runs again for same-scenario entry changes. Script opcode 50 can therefore branch on the real entry, while opcode 49 retains the raw authored area caption. Dusty Ruins selects B1F and B2F correctly and initial vendor setup can query the live player level. No caption is drawn yet: the known executable references only write its buffer, so adding a visible banner would be guesswork rather than reconstruction.

Dusty Ruins' entry-zero ambient line now follows its script too. Opcodes 66 and 57 write the live local-player slot and the saved gender value, then the authored sentence anchors either the female or male line above that player through opcode 27. This is not a map special case: all ten paired uses across the shipped scenarios go through the same small script-host queries, with a catalog audit holding their one-output shape and pairing in place.

The first checkpoint is now live. Remote Town's SCS decoder reads all 66 temporary flags, 61 messages, 23 status triggers, 220 sentences, and 608 commands. Clicking Ostare derives his script character number from the MCT record, resolves status kind zero to sentence four, and runs the retail script until message 1000000 waits for Return or another click. The initial interpreter covers comparisons, assignments, messages, nested sentence calls, and the two native actor commands reached by that path.

The message-close path is covered now too. Retail message commands finish their immediate sentence work before waiting for input; closing the bubble then invokes status kind one for the same actor. Following those callbacks runs all five opening messages, advances the scenario flags, and reaches the four original item-placement commands. Those commands now create ground-item records with the retail categories, definition IDs, quantities, and actor-relative positions. The repeat interaction also follows its second callback message and releases Ostare through the script instead of a world shortcut.

That visible checkpoint is done too. The executable-owned Item.Ibn loader now applies the retail substitution table and RCLIB-L path and keeps the unknown record fields intact. Its inventory icon fields remain assigned to Item0000.njp through Item0013.njp, while separate fields select the Character/ITEM resource and CAF chart used on the map. Ostare's Short Sword, Round Shield, Dagger, and Gold now use those smaller ground animations, matching chart palettes, default Item.Ibn color strengths, shadows, and the original two-bounce drop arc in the same depth-sorted pass as actors and map objects. The recovered format, architecture, and extension rules are kept in the script-engine notes.

The next interpreter checkpoint is live as well. Malse follows the short two-message branch used by a new game; his later quest dialogue remains gated by the retail Red Goblin progression value. Syria follows her two-message new-game branch and reaches opcodes 62 and 48, which now update world-owned quest state and select the retail 600-count quest notice. Message events retain their script character number, so actor bubbles stay anchored even on branches which do not run an explicit facing command. The Mission List consumes those quest states directly and gets its text from the retail parameter tables. The short-lived notice now uses the recovered bottom-right coordinates, brackets, shadow, exact clickable title rectangle, and the script's samples 65 and 66; clicking it opens the Mission List. The persistent StatusIcon lock shortcut is drawn and clickable while any quest remains active. Syria's subsequent interactions now read the real type-12 quest owner and follow her normal healing/blessing branch. A wounded branch runs the authored PEOPLE action, fully restores hero life and mana plus any living owned companion, plays its positioned sample, and returns Syria to idle after the last CAF frame. Near Remote Town's authored status-kind-four callback also completes quest zero after Red Goblin 14010000 finishes its death presentation.

The next enemy-script lifecycle is reconstructed too. Operand type 3 now reads the same MCT enemy registry as opcodes 31 and 32, opcode 28 runs the target's status-kind-six sentence without losing caller context, and opcode 25 restores an inactive slot at the script's position and direction. Expired enemies keep their stable scenario slots while rendering, picking, collision, effects, and companion targeting continue to ignore them. Scenario 04000003 is covered end to end: its controller selects one dead slot, shows the authored two-layer wave effect, waits 40 updates, and returns that slot at full life.

Scripted target geometry now follows the executable as well. Opcode 33 asks the world for the nearest living local player inside its inclusive judgement-bound distance range and returns the player slot and authored world coordinates without giving the script library ownership of actors. Opcode 35 turns those coordinate deltas into retail's unnormalized, truncated direction degrees. Their 206 shipped calls are covered by a full scenario-catalog shape audit, including the unusual literal output operands.

The matching actor-attached visual command is reconstructed too. Opcode 40 evaluates an effect and source character, distinguishes local-player owner kind one from scenario-actor owner kind four, snapshots that actor's judgement rectangle, and submits the packetless one-pass request through the existing effect owner. Missing actors remain successful no-ops. All 54 shipped calls across 45 scenarios are audited; effects 20010 and 20018 map to their retail OPTION resources 11000008 and 10000020 without adding any scenario-specific rules.

The authored unlock-switch feedback is reconstructed too. Operand type nine now gates a switch sentence on the idle hero actually reaching its displayed actor and 159-unit judgement range. Opcode 26 draws the script's evaluated decimal progress above that actor, while opcode 60 refreshes the original Player/Common/UnlockSW animation on the hero for one update at a time. Opcode 29 remains the client-only packet notification it is in retail instead of gaining invented single-player behavior. A catalog audit covers the 60 matching gates, labels, and markers across 22 scenarios, plus all 61 network notifications.

Malse's next authored branch is live too. Completing the Red Goblin quest is what advances his script into the merchant introduction and later service menu; the engine does not special-case his name or quest ID. Scenario status kind 7 and opcode 6 now build numbered vendor stock from Tables 32 and 33, including fixed entries, weighted random definitions, normal rolled item instances, and the original 9-by-10 placement starts. Choosing Trade reaches opcode 5, opens that stock on the left with the normal inventory on the right, and supports buying, selling, gold changes, delayed price overlays, item audio, and returning an unfinished purchase when the panels close. Identify now follows its separate authored branch too: it scans every retail-owned item container, substitutes the flat 100-Gold price into the confirmation, keeps NO selected initially, handles insufficient funds and the already-known case, and updates every identified instance and save mirror after payment. Repair now completes Malse's final service choice. The script builds all seven prices through opcode 52, preserves the retail equipment groups including the alternate weapon set, handles zero-price and insufficient-Gold branches, and uses opcodes 9 and 54 for mutation and payment. Item values come from Table 34 and the executable's wrapped integer arithmetic; repaired durability and both alternate equipment pointers survive the retail save stream.

The same post-Red-Goblin branch is now covered through its first complete follow-up mission. Malse offers the stolen-gem quest through SCS state alone; Black Hammer in West Ruins uses fixed Table 30/31 loot to drop category-four item 99000000, pickup routes it into automatic-item page zero, and Malse's return sentence removes it before completing mission one and playing sample 66. The immediate work after message 1000028, the remaining three callbacks, quest notice, progress flags, and completed save/reload all stay data-driven.

Ostare's next Episode 1 assignment is covered across maps as well. Completed quest zero is only half of its gate: the hero must also reach retail level 30 before messages 1000007 through 1000009 start mission three. The Room of Judgment periodic script waits for all eight authored enemy slots to finish their death fades, completes the mission with its object changes and sound, then lets Ostare create the Table 30 row-4 reward exactly once. The mission, notice and cue order, Cold Svalt follow-up, and saved reward latch all come from SCS and table data rather than an Ostare or Dusty Ruins special case.

Syria's Spirit Stone branch is covered alongside it. Once mission three is active, her script starts mission two; Stone Spike in continued Dusty Ruins uses fixed loot row 23 to create category-four item 99000001 in automatic page zero. Returning it removes the real item before completing the mission, then the next callback drops Syria's category-two reward. The similarly named page-two Spirit Stone is a different definition and stays separate. Offer, drop, owner, return, reward, ordinary-healing fallback, and completed save/reload all remain authored rather than hard-coded.

Remote Town's two post-recovery gifts are covered now too. Malse waits for the completed Dusty Ruins mission and Ostare's reward latch, thanks the hero, mentions his brother in Cold Svalt, and creates category-two definition 1100000 only on the third callback. Syria follows her own saved latch, thanks the hero, and creates definition 1100002 on the callback after her Cold Svalt message. Both gifts use the normal airborne ground-item path and sample 93 landing sound. Their separate latches survive save/load and prevent either conversation or item from repeating.

The outdoor handoff to Cold Svalt is covered as a real map-edge chain rather than a transport shortcut. Near Remote Town scenario 1 enters Wasteland of Hesitation scenario 3, which leads through Frozen Forest scenario 5 and Wasteland of Pillars scenario 6. The final overlap trigger checks mission three itself: while Dusty Ruins is active it leaves the hero in scenario 6; once complete, opcode 17 loads occupied Cold Svalt scenario 01000001 at entry zero. Titles, entry values, quest state, and every transition remain owned by the shipped MCT and SCS data.

The first Cold Svalt mission is covered end to end. Occupied outskirts scenario 01000001 loads all 108 enemies and its object-two edge enters the inhabited town in scenario 01000000. Alex's seven-message introduction and saved first-visit latch run before Rosanna's two-conversation request. Wild Ice owns loot row 56, which creates the fixed Memorable Ruby in automatic-item page zero at cell (2,0). Returning it removes the real item, completes mission four with sample 66, and creates Rosanna's category-two definition 1100003 reward on the following callback. Its sample 93 landing sound, completed save, ordinary follow-up, and no-repeat behavior are covered too.

Alex's next assignment is covered through the Cold Ruins and back. After the Ruby mission, messages 1000009 through 1000012 start mission six with its normal notice and sound. Bottom-floor scenario 01020002 waits for all seven authored enemies to finish their death fades before changing the room objects and completing the mission. Back in Cold Svalt, Alex drops exactly 2,000 Gold, then message 1000015 immediately starts mission seven, Purgatory of Judgments. The Gold landing sound, both quest cues, saved handoff, and no-repeat return branch are held by the same end-to-end regression.

Purgatory of Judgments now continues that playthrough without a shortcut. Vaporous Forest object two enters scenario 01030000; its object-one edge reaches the clear room in 01030002. Three Arc Shamans and four Arc Thunder Bats all remain active through their death fades, and only the empty scan changes the room objects and completes mission seven. Alex then drops 4,000 Gold and uses messages 1000018 through 1000020 to start the Remains of Reincarnation mission. Both map edges, the exact roster, quest sounds, Gold landing, saved handoff, and ordinary no-repeat message are covered.

The Remains of Reincarnation assignment is covered through its real entrance and inner maps. Hanged Men's Forest leads into scenario 01040000, then the authored object-one edges reach 01040001 and the clear room in 01040002. Two Earth Golems, two King Earth Goblins, and three Arc Goblin Shamans must finish fading before both door pairs open, samples 34 and 31 play, Table 30 row 63 creates its room loot, and mission eight completes. Alex's 6,000-Gold reward, the following mission-nine notice, landing sounds, and saved no-repeat branch are covered in the same regression.

The following scouting mission now ends at the place the shipped script says it does. Remains scenario 01040002 object five enters Sea of Trees scenario 01000004; its object-zero edge reaches Immortal Remains scenario 01050000. That map's initialization completes mission nine immediately with sample 66. Alex uses messages 1000026 through 1000028 to turn the report into mission ten, without creating an intermediate item reward. The route, entry values, notice sound, saved active branch, and no-repeat behavior are covered.

Mission ten now closes the main Episode 1 assignment through the shipped Gargoyle room. The object-one exits through scenarios 01050000 and 01050001 lead into 01050002, whose seven Gargoyles use the authored four ordinary and three magic variants. The periodic script waits for every death fade, opens objects 10011000..10011002, plays sample 34, and completes the mission with sample 66. Alex then drops exactly 10,000 Gold, follows with his Tower of Ordeal message, and starts opcode 64's Episode 1 Epilogue. The next visit points toward Mining Town. The reward landing sound, episode flags, Epilogue handoff, save/load state, and no-repeat branch are covered together.

The first Episode 2 route is covered too. Alex's post-Epilogue message leaves saved flag 71 at one. Near Remote Town uses that flag to swap objects 10001030 and 10001031, and only then lets object four send the player to Caravan. The normal route does not show Caravan's unrelated scenario visual; it continues through scenarios 02000000 and 02000001, both titled Forest, into Kanfore, Mining Town (02100000). The town initializes all 14 PEOPLE actors, including Beboba, and fills vendor inventories zero through two from Tables 6, 23, and 32. Saving in town keeps the route flag, scenario, entry, and services, and its return edge leads back to the second Forest map.

Kyle's first Mining Town assignment is covered from briefing to the following handoff. His messages 1000002..1000008 start mission 11, Destroy thieves staying SE of Kanfore., and the southeast town edge leads through Forest of Four Leaves into Forest of Claws. Three Oak Knights using loot row 85 open the inner gate; a second group of three completes the mission. Returning to Kyle creates exactly 20,000 Gold as two retail-sized stacks, then messages 1000011..1000012 start mission 12, Head for the Mining Tunnel of Yugunos. The gate state, quest sounds and notices, Gold landing sounds, conversation latch, mission states, and no-repeat save/load branch all stay data-driven.

The first mining-tunnel detour is covered at its real gate. With mission 12 active, the Cross Agora elf Garshwin refuses passage in messages 1000003..1000004 and sets saved flag 24. The southern object-three edge still refuses to enter Fanann because mission 14 is not complete. Kyle reads that latch, explains the sleeping dragon through messages 1000020..1000029, and starts mission 13, Meet with the Wizard Kirushutat. Mission 12 remains active while this prerequisite runs. The route, refusal, physical gate, quest notice and sound, both mission states, and saved no-repeat branch are covered without teaching the world owner about Garshwin or Kirushutat.

The detour now reaches Kirushutat through the shipped route as well. Cross Agora's eastern edge enters Forest of Sprits (02100005), and that map's far edge enters Tower of the Wizard (02110000). Entry 18 places the hero on Kirushutat's floor. His messages 1000012..1000027 complete mission 13 and start mission 14, Take back the Seal Crystal., with the ordinary quest notice and sound. The route, exact message chain, mission handoff, saved state, and 1000028 return branch are covered without adding a tower-specific case to the runtime.

Mission 14 is covered through its real item handoff. Cross Agora's western edge enters Forest of Knight's Misery (02100006), whose fort entrance leads to Fort of Thieves (02120000). The special Oak Warrior uses loot row 76; Tables 30 and 31 turn that into the guaranteed automatic item 99000003, the Seal Crystal. Kirushutat finds and removes that exact item, completes mission 14 through messages 1000029..1000031, and stops the handoff from repeating after a save. Cross Agora's southern edge then opens normally into Fanann, Village of Elves (02200000). The route, guardian, fixed item owner, completion cue, persistence, and newly opened gate all stay data-driven.

The opened gate now has a playable handoff on the other side. Fanann fills vendor inventories zero through two from Tables 7, 24, and 33. Lytle's first visit shows messages 1000002..1000004, keeps mission 12 active, and saves flag 41 so that a later visit uses 1000006 instead of replaying the directions. Fanann's western edge enters Butterfly Hill (02200001), and its object-one edge continues to Dragon Road (02200003), matching Lytle's route toward the Mining Tunnel of Yugunos. Town services, briefing state, save/load behavior, and both route edges are covered by shipped-data tests.

The first Yugunos investigation is covered without skipping its authored blockade. Dragon Road object two enters Mining Tunnel of Yugunos, B1F (02210000), whose object one descends to B2F (02210001). The separate B2F protection trigger sets saved flag 38 and, while flag 40 remains zero, pushes the hero back to entry two. Mission 12 stays active and mission 15 has not started yet. The matching object-zero return edges lead back through B1F to Dragon Road, and saving there preserves the discovery and exact entry. Back in Fanann, Kirarru keeps her 1000048..1000050 introduction separate from the 1000052..1000055 blockade report, starts mission 15 with sample 65, and uses 1000051 after a reload without awarding it twice.

Mission 15 now clears that blockade through the intended detour. Dragon Road's southern edge enters Underground Passage, B1F (02220000), whose stair leads to B2F (02220001). The named Black Wing is the authored objective: mission 15 completes only after its death presentation expires, then Kirarru's 1000056..1000057 response saves flag 40. Saving and reloading keeps the completion, and B2F's protection trigger then permits the ordinary object-one route into B3F instead of pushing the hero back.

Only after that handoff does the deeper Yugunos route open. B3F (02210002) uses both of its authored switches and its internal stair before object one reaches B5F (02210003). B5F needs both switches as well: each opens one of the two gates on the long route to object 800, whose contact saves flag 39. Kirarru then delivers the complete 1000058..1000068 dragon warning and advances flag 39 to two. The collision routes, switch sounds, quest cues, dialogue branches, and save state are covered in their actual story order.

That warning now leads through the next complete assignment. Lytle's 1000007..1000009 briefing starts mission 16, Recapture the power supply facility., and saves cleanly into the active 1000010 branch. Butterfly Hill's southern edge enters Labyrinth of Mauve (02200004), followed by Near The Power Supply Facility (02200005) and Fort of the Power Supply (02230000). Only the named Crimson Sword completes the mission, after its death presentation expires. Returning to Lytle creates four 10,000-Gold stacks, plays all four landing sounds, runs 1000011..1000016, and starts mission 17, Defeat the Dragons!, once. The route, boss trigger, reward, quest cues, and no-repeat save branch remain entirely script-driven.

Mission 17 now reaches its full authored ending. Kirarru's 1000070..1000072 conversation explains that the rebuilt seal will weaken the dragons without changing the active quest. On B5F, mission 17 is the gate that lets object one enter the second 02210004 B5F scenario. Its periodic script waits for the named Ancient Dragon's registry slot to become inactive after the complete death fade, then completes Defeat the Dragons! and plays the usual completion sound. Object zero returns to the matching B5F entry. Back in Fanann, Lytle's 1000018 report advances flag 41 to two and Kirarru's 1000073 response acknowledges the victory. The preparation, guarded route, boss lifecycle, return edge, both reports, quest cue, and saved completion are covered without adding map-specific game logic.

The post-dragon handoff now reaches the central front. Lytle's complete 1000018..1000025 victory conversation advances flag 41 to two; while the older Yugunos mission is still active, later visits use 1000026..1000027. Kyle then recognizes mission 17's completion, silently closes mission 12, drops four 10,000-Gold stacks, and runs 1000014..1000017. His no-repeat branch uses 1000018..1000019. Back in Fanann, Lytle's 1000028..1000029 directions advance flag 41 to four and enable transport row 25; 1000030 is the saved repeat. That transport lands at the shipped South Camp of Yugunos scenario and entry. Dialogue, reward sounds, silent quest update, flags, transport persistence, and the actual trip are covered.

South Camp's first assignment is complete too. The saved one-time flag opens the real Visual03 briefing, Jeel keeps his introduction separate from the mission-20 offer, and the ordinary overlap exits lead through East Antalusia to the Foot of Mt. Tedoron. The objective is the shipped Flame Warrior and Dread Warrior pair—not a guessed count of the other 420 enemies on that map. Their inactive lifecycle slots complete the quest, and Jeel's return grants the authored experience reward and Morris handoff once. The visual, dialogue branches, route, exact targets, cues, sound, reward, and repeat state all run from the shipped script and map data.

The first Tower of Ordeal minigame service is reconstructed through the same boundary. Opcodes 73 and 74 launch Blackjack and return its draw/player/dealer result, while status kind 8 keeps the following branches in scenarios 99000018 and 99000023. The executable-owned modal follows the recovered 15-update deal cadence, unique deck and optional joker, exact Ace and natural rules, dealer behavior, Hit/Stand rectangles, samples, 200-update result, and the complete Card.Njp layout. Rules, timeline, renderer calls, and the real scenario launch/result commands have deterministic tests. Loading the Tower maps themselves remains a later scenario-coverage slice; this checkpoint does not pretend they are playable yet.

3. Items, inventory, and equipment

Item support should use the real table data rather than a hand-written list. The work around 0x00462f80 and the proven RKC_RPG_TABLE reconstruction should guide it.

This slice includes:

• item database loading and stable item identifiers;
• inventory ownership, stacking, moving, dropping, and picking up;
• inventory and equipment panels;
• requirements and the original stat calculations;
• equipping and unequipping armor, shields, and weapons;
• enabling only the corresponding CAF appearance layers;
• item names, descriptions, rarity colors, and comparison text;
• shops, prices, and money when the script layer requests them;

The opening quest's four real ground items are now loaded and drawn from Item.Ibn. Pointer selection and the first complete pickup path are live: distant clicks approach through the shared movement controller, then ownership moves into PlayerInventory before the world entity is erased. Gold fills existing stacks up to the retail 10,000 limit. Scripted and player-created drops also play their category-specific retail sound on the first ground impact. If a clicked item cannot fit in the backpack, it stays on the ground and visibly repeats that two-bounce drop and first-impact sound, matching the retail failed-pickup feedback.

The real 9-by-4 backpack grid is now in place. Width and height come from Item.Ibn, placement respects multi-cell footprints, and a full inventory rejects a pickup without losing or partly inserting it; the retained world item restarts its drop presentation instead of appearing unresponsive. The authored right panel stays open over a live left-hand world view, with its original camera anchor, input boundary, gender silhouette, gold and equipped-weight values, Close tab, and Item0000.njp through Item0013.njp artwork. I and the HUD ITEM button both control it.

Owned-item interaction is live now. A click removes the item from its backpack container and carries the full icon under the pointer. Another click places its centered footprint into free cells; invalid placements leave it on the pointer, and placing it over one other item swaps which item is being carried. The held item survives closing the panel and can be dropped into the live world in the same eight directions and at the same 200-unit distance used by retail.

All nine equipment boxes now share one complete ownership path. Helmet, body, boots, main hand, and off hand use their original hit regions and category/subtype rules, enforce the item's level requirement, and swap cleanly with the pointer. The four exact 1-by-1 accessory cells accept category-two records and enforce the requirement stored in their own table layout. Equipped weight and all ten decoded base contributions are summed across the owner. The Short Sword enables CAF part 12 and the Round Shield enables part 9 with its original color strengths; body armor and secondary weapon parts use the same table-backed appearance path. Weapons marked by the original classifier suppress the off-hand layer. As in the retail refresh, helmets and boots affect equipment values but do not independently enable a player CAF layer.

The lower HUD's belt is a separate 4-by-2 owner rather than part of the backpack. It accepts only category-three items, retains full multi-cell footprints, uses the retail staggered screen origins, and supports pointer pickup and swapping even while the main inventory is closed. The 1 through 8 shortcuts address its four upper pockets followed by its four lower pockets. Tablets restore life, Capsules restore mana, and an item is removed only when it actually changes the target, matching the executable. A right-click uses those medicines directly from either the backpack or belt; full life or mana leaves the corresponding item untouched.

A new character now receives the loadout built by 0x00440f70: Leather Cloth in the body slot, four Tablets and four Capsules in the first two backpack columns, the same four-plus-four medicine layout in the belt, and five mines in the player's separate mine counter. Moving, swapping, equipping, and dropping owned items also use the retail category/weight sound selection; successful medicine use plays its own sound.

Those owned items now survive the real .Ssv path. The obfuscated payload's retail item prefix restores and rewrites all eleven player equipment slots: the nine visible gear/accessory pointers plus the alternate main-hand and off-hand set. The backpack, belt, and Special Item owner retain exact grid placement, Gold quantities, durability, identified state, and preserved instance bytes. The rest of an original save remains untouched until its owners are reconstructed. The counted transport flags following the owned-item prefix are also restored against Table 40, while new saves without that later retail section keep the new-character default.

X now opens the separate special-item owner on the left. Its 9-by-10 grid, Status patterns 14 and 15, item origins, centered placement, swapping, Gold stacking, hover information, camera anchor, and world-input boundary follow the corresponding retail paths. Inventory and Special Item close each other instead of pretending to be two views of one container.

Opcode 41's other branch is reconstructed too. The only shipped nonzero call comes from the Giant Warehouse on Tower of Ordeal 12F, not from a second kind of Special Item window. It owns ten independent 9-by-10 pages, ten saved unlock flags, and a transient selected page. The panel uses Status pattern 73, the disabled, enabled, and selected page-tab runs at patterns 74 through 94, the retail tab and close hitboxes, and sample 58. Its selected page shares the normal Warehouse's placement, swapping, Gold stacking, hover, camera, and Inventory-transfer paths. Original saves restore the ten owners at their post-mine boundary; shorter portable saves carry the same data in the versioned tail without breaking older save versions.

The next script-facing item owner is reconstructed as well. Category-four records with an authored page now go into one of four fixed automatic-item pages instead of the backpack, whether they came from the ground or opcode 75. Opcodes 58 and 59 query and remove items through retail's exact page, backpack, and active-equipment order, including the intentional omission of the belt, alternate arms, Warehouse, and Giant Warehouse. Duplicate authored items are refused. All four pages follow the Giant Warehouse in original save payloads and use a backward-compatible late-item extension in shorter portable saves.

Scripted experience rewards now join that path without inventing a second level-up system. Opcode 68 treats its argument as a percentage of the current Table 13 threshold, preserves retail's signed 64-bit calculation, and feeds the same growth, resource restoration, centered notice, and audio used by enemy-earned experience. The shipped Spirit Stone reward sequence is covered directly from scenario 04900001.

The ordinary item information display is live now. Resting the pointer over a backpack, equipment, or special item for the same short delay as retail draws its name, non-zero combat values, durability, weight, required level, condition-adjusted sale price, and all eight elemental values. It uses the original six-pixel text grid, stat order, definition-variant colors, pointer-relative position, and screen edge clamping, including the padded translucent black backing and faint white frame. The values come from Item.Ibn; the Dagger, for example, shows the same 10 attack, 120 hit rate, 50 attack speed, 300 durability, and 100 sale price as retail. Gold follows its separate retail branch and shows the stack amount in the wide Price row rather than collapsing to a name-only tooltip. The other small-item branches now follow 0x00409a60 as well: category-two items show weight, required level, and sale price, while category-three consumables such as Tablet show sale price. Their one-cell icons therefore keep the original wide information panel.

The retail condition warning is now shared by backpack, equipment, and held items. Weapons and armor below ten percent durability blink Status.njp pattern 16 for eight updates on and eight off; broken gear keeps it visible. The player-life and player-mana fields of category-three records are decoded. Land Mines now use their retail path rather than pretending to be backpack items or magic. B and the exact HUD cell spend the separate counter, obey the ten-update placement lockout, and create static resource 1000 at the hero. The mine arms at update 40, beeps every 20 updates, reacts to enemy and active scenario-object contact, and expires at update 300. Its Table-23 area packet, sample 29, resource-1001 explosion, expanding 1002..1004 rings, and paired 1005..1008 bouncing debris run through their own small controller and the shared receiver/depth-sort boundaries. Mine pickups fill the separate counter up to the equipment-derived maximum and never enter the backpack. A pickup at capacity leaves the mine in the world through the usual bounce-and-landing response. The backpack's add, automatic-store, and explicit-placement paths also reject Mine instances, preserving that ownership boundary even when a future acquisition path does not originate from a ground click. The inventory's authored Mine icon and current / maximum readout, base count, instance-word 84 capacity bonus, instance-word 81 damage bonus, and post-magic retail save field are all owned and tested, including older sparse portable saves. The generic Mine record says weight one, but retail's live encumbrance routine counts equipped slots only and does not add the mine counter.

Companion restoration, timed/status effects, and the script-facing special-item commands form the remaining item-use checkpoint. Companion restoration is now complete: Meat and its stronger definitions use the same backpack/belt command as player medicine, run only after player life/mana made no change, restore a living owned companion, and remain unconsumed when that companion is full or defeated. Player medicine now also uses the executable's equipped life/mana restoration multipliers and live derived maximum pools. The condition branch is complete too, and retail analysis corrected an old assumption: elemental medicines are not timed buffs. They move the two saved element axes 4,000 units toward one of eight fixed anchors, while White Medicine resets both axes to zero. The existing Status marker, affinity calculation, combat packets, and save record all read those same values. Script-facing special-item commands now use those owners too; the remaining item work can extend the same model rather than adding parallel inventories.

4. Combat and death

Combat should be built on the same command, actor, animation, and collision systems used for movement. Avoid creating a separate shortcut just to make an enemy lose health.

Work through it in this order:

• target selection and attack range;
• attack start, facing, movement cancellation, and CAF timing;
• the exact frame or event that applies a hit;
• hit chance, damage, defense, elemental modifiers, and critical behavior;
• enemy reaction, knockback or movement rules where present;
• life changes, death animation, removal, experience, and drops;
• player death and the original recovery or menu path;
• ranged attacks and projectiles;
• companion attacks after the basic player/enemy loop is proven.

One player class fighting one known enemy is enough for the first combat slice. Other classes and special attacks come after the basic loop matches.

The first item is now reconstructed. Type-two enemies participate in the same opaque-pixel click square, depth order, configurable priority, nameplate, and pale hover tint as the other world targets. A valid hostile click follows the moving enemy until the exact judgement-rectangle gap reaches the inclusive retail range of 0x9f, then stops, faces it, and promotes the target from approach to attack-ready state. Ground commands, other interactions, target loss, death, visibility changes, and pointer-status changes clear that combat state. The next slice starts the ordinary player attack CAF from this ready target and preserves its movement-cancellation and frame timing.

That attack-start slice is complete too. 0x00450630 selects action 7 for an empty hand or an unclassified weapon, actions 8, 9, and 10 for the three proven ordinary weapon subtype branches, and leaves the separate actions 19 and 20 to the ranged slice. The ordinary actions lock movement, keep the facing chosen at the end of the approach, and play the authored first/recovery chart pairs 5/6, 15/16, or 19/20. Their frame counter uses the ten retail attack-speed factors from 0.6 through 1.5 and the tier produced by Table 4; carrying more equipped weight than the player's capacity forces tier zero. That tier is refreshed on every action update rather than frozen at startup.

The hit point in the animation is data rather than a hard-coded delay. Actions scan every newly crossed cell in part zero of the first CAF chart for status bit 0x40, including frames crossed by a fast attack. Both shipped male and female chart 5 fixtures have ten attack frames, the marker on frame 7, and nine recovery frames. The empty-hand action emits its swing sound at counter five, the weapon actions at counter six, and input stays locked until the last recovery frame has been presented. The world rechecks the retained enemy's life, visibility, pointer state, and inclusive range before exposing the impact event.

That impact now reaches the retail combat path. The player's derived hit rate is checked against the enemy's MCT evasion value with the shared 20..98 clamp before the 77-word packet is built. Attack, physical defense, level, element affinities, persistent packet state, weapon reaction values, reflection, effect number, and weapon identity occupy the same words as 0x00439140 and 0x00435e60. The ordinary and subtype-8/9 effect draws, reflection draw, enemy receiver draws, and final durability draw keep their retail order.

A hit now goes through the already reconstructed enemy receiver instead of a second damage formula. Its returned life, attribution, reaction, event, and death state are committed to the live enemy; sample 6 and receiver-owned samples reach the world audio queue. An equipped weapon makes the retail 30-percent durability roll only after the receiver returns. Broken weapons still weigh the same and remain equipped, but no longer contribute their base stats or elemental strengths. A live retail-world regression clicks a real enemy and requires the CAF marker to lower its life and queue sample 6.

The receiver's presentation state is live now. Action 10 selects CAF chart two and stretches its frames over the exact reaction duration. Its sound markers still use the retail counter-based cell lookup, and the last update shows the last frame before returning to idle and publishing event 16. Packet word 40 and the enemy's MCT flag are now named for what their consumers actually do: they suppress displacement. When displacement is allowed, the enemy receives the decreasing 120-unit reaction impulse and uses the shared map, object, and live-actor collision sweep. Render interpolation keeps that movement smooth without changing the 30 Hz simulation.

Action 11 selects CAF chart three, uses direction eight only when that chart really supplies it, scans the same three sound markers, and plays the separate resource-specific death sample on update one. It holds the final frame through the original 120-update fade and then removes the enemy from live presentation while retaining its inactive MCT slot for later script queries or activation. Its first update creates the authored item drops and Gold first, then effect 21010 with the next random direction, preserving the executable's order.

The world now owns the ordinary receiver visuals too. Effects 21000 through 21014 resolve through the executable's dispatch table to their exact Character/OPTION resources, snapshot the source actor after its update, join the normal depth-sorted world pass, and expire after one CAF pass. Effects 21010 through 21012 keep their separate 120-update lifetime, 500-strength start, and 30-update fade. Specialized reflection, staged reaction, projectile, and spell effect handlers remain typed requests until their own dispatch branches are reconstructed.

The lethal reward path is complete now. MCT pre-AI values 13 and 14 supply experience and the Table 30 loot row; post-AI values 26 through 28 supply the Gold chance and inclusive amount range. Table 31 profiles select item categories, level ranges, episode masks, and quality variants. Their weighted choice keeps the original nine-digit random helper and each selected definition rolls all 39 instance parameters plus eight elemental values in the same constructor order.

Damage attribution awards the local player Table 14's share of the enemy's experience, updates the retail weapon/effect kill counters, checks Table 13, and performs novice stat growth from the gender-specific 900-series table. The HUD now reveals pattern 14 across the original 109-pixel experience bar. Gold Find reads rolled equipment parameter 26. Item and Gold drops keep their full instance object while bouncing, so landing audio, pickup, inventory placement, equipment, and save/load do not silently discard rolled values.

The live enemy dispatcher is connected now. Each enemy evaluates its current AID event, promotes the chosen native action, and then updates either that action or its locked presentation in the same order as 0x00458f70. Patrol, approach, retreat, wait, and walk-point requests all use the existing destination selector and movement controller, including live actor blockers. The Wasteland fixture proves that an authored event-zero patrol turns into an approach and ordinary attack rather than relying on a test-only enemy. The dispatcher's opening target search is part of that loop too: living enemies only run autonomous AID work while a living target is within 5000 judgement units. Enemies outside that range return to idle instead of marching through the same patrol cycle off-screen. A blocked movement request may keep its obstacle-following state, but the renderer only shows the walk chart on an update that actually changed the actor's position.

Direct enemy impacts now pass through the reconstructed player receiver. The live receiver snapshot uses the named player base rows and matching equipment contributions, including row eight and item parameter six for magical defense. Returned life, mana, backpack, equipment, Special Items, reaction state, durability changes, effects, reflection, and audio are committed in retail order; the separate belt remains untouched. Player actions four and five show the hit and death CAF presentations and interrupt movement or attacks. A live regression waits for a Wasteland enemy to damage the player, requires its hit sound and ordinary impact splatter, then saves and reloads the damaged character to make sure no owned items are lost as an accidental side effect.

The next combat slices should finish enemy effect attacks. Actions four through six already evaluate their authored data and create typed effect requests. The executable trace now also proves that these requests enter a controller list first and that a controller may create several category-50000000 actors over time. Types 1 and 2, for example, create one source animation immediately and a second actor 180 units forward only after the authored delay. The controller and renderable-actor lifetimes must stay separate.

The portable work should follow that split: add the controller owner, port one specialized dispatch family at a time, then attach the common runtime actor's movement, inclusive collision window, target filtering, hit bookkeeping, evasion check, receiver callback, and audio. Each family needs a passive timing test and at least one shipped live enemy case before it is marked done. Do not map type + 10000 straight to one OPTION animation; that would skip retail state and repeat the kind of adjacent-behavior loss this roadmap is meant to prevent.

That split has started with types 1 and 2. Their portable controller now emits the immediate source animation and delayed forward actor as two independent requests, including source re-resolution, exact bounds, packet data, and positional samples 19 and 94. The shared category-50000000 actor now also has its first passive slice: chart-zero source lifetime, forward movement from the spawn point, the zero-distance first update, static collision, contact expiry, special-ground filtering, and inclusive target-window timing.

The common target half is reconstructed now too. The actor queries its current position before movement, preserves display-query order, handles all five mask families, chooses either every eligible target or the first nearest target, and keeps the retail 500-identity repeat-hit list. Physical and magical evasion consume the portable Visual C++ random stream in retail order, misses remain remembered, and typed receiver and positional-audio requests retain the original once-per-update sound guard and NPC mode.

The live owner for types 1 and 2 is complete now. It builds current player, object, PEOPLE, and enemy snapshots, resolves the controller's source again on each update, and keeps controller and category-50000000 actor lifetimes separate. Existing actors move and collide before controllers run, so a newly created source or projectile waits for the following actor update just as it does in retail. The renderer uses the actor's CAF, direction, frame, depth, and tenths-of-a-pixel height rather than treating the request as a flat hit animation.

Successful contacts pass the original packet into the live player or enemy receiver and queue the configured positional sound. Misses create effect 20012 instead: its static OPTION 11000011 pattern follows the original three-bounce height controller and ten-step opacity fade. A shipped 03000507 enemy regression proves type 2's source and forward resources, samples 94 and 20, player damage, rendering, independent cleanup, unchanged starter items, and save/reload ownership. A separate low-hit live case proves the MISS path. Types 1 and 2 can therefore be treated as complete.

Type 3 is complete now as well. Plasma Bat subtype 20 reads five waves from Table 205, expands them every four updates from the stored impact origin, checks each 100-unit placement against the map and live scenario objects, and permanently stops after the first blocked position. Every clear wave creates the retail 10000030/31/32 layers and sample 21; only the random-chart first layer applies the packet on update zero. Scenario 00010001 provides the shipped live regression for rendering, player damage, controller cleanup, and unchanged item ownership.

Type 4 is complete too. Its moving-source warning appears on update three as resource 10000002 in retail display class two. At the authored update-ten burst, the source is resolved again and resource 10000000 is created twice: chart one at the upper judgement corner and chart zero at the lower corner, with both lifetimes taken from chart one. Samples 29 and 23 play together, an invisible one-update actor applies the copied packet across the source bounds expanded by 150 and plays contact sample 20. A player within 3001 world units receives the exact eight-update, six-pixel alternating vertical camera jolt. Scenario 01000004 provides the shipped live render, damage, launch and contact audio, camera, and ownership case. Type 5 is complete now. Update three captures the moving source once and creates resource 10000051; the rest of the sequence stays at that position. The first resource's real chart-zero frame count schedules resource 10000050, the area packet four updates later, resource 10000052 another eleven updates after that, and controller expiry at frame-count plus 22. The area packet shares type 4's 150-unit expansion, contact sample 20, and nearby camera jolt. Six sample-22 pulses land at offsets 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 21. The final visual uses retail display class two. Enemy 48 in scenario 04060004 supplies the shipped live case and proves all three visuals, damage, launch and contact audio, cleanup, and unchanged item ownership.

Type 10 is complete too. Table 206 supplies five waves for shipped subtype 20. Starting at its authored delay, the controller projects one attempt every eight updates from the stored impact point, beginning 250 units out and adding 300 units each time. Each clear 150-unit placement creates resource 10000060, applies the copied packet to every overlapping target on update zero, plays sample 22, and requests the familiar eight-by-six camera shake when the player is within the strict 3001-unit range. The first blocked placement permanently suppresses that and every later wave, while the controller still runs through its complete Table 206 timeline. Enemy 26 in scenario 04060004 provides the shipped live render, damage, audio, camera, blocked-tail, cleanup, and item-identity regression.

Type 11 is complete now. It creates resource 10000012 at the source on update zero, then reads Table 204 at the authored delay and distributes two through eight resource-10000010 actors around retail's slightly truncated full circle. Live owners place each actor 180 units out; fixed-origin owners start every actor at the supplied point. The children keep the unusual [-80,-80,79,79] bounds, 90-update lifetime, contact sample 20, static collision expiry, copied packet, and homing movement mode with its 20-degree-per-update turn limit. Sample 19 plays once at the last child's spawn position before the controller expires.

The common runtime actor now owns that homing behavior. It looks up the live player or scenario target, turns by the shortest retail angle, moves from its current position instead of replaying a line from its start, updates its CAF direction, stops steering after it passes the target, and permanently falls back to straight travel when the target disappears. A shipped subtype-ten enemy from Tower of Ordeal scenario 15 supplies the live source, radial render, impact, audio, lifetime, and item-identity regression.

Type 12 is complete now. It creates resource 11000027 at the source and a Table 204 warning fan on update zero. The warning actors use resource 10000080, sit 150 units from a live owner, and retain the subtype as their lifetime. At delay ten the controller re-resolves the owner and emits the same fan at radius 180 using moving resource 10000081. Those projectiles live for 90 updates, expire on static or target contact, carry sample 20, and rewrite packet pairs 34/35 and 74/75 to the retail directional effects 21021 and 21022. Sample 94 plays once at the final projectile. A shipped subtype-ten Dread Wisp from North of The Remains of The Dead (03010003) supplies the live warning, launch, render, damage, audio, cleanup, and item-identity regression.

Type 13 is complete now. Table 204 supplies the number of points in each shell. Beginning at the authored delay, the controller emits four shells, four updates apart, at radii 350, 550, 750, and 950 around the fixed impact origin. Every clear point creates the same three resources as type 3: 10000030, 10000031, and 10000032. Only the first layer uses a random chart and applies the copied packet; sample 21 plays once per shell at its last radial point.

Unlike the earlier one-direction wave controllers, every radial direction has its own obstruction latch. A blocked ray remains suppressed in later shells without stopping the others. Lightning Gargoyle 11 in Ancient Ruins B1F (03140000) supplies the shipped subtype-20 live render, damage, audio, cleanup, and item-identity regression.

Type 14 is complete now. It has no source or warning visual. At the authored delay it resolves a live owner and launches resource 10000070 from 180 units along the stored angle. The projectile keeps the familiar 50-unit bounds, authored speed and display height, copied packet, static and first target expiry, and contact sample 20. Sample 22 plays at launch and the controller ends immediately.

Owner kind zero is the deliberate exception: it starts directly at the supplied origin without the 180-unit projection. Rechecking that branch also fixed the same old edge case in types 1 and 2. Stone Wisp 2 in Ancient Ruins B1F (03140000) supplies the shipped subtype-one live render, packet, launch and impact audio, damage, cleanup, and item-identity regression.

Type 16 is complete now. At the authored delay it launches resource 10000110, stores that actor's real runtime identity, and follows its current position while it remains in the world. The projectile uses 80-unit bounds, the authored speed and display height, static and first-target expiry, contact sample 20, and launch sample 19.

Once the projectile is removed, the controller creates resource 10000111 at its last recorded position and ends. This second actor uses 240-unit bounds, its full chart-zero lifetime, and applies the copied packet to every overlapping target only on update five. Sample 22 plays when it appears, and a player within 3000 units receives the usual eight-update, six-pixel camera jolt. Goliate's second effect variant in Goliate's Mansion B3F (04050002) supplies the shipped live projectile, follow-up position, render, damage, audio, camera, cleanup, and item-identity regression.

Type 21 completes the specialized enemy-effect controllers. Update zero creates source resource 11000210. At the authored delay, Table 207 chooses one, three, or five evenly spaced resource-10000100 rays. A live owner launches each ray 180 units out; owner kind zero keeps the explicit origin. The rays use 80-unit bounds, twenty-degree homing turns, speed-scaled animation, their full chart-zero lifetime, static and first-target expiry, contact sample 20, and one sample 19 at the final launch point.

The controller tracks every ray separately. Once a ray disappears, its saved position advances through four stages at four-update intervals. Resources 12000000, 11000033, 10000030, and 10000060 rewrite packet words 32 and 34 to {0,20000}, {1,21013}, {2,20005}, and {3,21000}. The odd stages are visual; the even stages apply their packet to every overlapping target on update zero. Stage three also creates the matching 10000031 and 10000032 visual layers. Every stage plays sample 19. The last also plays sample 22 and requests the nearby eight-update, six-pixel camera jolt.

Arc Angel's third attack in scenario 99000036 supplies the shipped subtype-30 five-ray regression. It covers the source, launch, independent tracking, all four timed stages, three-layer render, both damage windows, audio, camera motion, controller cleanup, and adjacent item ownership.

The first half of the next player-visible checkpoint is complete. Remote Town's invisible south-gate object uses status kind three and the retail inclusive rectangle check; its sentence calls opcode 17 with scenario 1 and entry zero. Walking through it now shows the existing loading presentation and enters Near the Remote Town at (90581,5288), facing 7, with music track 1, its map collision, 48 objects, and all 127 enemies. The matching outdoor trigger returns through {0,0} to Remote Town's original entry, camera, and music. A live regression walks both directions and checks that each crossing publishes one loading transition.

That player-visible pass is complete too. The first authored target outside the gate is local enemy 101, the level-one Goblin with 40 life, one experience point, loot row zero, and its 10-percent roll for 10 through 20 Gold. A live regression equips Ostare's actual Short Sword, approaches that exact actor through the outdoor map, and keeps every click in the normal pointer, movement, CAF attack, receiver, reaction, and death paths. It requires the hit and death effects, swing and impact sounds, experience and kill credit, the authored drop, its bounce and landing sound, and normal approach-and-pickup behavior. Ground pickup now also queues selector zero's retail item-move sound instead of silently moving the item into the backpack. The resulting inventory, experience, kill count, and equipped sword are written through the .Ssv owner and checked again after a real reload. Gold's separate chance, amount, Gold Find, stacking, and save path remain covered by their deterministic reward and owner tests because a faithful 10-percent roll must not be forced to succeed in this live encounter.

The standard ranged-player path is complete now. A shipped Wood Bowgun starts action 20 at any pointer-visible enemy distance, holds the player in CAF chart 10, launches on its authored frame-three marker, and plays sample 3 at counter six. Ranged animation uses its own ten speed factors from 0.3 through 2.0 and ends on chart 10's final frame without a melee recovery chart.

Item.Ibn drives the projectile rather than a weapon-name switch. Its effect selector chooses generic actor type 1, 0, 4, or 5; its pattern selects the straight or homing one-, two-, three-, five-, or seven-shot layout; and its remaining fields provide travel speed and piercing. Double Bowgun creates two explicit launch points at minus and plus eight degrees while keeping the shots parallel. The wider fans use the original 8-, 10-, or 15-degree spacing.

These projectiles enter the same category-50000000 actor system as enemy effects, with retail bounds, projected or explicit origins, target mask, environment collision, evasion, sample 20, receiver packet, homing, piercing memory, and first-target expiry. The family-zero packet preserves player attribution even for explicit-origin shots. Job-five history supplies the off-job physical-attack scale, and a complete fan costs one point of main-hand durability. Passive tests cover every pattern, effect selector, contact, and receiver handoff; a shipped live encounter covers the CAF, projectile render owner, launch audio, no-approach targeting, and durability without requiring a straight projectile to hit an enemy moving around the companion.

Retail contains no subtype-four weapon record to exercise action 19. That missing authored fixture remains recorded rather than filling action 19 with made-up projectile behavior; action 20 and its Increased-Power action-21 redirect are both live.

The next combat work belongs to skills, magic, and status effects, keeping one shipped live case beside each passive reconstruction and sharing the existing receiver, effect, reward, audio, and persistence owners.

The owned-companion foundation is complete. 0x004501c0 creates character 16000000 + player slot at the player's scenario entry and takes its name, PARTNER resource, and RGB strengths from Table 60. Tables 800 through 805 are summed through the saved companion level for movement and combat values. Kerberos therefore starts with the retail level-one profile rather than a copy of a town NPC.

Script opcode 3 completes the visible Check Status branch for the same six profiles. It takes a companion type, rebuilds that row at its saved level, and formats the name, active level, HP, element, combat values, movement values, and experience state into the normal speech-bubble owner. The player-level cap still decides between a number, Experience Limit, and Experience Max. The portable formatter deliberately keeps the original executable's mislabeled magical-stat reads instead of silently correcting what players saw.

The default follow half of 0x004622b0 is live too. A companion idles inside 160 judgement units, waits five updates before leaving that close band, walks below 600, runs at 600 or farther, and snaps to the player plus (200,200) only at 4000 or farther. It uses PARTNER charts zero, one, and two, routes through the common movement owner, participates in normal depth sorting and actor collision, and is relocated with the player on scenario changes. Its 1200-unit living-enemy search, attack-mode approach, chart-five marker timing, enemy receiver handoff, damage lifecycle, and progression are now live as separate companion concerns rather than shortcuts in the follower.

The player-owned mode around that AI is reconstructed too. Retail initializes it inactive, toggles it from Space or the bottom-left HUD strip, and clears a pending combat command when it becomes inactive. Follow behavior remains live, while autonomous acquisition and enemy/effect targeting require active mode. 0x004039f0 renders the matching life bar and activity label from the original Bar.njp patterns.

A fidelity cleanup now protects that checkpoint too. The first Goblin must acquire and attack a passive player, continue retaliating after being struck, and play the gender-specific hero voice on ordinary weapon impacts. Death disables the enemy judgement rectangle immediately, before the corpse has finished fading. Table 31 now uses its real category, loot-level bounds, fixed definition, and episode fields, so a level-one encounter cannot manufacture late-game equipment through a column mix-up.

The nearby outdoor containers run their shipped scripts all the way through the positional opening sound and Table 30 loot command. Level gains publish the original changed-stat text for 900 updates and play their retail samples. The notice starts centered with its black translucent fill and white frame, slides to the upper-right after 840 updates, and consumes a dismissing click only after its first 30 updates. Ordinary 21000..21003 impact splatters play on every hit, while the separate bloody 21010 presentation remains tied to death and keeps its own 120-update hold-and-fade lifetime. The Warehouse and map remain left-side owners while Inventory remains an independent right-side owner; opening both keeps the world camera centered and allows items to move between the Warehouse and backpack.

5. Skills, magic, status, and the remaining game screens

Once the ordinary combat loop is reliable, add the systems that modify it:

• spell save ownership and the four-page Magic window are complete;
• the eight-slot drag bar, persistent HUD selection, and normal-attack toggle are complete;
• one faithful Fire Ball cast from selection through impact and spell training is complete;
• normal-target right-click now runs the retail three-stage one-handed and two-handed melee combos, including their separate voices and forward steps;
• Transport creates its collision-checked paired field/Remote Town endpoints, staggered portal presentation, sounds, and two-way scenario travel;
• Fire Ball and Ice Bolt prove the reusable single-target projectile spell dispatch;
• Plasma's action-25 multi-wave area-effect path is complete;
• the ground/self casting command and Hell Fire action 26 are complete;
• Ice Blast action 27 and effect 10005 are complete;
• Heal action 28 and its marker-time restorative path are complete;
• Moon action 29, its companion modifiers, aura, and MP lifetime are complete;
• Berserker action 30 through Elemental Strike action 43 are complete, which closes the 22-spell player list;
• skill and spell databases beyond the proven table-backed spell values;
• mana use, cooldowns, targeting, projectiles, and area effects;
• buffs, debuffs, resistances, reflection, and absorption;
• the character Status tab and its detailed derived values are complete;
• skill assignment and quick slots;
• map and the remaining modal screens;
• the in-game sound, display, input, and gameplay settings.

The large UI functions should be split by screen and concern in the portable code even when the original compiler emitted one enormous function.

6. Finish save and load

Save support should preserve the retail format so original characters remain usable and saves written by OpenShadowFlare can be opened by the original game.

That means:

• map the full .Ssv structure and its version checks;
• reproduce the XOR encryption and the retail validation behavior;
• restore scenario, position, player stats, inventory, equipment, skills, quest flags, and other persistent state;
• preserve unknown bytes when the original does;
• handle truncated or corrupt saves without losing another slot;
• compare round trips byte for byte where the original format permits it;
• test original → OpenShadowFlare and OpenShadowFlare → original.

The envelope writer is now in place, including the random XOR byte, signed-byte checksum, substitution pass, and safe preservation of an existing unknown payload. New saves carry the player record and owned items we currently own. The three counted retail arrays after the item stream now preserve type-12 quest state, type-10 transport unlocks, and type-11 general script state; this is covered by saving after Ostare's opening and proving his starter reward does not repeat after loading. The exact post-mine world words are now owned too: walk/run, scenario ID, and scenario entry restore through the retail stream, while the old versioned tail remains a migration fallback. A live save from scenario 6, entry 4 reloads at that entry's retail coordinates rather than silently returning to Remote Town. Writing captures the retail-sized paired preview from the world-only render when the option is enabled. Saving is not complete yet: the remaining persistent gameplay owners still have to contribute their real payload fields before OpenShadowFlare can claim full round-trip compatibility.

7. Play through Episode 1

At this point the work changes from building the engine's backbone to finding all the assumptions that only worked in Remote Town.

Play Episode 1 from a new character and fix each missing case in order:

• every scenario transition and loading screen;
• all NPC, enemy, object, script, and quest types;
• bosses and special encounters;
• indoor and outdoor rendering differences;
• music and sound transitions;
• episode completion and return paths;
• saving and resuming at several points.

The goal is not merely reaching the final map. A normal playthrough should be possible without developer shortcuts, hard-coded quest flags, or falling back to the retail executable.

8. Cover the remaining episodes

Once Episode 1 is solid, run the same process through Episodes 2–4. Most of the engine should already exist by then, but later content will expose less common script commands, AI actions, effects, items, and map combinations.

Episode 2 has started with the complete post-Epilogue route through Caravan and the two Forest road maps into Kanfore, Mining Town. The detour through Kirushutat's Seal Crystal now opens Fanann and follows Lytle's directions through Butterfly Hill and Dragon Road to the first Mining Tunnel of Yugunos blockade. The mine's authored B3F/B5F stair, switches, two gates, and deeper seal are now in their real order: Kirarru starts mission 15 after the first B2F blockade report, the Black Wing in the southern Underground Passage completes it, and her response opens B2F before the deeper seal can be reached. The seal report ends with her dragon warning. Lytle's next assignment now retakes the Power Supply Fort through the Labyrinth of Mauve; Crimson Sword's defeat and the 40,000-Gold return reward carry the story into mission 17. Kirarru's seal preparation, the guarded B5F dragon chamber, the Ancient Dragon objective, and both Fanann victory reports are covered too. The following Lytle/Kyle handoff now closes mission 12, awards 40,000 Gold, and unlocks the South Camp of Yugunos transport. South Camp now opens its one-time Visual03 briefing, starts mission 20 through Jeel's split introduction and assignment, follows the East Antalusia route, completes on the two named warrior lifecycle slots at the Foot of Mt. Tedoron, and returns for Jeel's one-time experience reward and Morris handoff. Morris's Sacred Wing mission now follows the full Edgar/Morris/Berini authorization loop, clears the authored gates on all five Tower of Nazzle floors, recovers the relic from the fixed Dark Golem loot row, and returns it for Berini's one-time experience reward and saved Giant Warehouse III unlock. Continue with Angel's Hair and the underground church cave.

Keep fixes general. If a later map needs a special case, first prove that the original really has one.

9. Multiplayer

Networking comes after single-player simulation is deterministic and complete enough to synchronize. The reconstructed RKC_NETWORK DLL gives us a strong transport and packet reference, but the executable still owns the meaning of many packets.

The multiplayer work includes:

• host, join, disconnect, and failure flows;
• player identity and character exchange;
• scenario and actor synchronization;
• commands, combat, drops, flags, chat, and transitions;
• ordering, retries, timeouts, and malformed packet handling;
• compatibility experiments with the retail client where practical;
• a portable RKC_NETWORK static library, with any operating-system socket adapter kept outside SF_EXE.

This should not be allowed to distort the single-player game loop. Both modes need to use the same simulation rules.

Work that continues alongside the slices

The reconstructed DLLs are complete enough to be our reference, but not every obscure path has equal test coverage. When an executable slice depends on one of those paths, add a focused differential probe before porting it. There is no need to pause all executable work to chase an unused API.

We should also keep doing the quiet maintenance that prevents fidelity from drifting:

• record retail addresses and confidence in the reverse maps;
• add deterministic native tests for every game rule we understand;
• use original assets in focused parser and rendering tests;
• make short side-by-side recordings or screenshots for visual work;
• keep malformed-data behavior deliberate and tested;
• keep each reconstructed simulation cadence independent from presentation speed;
• run the boundary test so DLL-derived code stays in SF_EXE/libs/;
• keep Linux and Windows builds green and regularly test real macOS hardware.

Performance work now has a concrete low-end target too: a future PlayStation 2 port should fit its game-side work into 32 MiB of RAM and its presenter into a 4 MiB video-memory budget while keeping the reconstructed 30 Hz simulation and smooth 60 Hz presentation. Use the F12 profiler to establish representative town, combat, inventory, and effect-heavy baselines before changing code. Optimizations still need the same fidelity tests as any other slice; a faster result that changes update order, animation timing, blending, or game rules is not a win.

The measured allocation breakdown and the working headroom target live in documentation/memory-budget.md. Keep that table current as each resource group is reduced.

The first memory passes moved frontend assets into a portable resource manager with explicit title, character-select, loading, gameplay, and panel lifetimes. Leaving a screen destroys everything owned by it, including decoded save previews. The English fonts retain only their Latin sheet, loading art is freed at the world handoff, and optional gameplay and inventory sheets follow the visible panels and exact visible item patterns. Map exploration uses one packed bit per pixel, map artwork decodes only patterns referenced by the active GND and OBL, and player NJP files decode only the body and equipment layers selected by the CAF appearance mask. Closed starter gameplay now measures 22.28 MiB of tracked game resources including the software framebuffer. Scenario changes release stale ground-item and transient-effect artwork while preserving active spell-owned resources. The next useful memory work is to remove the temporary two-map peak during transitions without weakening failure-safe loading.

The profiler now reports game and decoded-audio memory separately, followed by their TOTAL RAM sum, instead of process RSS. This keeps Linux graphics-driver and window-system allocations out of console budgeting. LAL also retains each sound's mono/stereo layout and original rate instead of expanding everything to the output mix format. The project defaults to 16 kHz mono on every target; LAL still exposes 16 kHz, 22.05 kHz, and 48 kHz ceilings and an optional stereo layout for applications that need a different quality tradeoff. That policy remains in LAL rather than game or platform code.

What can wait

These are good ideas, just not reconstruction blockers:

• widescreen or redesigned interfaces;
• high-resolution assets and texture filtering options;
• Vulkan, Metal, or Direct3D GAPI backends;
• a public modding or plug-in API;
• balance changes and new gameplay;
• asset conversion tools that the reconstruction itself does not need.

The software renderer and LGL presenter remain the reference path. Optimize that measured path before adding another graphics backend, so a new API does not hide avoidable renderer or asset-memory costs.

Checks before a slice is ready to commit

At minimum:

cmake -S . -B build/linux/debug -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
cmake --build build/linux/debug
ctest --test-dir build/linux/debug --output-on-failure
./build/linux/debug/src/SF_EXE/ShadowFlare_rebuilt --smoke-test
./tests/run.sh

Use ./tests/run.sh --wine when a change touches the compatibility DLLs or when a differential probe is part of the slice.

Tests are not the whole fidelity argument. A gameplay slice should also have a brief note explaining what was compared with the retail game and what is still unknown. If we cannot say what “matching” means for a change, the slice is probably still too large or not understood well enough.