Operation: Inner Space

This page contains notes for the game Operation: Inner Space.

Genders#

The string in ENG_LANG.DLL at 9DD0 ("Because I'm Mad At %?") is, as the "%?" indicates, connected to another string. The only one, however, is "Him" (there is no "Her" or "Them"), immediately after, at 9DE7. This suggests that, at one point, ships were intended to be able to have been either gender. Other strings use "Him" directly.

Language Parameter#

In inspace.ini, there is a Language parameter in the [Inner Space] section. This is functional, in that it specifies which file the game looks for strings in. However, there is only ENG_LANG.DLL, and it seems that the game was never translated into any other language. Having it set to anything other than ENG will cause the game to complain that it cannot find the file. The Options/Setup dialogue box also shows the game language, further suggesting that translations were planned.

Music snippets#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

Main.mid is a 4:55 MIDI track that plays during the game, but it is not simply played from start to finish during a game. The game has adaptive music, which is implemented by jumping to certain points of the track, depending on what's happening in the game. 4:41 is where it gets interesting, because this is where, on Windows 3.1, the music jumps to (and plays a 5-second snippet) when you start a Dodge City duel or when a ship enters mid-wave for the express purpose of killing someone (this is almost if not always either a Pirate or a Terminator Enforcer). On Windows 95 and 98, however, the music instead jumps to 4:47 (but again, a snippet of 5 seconds plays), resulting in a different tune playing during these events depending on the operating system. This is presumably due to the differences in the way Windows 9x processes MIDI. On Windows XP, the music exhibits the Windows 3.1 behaviour, because Windows XP emulates the Windows 3.1 system.

One of these snippets seems unused, depending on the operating system. The snippet from 4:53-4:55 seems unused in any case.