I feel like I should preface this a bit. I only use Linux and I don't have a windows install anywhere. So the tools, resources, and methods available to me are going to differ from those available to you.

So if I'm leaving out info or if I'm unable to help with any questions or problems you're having, I'm sorry. Forgive me, for I am merely standing on the shoulders of giants.

Yeah, you're going to need some tools. Luckily, the old standards should work for most modifications. If you're a power user, you likely already have everything you need. But just in case, let's go over some standards.

If you're on Linux, any text editor will work.

If you're on windows, maybe Notepad++? Or why not Kate?[kate-editor.org] Kate is often my editor of choice.

GIMP[www.gimp.org] is a fine choice.

For Linux, I use engrampa.

For windows, do people still use winrar or 7zip?

I hate sharing mediafire links, but here's the thing. Hard Reset is kinda old. So obviously the tools that were used to make it would also be kinda old, which means Squirrel itself is also kinda old, which finally brings us to the decompiler tools, which are less old but yes, still kinda old.

But after a mild scouring of the internet, the best tool seems to be NutCracker. It's a free and open source tool that was made by DamianXVI, who simply released it into the wild. Maybe "released" is a bad word for it. It's more like "abandoned". It's only home is a mediafire link that's over a decade old, and it can be found here: {LINK REMOVED}https://www.mediafire.com/?ruulm32z36i5dff

If that link gets removed, simply Duckduckgo "NutCracker DamianXVI" and you'll find it eventually, so long as you dig deep enough into that rabbit hole.

Or you can just skip it. Because so far it hasn't shown itself to be very useful for me. And soon I'll explain why.

It's time to get to the actual meat and potatoes of this meal, kids. So put those bibs on because it's dinner time.

First go to your Steam Library and download Hard Reset, if you haven't by now.

Then right click it in your library and go to Manage > Browse Local Files.

Navigate to ../data/ and pick any .bin file.

Rename the extension from .bin to .zip and open it with your archive tool.

Yes, these bin files are simply renamed zip files. Get used to it kids, because you're going to find these developers love to rename extensions. Many of the files inside are ordinary plain text. If you're having a hard time reading them, you can simply change the extension to .txt or open them in the average Linux text editor. It's hard to know for sure which files are plain text and which aren't. The only reason I can tell is because my thumbnailer lets me know. But the image files (like .dds) can be opened with GIMP. You don't need to rename those.

Renaming extensions is an old trick devs used to counter corporate espionage and keep other companies, and even their own users from stealing their work. I guess they figured by the time people figured it out, their work would be old tech and they wouldn't get paid for it either way.

It's like they thought nobody would want the older games because newer games would be better? Like the gaming industry was NOT about to implode from corporate greed, corruption, and pressure from publishers that now purposefully handicap developers so they can devourer and consume them? How wonderfully foolish of them to have that level of faith in the future of gaming when MONEY is everybody's driving motivator. And don't tell me I'm being too harsh. They sacrificed their self respect when they became a ♥♥♥♥♥.

In case it's not completely obvious by now, they don't want us here. So of course there's a password.

Yes, you'll need a password to unzip these files. And you're in luck because that password is:
Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?


Now all you have to do is:

1. Rename the file from <file>.bin to <file>.zip
   
2. Open the file in an archive manager
   
3. Give it the password
   
4. Extract all files to a new data directory
   
5. Overwrite where necessary ( I think? )
   
6. Goto step 1 and repeat with the next .bin file

And just like that, you'll have all of the files completely decompressed!

Isn't that great??

( if you're using Linux )

Here's a simple BASH script ( for Linux ) that will automate the entire process ( if you're on Linux ).

It will rename and extract all of the files into a secondary directory named decompressed. You're going to need about 6.8GiB of space for the decompressed files.

Create an empty file, name it "decompress", then copy-paste the code below into it:

Ensure the path in the variable "thepath" at the top is correct, then save the file and make it executable.

Now execute it.

The whole process will take a minute. Once it's over, you'll have a data folder in the decompressed folder. You can edit these files and even use that folder in place of the default data folder. ( I think it will actually load faster, too? Maybe? idk. )

To do this, simply rename the ../data/ folder to something like ../data-backup/ and symlink ../decompressed/data/ to ../

Example:

If you're on windows, I hear there's a Linux subsystem for windows? No idea how compatible it is with this BASH script ( for Linux ). Sorry.

There. All done. Wasn't that simple?

Now you can reshape Hard Reset however you wish.

From this point forward, you are limited only by your skills.

Enjoy.

So this one time I wrote a program that overwrites every image in any given directory with a picture of Shrek's face. Today, I gave that program Hard Reset's data directory.

Then I rewrote the program so I could do a bunch more stuff, too. And here it is now.