Quick And Easy Software

Day 3 sees the release of a new tool - Telltale Speech Extractor.

It enables you to rip the voices and sfx from all games released by Telltale Games (yes that means Sam and Max).

Download it here.

The tool plays the sounds, lets you save them as wav or mp3, can filter them by character and lets you search for specific dialogue. In short, it makes it really easy to browse and search the sounds, especially if you know what you’re looking for.

What makes this tool extra-special though, is its annotation support. See the screenshot below? See how for each sound it lists who said it and whats said? Those are annotations. To quote the readme: “Annotations are descriptive names given to sounds. They list what is said and what character says it. This allows the sounds to be easily browsed, filtered and searched“. The sounds don’t contain any textual information besides the filename, so all of that extra information has been added to the annotations, for every single game.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the annotations aren’t complete. In most games there are still around 50 sounds that don’t have annotations. Who’s going to fix this? Well hopefully you are. Annotation editing is built into the tool and its very easy to use. I just need people to finish the annotations for a game and then send me their annotation file. This is all explained in the readme, so if you’re interested in helping out, just have a look at that.

Current Version: 1.0 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme]

A program that enables you to rip the voices and sfx from all games released by Telltale Games. To date (October 2007) that includes:

• Bone: Out From Boneville
• Bone: The Great Cow Race
• Crime Scene Investigation - 3 Dimensions of Murder
• Crime Scene Investigation - Hard Evidence
• Sam and Max: Season 1:
  • Sam and Max: Culture Shock
  • Sam and Max: Situation Comedy
  • Sam and Max: The Mole The Mob And The Meatball
  • Sam and Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die
  • Sam and Max: Reality 2.0
  • Sam and Max: Bright Side Of The Moon
• Telltale Texas Hold’em

It should also work with future games, provided that the file format doesn’t change.

Day 2 brings an update to the Telltale Music Extractor.

Vista compatibility has been added, and it now supports all currently available Telltale games.

It does exactly what it says on the tin. Download it here.

Check back tomorrow for a much bigger update with a completely new tool.

Here we go then…

Quick and Easy week begins with an update and a new tool. First up, Grim Fandango Launcher has been updated. Its had a redesign to make it look better, has full Vista compatibility and now supports 64 bit versions of Windows. The full list of changes can be seen below.

New in version 1.5:

• Cosmetic changes: Interface redesigned, text and icons made clearer, changed the launcher images.
• Vista compatibility: The launcher now automatically prompts to run as administrator when its started, the program icon now includes all sizes up to 256×256 and if running on Vista the launcher now uses vista fonts.
• Fixed a small memory leak.
• Now uses windows temp folder rather than Grim folder for extracted resources like the readme and patch.
• Now uses the excellent Grim Fandango icon created by Thanius.
• 64 bit versions of Windows are now officially supported. The launcher has been tested on XP64 and Vista64.
• Old versions of Windows are no longer officially supported. Versions before XP (95/98/ME/2000) should be fine but the launcher hasn’t been tested with them.

Download it here.

The new tool is Grim Fandango Setup. Its a replacement installer (setup program) for Grim Fandango. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows. This installer doesn’t have those problems and comes with the above-mentioned Grim Fandango Launcher.

Download it here.

Current Version: 1.0 [Download Latest]

A replacement installer (setup program) for Grim Fandango. The installer that comes with the game can be problematic with newer versions of Windows and refuses to work at all on 64 bit Windows.

This installer works on both 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows and has been tested on Windows XP and Vista. It should work fine with all Windows versions though.

It performs a full install of the game, meaning that the cd’s are not needed to play and comes with my Grim Fandango Launcher - which adds extra features beyond those in the game’s original launcher.

Current Version: 1.5 [Download Latest] [Read the Readme]

An improved version of the launcher program that LucasArts shipped with Grim Fandango, it has a number of features not present in the original launcher:

• Can run Grim Fandango from hard drive (play without the cd’s) and can automatically copy the required files to the hard drive.
• Can run Grim Fandango in windowed mode.
• Automatically enables Grim Fandango’s developer/debug mode. (The good_times registry key).
• Provides a synopsis of debug features and debug keys.
• Can download and install the official Grim Fandango patch if its not applied.
• Supports all recent versions of Windows (XP, XP64, XP MCE, Vista, Vista64). Windows 98, ME and 2000 are not officially supported but should work correctly.

Starting next Monday (October 29th), Quick and Easy Week will begin. Every day I’ll release a new tool or an update to an existing one.

If you’ve never visited this site before, then take a look at the software page. Here you’ll find a variety of utilities to fix, edit, extract and enhance games. The tools tend to reflect my interests so are mainly concerned with adventure or adventure-related games from Lucasarts, Telltale Games and Doublefine Productions.

I’m not going to reveal which tools are getting an update, or what the new tools are but if you take a look at the software page and previous news posts you’ll probably be able to guess. Anyone who’s contacted me over the past year to request a feature should be pleased. I’ve gone through all my emails and tried to fix every bug and implement every suggestion that was feasible. Vista users and those with 64 bit versions of Windows will also benefit, all tools released next week will be fully compatible with these.

As always the tools will be completely free, but should you want to show your appreciation and support my work, you can do so via a paypal donation. You can also help by spreading the word about Quick And Easy Week; Digg this post, start a thread on a forum, tell your friends - it all helps.

Long time visitors will recall that this has happened before. The last Quick and Easy Week was a nostalgia-inducing three years ago. This one will be bigger and better, I promise. Or your money back.