In my last article I described the details of the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file. Now it’s time to tackle the internals of the mysterious CHEATZ.TXT file. Since these two files have a lot in common I highly recommend you read the previous article about ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file beforehand – it’ll definitely help you understand what’s going on in this one.

The CHEATZ.TXT file was quite important for me. First the encryption algorithm used in the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file was discovered during my absence – back then I was on a hiatus from Gruntz and when I came back I was presented with a fait accompli. I felt really uncomfortable that such a discovery missed me by a mile. Second it turned out the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file contains some very important information, including – the cheat codes. From 148KB which the file takes up, almost 5.5KB are cheat codes (70 of them to be more exact). And here we have the CHEATZ.TXT file, which doesn’t even have 1KB – it’s over six times smaller than the cheat codes from the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file alone! This provokes a few questions – what is it that’s inside this file? Is it really cheat codes like the file name would suggest? Well considering the file size it wouldn’t be many cheat codes anyways, a few of them tops. And simply look at the localization of the file – its full path is STATEZ\CREDITZ\PALETTEZ\CHEATZ.TXT. Is it any indication of what we might find in the file?

In the last two articles I explained in detail what the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT and CHEATZ.TXT files are and how to read them. They’re encrypted configuration files located in the GRUNTZ.REZ archive. The Gruntz Decryptor allows these files to be modified – you can now decrypt such file, change any parameters of interest and encrypt it back again, so that Gruntz is able to properly read them. The program also automatically decodes all cheat codes so that you can freely modify them and add your own.

Only the ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT file is really loaded and used by the game – the CHEATZ.TXT file is just a relic from the game development. Because of that the option of encrypting the CHEATZ.TXT file might seem superfluous; I’ve decided to include it however for completeness’ sake.

From among thousands of different files in the GRUNTZ.REZ archive two are truly unique. These are GAME\ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT and STATEZ\CREDITZ\PALETTEZ\CHEATZ.TXT files. In total, there are four files with the *.TXT extension in the archive. In addition to the two mentioned above, there are also files GAME\VERSION\VERSION.TXT (not used by the game itself, containing only the string “1.00”) and STATEZ\CREDITZ\CREDITZ.TXT (end credits of the game with some funny gags at the end). But while these two files can be easily read with Notepad, ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT and CHEATZ.TXT files may pose a problem – if opened in a typical text editor random gibberish would appear with no clear indication of what the real purpose of these files really is. If someone wants to view them, you can download them right here:

• ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT (147KB)
• CHEATZ.TXT (1KB)

Wait a minute, these are binary files! When I first saw these files some time ago, I felt a bit bitter about this fact, believing that I wouldn’t ever get to know the real contents of those files. Especially the CHEATZ.TXT file, whose name can make many people drool involuntarily. And what’s the deal with the PALLETEZ folder anyways, why is it in there?

In this post I’ll try to explain what ATTRIBUTEZ.TXT really is and what it is for. The next post will be reserved for the file CHEATZ.TXT.