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Assets.dat format versions

Various games use slightly different internal formats for entries in Assets.dat. The table below attempts to document them.

Listed below is every game mentioned on the chowdren website, sorted by the release date I could find. Not all of them use the archive format.

Platform names:

  • Win: Windows
  • Lnx: Linux
  • CTR: Nintendo 3DS
Release date Game Has Assets.dat Format Image format Sound format Shader format Entry type count
2013-01-28 The Great Work (Win) No N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
2013-10-25 Knytt Underground (Win) No N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
2015-04-02 AVGN Adventures (CTR) Yes v? ?/PNG ? ? ?
2015-02-13 The Escapists (Lnx) Yes v0 v0/zlib v1 pair 5
2015 Freedom Planet (Lnx 2015ver) Yes v0 v0/zlib v1 pair 5
2015 NOT A HERO (Lnx) Yes v0 v0/zlib no sounds pair 5
2016 Noitu Love: Devolution (CTR) Yes v0-ctr-zlib v1/zlib v0 blob 5
2018 Dodge Club Pocket (CTR) Yes v0-ctr-chow v1/chowimg v0 blob 5
2018 Iconoclasts (Win) Yes v1 v2/zlib v1 pair 6
2019 Baba Is You (Lnx) Yes v2 v1/chowimg v1 pair 6
2020 Petal Crash (Lnx) Yes v3 v3/zlib v2 pair 6
2021 Cyber Shadow (Lnx) Yes v3 v3/zlib v2 pair 6
2021 Mighty Goose (Win) Yes v3 v3/zlib v2 pair 6
2022 OMORI (Win) No..? ? ? ? ?

See below for game-specific details.

The Great Work

This is a free game that does not use Assets.dat (or any other archive format). I was able to locate only the Windows version, but I didn't really search much. I also think it's unlikely that the Linux/OSX version differs in terms of data storage.

Knytt Underground

Available on Windows, Linux, OSX, PS3, Vita and Wii U. Curiously, the Chowdren website does not mention PS3 or Vita.

Platform Checked Notes
Windows no
Linux yes No Assets.dat present; file structure looks similar to that of The Great Work.
OSX no
PS3 no
Vita no
Wii U no

Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures

Originally released in 2013 on Steam, but the Chowdren website has a 2015 date and lists 3DS and Wii U; I think it's fair to assume that Chowdren was only used for the console ports.

Platform Checked Notes
Windows Yes No Assets.dat present
3DS Yes Extracted RomFS contains an unknown version of Assets.dat
Wii U No

It appears that the Assets.dat here has quite large differences compared to the later ones; It's unsupported by the program at the time being. It might require reverse engineering the binary to understand. It's also possible that it's merely missing the type_sizes struct, which means that offsets cannot be figured out by the probing mechanism.

The Escapists

Chowdren website lists only Linux and MacOS versions, which is interesting. Was it only used to port the game from Windows?

Platform Checked Version
Windows No
Linux Yes v0
OSX No

Freedom Planet

This game annoyingly uses different formats depending on the version.

Platform Checked Version
Windows Partial v0 for original version; later releases TBD
Linux No
OSX No
PS4 No
Wii U No
Switch No

Not a Hero

Platform Checked Version
Windows No
Linux Yes v0
OSX No
PS4 No
Xbox One No
Switch No
Android No

Dodge Club Pocket

Requires extracting the RomFS to see the files it has.

Platform Checked Version
3DS Yes v0-ctr-chow

Noitu Love: Devolution

Requires extracting the RomFS to see the files it has.

Platform Checked Version
3DS Yes v0-ctr-zlib
Wii U No

Iconoclasts

Chowdren website does not list the Xbox One version.

Platform Checked Version
Windows Yes v1
Linux No
OSX No
PS4 No
Vita No
Switch No
Xbox One No

Baba is You

Chowdren website does not list the mobile versions.

Platform Checked Version
Windows No
Linux Yes v2
OSX No
Switch No
IOS No
Android No

Petal Crash

Platform Checked Version
Windows No
Linux Yes v3
OSX No
PS4 No
Switch No

Cyber Shadow

Platform Checked Version
Windows No
Linux Yes v3
OSX No
PS4 No
PS5 No
Xbox One No
Switch No

Mighty Goose

Platform Checked Version
Windows Yes v3
Linux No
OSX No
PS4 No
PS5 No
Xbox One No
Xbox SX/S No
Switch No

OMORI

This requires more research.

Platform Checked Notes
Windows Yes No Assets.dat present??
Other No

Image formats

Images stored in the archives are known to be compressed in one of 2 ways:

  • zlib
  • chowimg (custom compression made specifically for chowdren)

As far as I can tell, there is no clear pattern for when which method is used.

Apart from compression, image entries also differ; so far there are 4 known formats which I called v0, v1, v2 and v3 (didn't have better names).

Sound formats

There are 3 known containers that entries can use:

  • 1 - wav
  • 2 - ogg
  • 3 - cwav (3DS specific)

Fortunately, entries themselves contain the ID for which container is used. However, said entries come in 3 different flavors: v0, v1 and v2.

It is however possible that v0 and v1 are the same, and the extra data that is thought to be a part of v0 is actually extra metadata that's placed specifically when container type is 3 (cwav). Unfortunately, there is currently no way to tell for sure, as it'd require a file that mixes cwav and another container type, and as far as I can tell, there isn't one like that.

Shader formats

Shaders are stored in a platform-native format. Each entry usually contains a pair of shaders, but it may only contain one if the format is capable of storing both the vertex and fragment shader, in which case it is represented as blob in the table.