How do I get the GDevelop file from the executable?

How do I...?
1

Hi guys,

So I’m an idiot and didn’t back up my hard disk before sending it in to AppleCare - for what I thought was a cracked screen. They replaced my hard drive, threw out the old one, and I have lost the 700+ hours of work I put into developing my game.

I have a recent .EXE export, as well as the equivalent for android, and for Mac. I would pay a fairly large sum of money to somebody who could reverse engineer the G develop file that I can work on from the .EXE.

Is this possible? If so, what are the steps I need to take to do so? Desperate for help here – this game is my baby and I will do almost anything if it’s possible to recover it.

2

Unfortunately, it is not possible.

The built game has been converted from events/Gdevelop projects (custom project file in json) into javascript and compiled into an EXE.

Even if you could get the source code javascript, you’re not going to be able to go back to the project file from that.

3

I would be capable of restoring most of it, but it’d be long and tedious work, so I wouldn’t do it unless paid…

The one thing I can 100% not restore is group & comment events’ text because they are simply not present on export, and the folder structure of resources, since they are all copied to the same directory on export. The rest I can restore by using my knowledge of the engine internals to read the compiled code, understand to what it corresponded and rewrite it in a new project file.

1 Like
4

I mean, at that point you’re basically rebuilding the game rather than pulling the project file from the source code… so yeah charging for it sounds totally reasonable.

5

Well, to be fair it’s still probably faster an easier than remaking the game from scratch since I don’t need to really think much, just retranscribe… But it’s tiresome work :sweat_smile:

@CarterRuff if you send me a build of the game, I can take a look at the code and evaluate how much time and effort it would take me to reverse engineer!

6

That would be fantastic; how should I send that to you?

7

You can send it to me per email at arthur.pacaud@hotmail.fr or upload it through any cloud service and send the share link per DM here on the forum :+1:

8

Sounds good. I have emailed you!