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I'm trying to figure out how this old game is (de)compressing files, but I don't have much knowledge about file compression. I tried running the game from a debug tool to see if I could spot something in the assembly, but that's way over my head..Also tried Ghidra but didn't bring me any closer. I can pinpoint roughly in the gmae code where it's reading file headers and starting allocating memory/decompressing, but what actually happens is a mystery.

The smallest compressed file is just 5kb, I uploaded it here: https://ufile.io/scibn9hp

The game is from 1996. Can anyone point me in the right direction for learning this stuff? Should I try understanding the program, or is it possible to understand the compression by just messing with the file?

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    What game is it? If it's from 1996 then someone may have figured it out already. Examining the file in a hex editor, you can see CWE sprite in the file header - I Googled that and found this: forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=21665 - might be a start.
    – user7290573
    Commented Aug 13, 2023 at 18:01
  • It's called Fire Fight..the problem is in decompressing the .VOL, sadly the game extractor software doesn't support this game
    – Oli
    Commented Aug 13, 2023 at 22:18
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    Looks like a different user on the same forum claims to have extracted some .vol files - forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?p=161231 - probably worth seeing if they're still active and willing to share their program.
    – user7290573
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 9:28
  • Cool, I'll check it out, maybe it can help me on my way
    – Oli
    Commented Aug 14, 2023 at 10:52

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I did some digging on forums and found a repo that has code in it to decode this file (as well as some other formats by the same game studio): https://github.com/alcexhim/UniversalEditor

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