Content for everyone

• Overview over the releases and variants of the game
• Compatibility issues -- coming soon
• Extracted content:
  • All pictures
  • Music
• Playthrough -- coming soon
• Hidden/Unused stuff in the game:
  • Unused pictures -- coming soon
  • Unused sounds -- coming soon
  • Unused videos -- coming soon

Technical stuff

• Analysis of the ART files
  • Artfile variants
  • Packer/Unpacker written in C
  • All original ART files
  • Statistics
• Statistic of the used codecs in the game
• Technology overview

Links

• Eraser Turnabout at mobygames.com
• Eraser at The Cutting Room Floor -- coming soon
• Archived web site of Imagination Pilots
• Article at IMDb
• Eraser Turnabout at world-of-fmv.de (in German)
• Eraser Turnabout at fmvworld.com

YouTube Videos

• Trailer
• German Review by world-of-fmv
• Longplay video by Frank Minichini, part 1
• Longplay video by Frank Minichini, part 2

ART file variants

ART FILES BY IMAGINATION PILOTS
Technical overview by Daniel Marschall						15 Feb 2018


		VERSION 1.x (16-bit era, "IPE16")
		=================================

Version 1.0	For game: "Blown Away" (1994)
		* File signature "Art" + 20 NUL bytes
		* Image names up to 23 characters
		  (unsure if the 23th byte must be a zero terminator)
		* LZW implementation: GIF standard implementation
		  - variable code length between 9 and 12 bits
		  - clear code (256)
		  - end code (257)
		* Pictures can only be 8-bit
		* Each picture can either be LZW compressed (code "P")
		  or uncompressed (code "p", lower case)
		* Decompressed/raw data: Top-down pixel data
		* Attached: Optional palette (R,G,B), uncompressed.
		  (Sprites usually do not have a palette, so the game
		   will use the palette of the parent picture)

Version 1.1	For games: "Panic in the Park" (1995)
		           "Where's Waldo? At the Circus" (1995)
		* Codes for compression/raw are now "Q" and "q" instead of
                  "P" and "p"
		* Each picture has now a relative X- and Y-offsets for 'fine-tuning'.
		  These offsets cannot be negative, though.

		VERSION 2.x (32-bit era, "IPE32")
		=================================

Version 2.0	For games: "Where's Waldo? Exploring Geography" (1996)
		           "Eraser Turnabout" (1997)
		           "Virtual K'Nex" (1998)
		* File signature "ART_DATA"
		* Image names up to 8 characters;
		  no zero termination required after the 8 characters.
		* LZW implementation by Mark R. Nelson and Shawn M. Regan
		  - variable code length between 9 and 13 bits
		  - clear code (256)
		  - end code (257)
		* Pictures are divided into chunks. Each chunk can be compressed or
		  uncompressed. Limitations:
		  - Each compressed chunk (except the last one) must decode into
		    exactly 16382 (0x3FFE) bytes of uncompressed data.
		  - The size of the compressed data of a chunk must not exceed the
		    size of the original uncompressed data.
		* The size of each chunk (raw or compressed) is limited
		  to max. 32767 Bytes (0x7FFF).
		* Decompressed/raw data: Windows Bitmap (without file header);
		  therefore, theoretically every color depth/compression/etc. can be used.
		  For 8-bit pictures, the palette is included in the Bitmap.
		* Re-using of parent palette is not possible.