Hook of the Reaper

The purpose of DefaultLG game file is to decouple the light gun from the game file. Before DefaultLG game files, there was mainly MameHooker INI game (configuration) files. They were self contain, and allowed the user to do many things. Unfortunately, you could easily damage your light gun with it too. Since it was self-contain, all the light gun commands, and how to connect to the light gun, were in the file. DefaultLG game file replaced the light gun commands, with generic light gun commands. For example, to rumble the RS3 Reaper, the command is ‘ZZ’. For the DefaultLG game file, it is ‘Shake’ or ‘Damage’. The command of ‘Shake’ is a lot easier to read than ‘ZZ’.

Since the game file is now decoupled and using generic commands, any light gun can use it. But Hook of the Reaper needs to know what light guns a person has, and how they are assigned to the players. Since it knows what light gun it is, it can swap out the generic command with the real command. Now the game file is standardize and easily readable.

DefaultLG game files are broken into two parts. The splitting point is above the ‘[States]’ line. The top part is information for Hook of the Reaper. The first section and only required section, is the ‘Players’ section. This tells Hook of the Reaper how many players are in the game, and how they are assigned with the Players Assignment players. The next section, is the ‘Recoil & Reload’ section. This tells Hook of the Reaper what recoil methods are supported. Also, if reload is supported or not. The last section is the ‘[Options] section. This turns on certain options in Hook of the Reaper.

The bottom section, is the output signals, and their assignments. The first section is the ‘[States]’ section. There is only two output signals in this section. The first is ‘mame_start’, which usually assigned to all players, and uses the ‘Open_COM’ command. The command connects and initializes the light gun. The second is the ‘mame_stop’, which usually assigned to all players and uses the ‘Close_COM’ command. The command exits the light gun out of external control, and disconnects from the light gun. The second section is the ‘[Signals]’ section. This is were all the game’s output signals are listed. Also, this is were the output signals can be tied to player(s) and command(s).

For the DefaultLG game file, it can have only 1 empty line at the bottom of the file. The bottom of the file can also have no empty line too. If there is 2 or more empty lines at the bottom, the game file will error out in Hook of the Reaper. All other lines cannot be empty. There are 2 reasons for this. The first is to make the file fast to read and processes. As many checks happen when loading a DefaultLG files, so less checks happen when the game is running. The second reason, is I left this files as text files to make them more accessible to everyone. All data files for Hook of the Reaper are like this.

Commands
Players
Original DefaultLG
Recoil & Reload
Slow Mode
Options
Make New Game File