[Zum0]

I would like to preface this by letting you all know that I'm pretty noobish at this sort of thing. So apologies in advance.

I am hoping to eventually program a save editor for this game. I do have some programming experience (laughable,) but nowhere even close to what's required for a task such as this.

The game in question is Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army.

Why I want to do this: The game has you select certain settings before starting a new game from the beginning. Those settings cannot be changed unless you start a brand new game. A point has come where settings must be changed without having to start over. Not only will this help me, but it will be a wonderful (albeit minuscule) addition to the game hacking/RE community as well. That, and I'll gain some much needed knowledge in the process.

What I've done so far: I've been using AptDiff to compare save files, but there seems to be a problem. For starters, I've created two new games using the exact same settings. However the files are different each time.

Here's a screencap of what I mean:

Spoiler (Click to View)

The changes between the two files are fairly minimal, but they are spread out everywhere. What else can I do?

Thank you all very much.

[_Silky]

Maybe you should try to decrypt it. And then you can do it again, and again, and 100 times more because finding the right memory location with only 2 game saves would be like finding a needle in a hay stack.

[Zum0]

Maybe you should try to decrypt it.

Remember, I'm pretty much new to this.

[_Silky]

I know. Save your original game save for a backup and just start changing some variables and see what it changes on the game.

[Zum0]

Thanks. I have a couple questions.

1. When trying to figure this out, what should I be monitoring? The save file itself or the process of the game? And would it be a good idea to use Cheat Engine for this?

2. When you say "variables," what exactly do you mean? Making changes inside the save file? There are no human-readable strings in the save file so I have no clue what to change.

Again, my apologies for being semi-retarded on this subject.

[_Silky]

Thanks. I have a couple questions.

1. When trying to figure this out, what should I be monitoring? The save file itself or the process of the game? And would it be a good idea to use Cheat Engine for this?

2. When you say "variables," what exactly do you mean? Making changes inside the save file? There are no human-readable strings in the save file so I have no clue what to change.

Again, my apologies for being semi-retarded on this subject.

You should try to decrypt it. It'll take days if not weeks. You should be monitoring both the memory locations and the game process and comparing the hex. Yes, make changes inside the new save file. In programming, a variable is "stored memory". For an example, "Lives = 10", "Money = 10000", which can be numbers, text, string, or bool, etc, etc. And you should probably learn how to read Hex because otherwise, how are you going to change variables and to what value? This stuff isn't easy, which is why not many people want to do it.

[Murky.]

You might want to download a hex editor and start from there. Just change stuff like setHealth(10) to setHealth(1000).