         **************************************************************
         *       Popful Mail (Sega CD) - Un-Worked Design Patch       *
         *                 Version 3 (24 Feb. 2017)                   *
         *            by Supper (suppertails66@gmail.com)             *
         **************************************************************

This is a patch that fixes many issues introduced in the US version of the Sega 
CD game Popful Mail by its publisher, Working Designs. The localized game 
massively raises enemy stats and item prices, making it an extremely tedious and 
frustrating experience. This patch restores the gameplay to what it was in the 
original Japanese version of the game.

              ****************************************************
              *                     Changes                      *
              ****************************************************

* All enemies have their stats restored to what they were in the Japanese 
version.
* The formula that calculates damage from passive hazards (lava, spikes, etc.) 
has been reverted to its original form.
* Items now cost (and sell for) what they did in the Japanese version.

Other changes in the US version (e.g. the new title screen music, using C 
instead of Start to open the menu, the horrible horrible made-up script) have 
been kept.

For specific details on the alterations in the US version, such as tables of 
stat changes and so on, see this page: 
https://tcrf.net/Popful_Mail_%28Sega_CD%29#Regional_Differences

              ****************************************************
              *               Patching Instructions              *
              ****************************************************

--- WHAT YOU'LL NEED ---
* A BIN/CUE or ISO/WAV format disc image of the US version of Popful Mail (Sega 
CD).
* If you're on Windows, the xdelta patching utility (http://xdelta.org/) is 
provided in this distribution. On other platforms, you'll need to acquire 
version 3.0.8 or later on your own.

--- AUTOMATIC PATCHING METHOD (WINDOWS) ---

If you're using Windows, move your disc image files into the same directory as 
the program and do one of these as appropriate:
  * If you have a BIN/CUE disc image, drag and drop the BIN file (or IMG file) 
onto binpatch.bat.
  * If you have an ISO/WAV disc image, drag and drop the ISO file onto 
isopatch.bat. Note that your ISO/WAV files must use standard naming and 
numbering, e.g. "File 01.iso", "File 02.wav", etc.

If everything works, this should produce the patched game under the name 
"PopfulMailUnWorked_##". To play it, make sure the file "PopfulMailUnWorked.cue" 
(included with the patch) is in the same directory as everything else and then 
load it in an emulator, or burn it to a CD for use on real hardware.

If this doesn't work, try using the manual patching method below to diagnose the 
problem.

--- MANUAL PATCHING METHOD---

--- CONVERTING FROM BIN/CUE TO ISO ---
If you have a BIN/CUE image (or the equivalent IMG/CUE), you'll need to convert 
it to ISO/WAV before you can patch it. I'd recommend using BinChunker (a.k.a. 
bchunk -- homepage http://he.fi/bchunk/) to do this.

* On Windows, you can use the included bchunk.exe (courtesy of elmer). If you 
don't want to use bchunk, there are also many "shareware"/commercial utilities 
that can do this task, though they may or may not output the same ISO as bchunk.
* On Linux, it should be available from your distro's repos, or of course you 
can build from source.
* On Mac, you can build from source, or perhaps get binaries wherever Mac people 
get their binaries from.

To convert, open a command prompt and navigate to the folder containing the 
BIN/CUE, then run the following command:

bchunk -w PopfulMailUS.bin PopfulMailUS.cue PopfulMailUS_

(substituting the names of your BIN/CUE files, obviously -- remember to put 
quotes around them if they have spaces in them. Don't rename them -- this will 
cause the conversion to fail unless you also modify the CUE file itself.) This 
should generate four files: PopfulMailUS_01.iso, PopfulMailUS_02.wav, 
PopfulMailUS_03.wav, and PopfulMailUS_04.wav.

--- PATCHING STEPS---
1. First, !!!***verify that your ISO has the correct MD5 hash***!!! It should be 
c4c3529ece286fb7b007a432a50c0c31. If it isn't, the patch almost certainly won't 
work. You can obtain this by using the md5sum utility on *nix, or the FCIV 
utility (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/889768) on Windows.

2. Use xdelta to apply PopfulMailUnWorked.xdelta to your ISO. If you're using 
the command line, this would look something like:

xdelta3 -d -s PopfulMailUnWorked.xdelta PopfulMailUS_01.iso 
PopfulMailUnWorked_01.iso

If you use a GUI wrapper, it should be self-explanatory, but make sure the 
output file is named PopfulMailUnWorked_01.iso.

3. That's technically all the patching required, but assuming you want to play 
on an emulator, we now need to make sure the CD audio files are properly 
associated with the ISO or it will likely hang when it needs to play them. 
First, make sure your patched ISO is named PopfulMailUnWorked_01.iso, then 
rename the audio files produced from the BIN/CUE conversion process to 
PopfulMailUnWorked_02.wav, PopfulMailUnWorked_03.wav, and 
PopfulMailUnWorked_04.wav.

4. A CUE file named PopfulMailUnWorked.cue is included with this patch. Move it 
to the same directory as your ISO and WAV files.

5. Test that the game works by loading PopfulMailUnWorked.cue in your emulator. 
Press A, B, or C at the BIOS startup screen to start the CD player, and make 
sure the number of tracks listed is 4.

--- TROUBLESHOOTING ---
* If the CD audio tracks go out of sync, and you patched an ISO/WAV rip, check 
your audio tracks. If they start with a couple of seconds of silence each, the 
software used to rip the disc chose to bake the pregaps into the audio files, 
which is not the standard format the included CUE file expects. You can rectify 
this by chopping the first couple of seconds of each audio file off in an editor 
such as Audacity.
* If the automatic patching method fails to produce any audio files, make sure 
all your files are named in the format "Filename ##.wav". The patcher expects to 
see a two-digit number directly before the file extension; without that, it 
can't find the tracks.
* If the patched ISO won't run, check the MD5 hashes of your original ISO and 
the patched ISO. The correct hashes are given in the steps above. If either of 
them doesn't match, try a different method for converting the BIN/CUE to ISO, or 
using a BIN/CUE generated by a different program.
* If loading PopfulMailUnWorked.cue doesn't work, try loading 
PopfulMailUnWorked_01.iso by itself. If that works, make sure all your files are 
named exactly as described above, and that the names in the CUE file match your 
audio files. CUE files are plaintext; just open it in Notepad or whatever.
* If your ISO has associated sound files in some format other than WAV (or your 
emulator doesn't support WAV files), you'll need to either convert them to WAV 
or modify the CUE file to use a different format. In the latter case, change 
(for example) all occurences of WAVE to MP3, and make sure the filenames are 
correct.
* If the game starts fine but crashes when the opening scene should appear, your 
audio files aren't properly associated with the ISO. Check that your filenames 
match what's described in PopfulMailUnWorked.cue.

              ****************************************************
              *                  Known Issues                    *
              ****************************************************

Nothing, yet...

              ****************************************************
              *                 Version History                  *
              ****************************************************

Version 3 (2/24/17)
  * Updated the included CUE file to fix issues with out-of-sync CD audio tracks 
on real hardware and accurate emulators. Patch content is unchanged.

Version 2 (1/24/17)
  * Replaced the original patch, which was made using a badly outdated version 
of xdelta, with a new one made with xdelta 3.0.8.
  * Patch distribution now bundles xdelta3.exe and a special bugfixed version of 
bchunk.exe provided by elmer.
  * Added automatic patching method for Windows.

Version 1 (1/17/17)
  * Initial release.

              ****************************************************
              *                  Special Thanks                  *
              ****************************************************

* Many thanks to elmer for pointing out that the initial version of the patch 
was made with an ancient release of xdelta, and for creating and providing 
permission to include in this distribution the bugfixed version of bchunk.exe.
* chrisw80, for testing on real hardware and finding the CD audio syncing issues
* Everyone on ROMhacking.net who provided feedback and support
