Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers

General Information

This page contains data on the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky/Time/Darkness games.

ROM File Structure

A detailed list of the file structure of the ROM's nitro-fs filesystem.

• Note: A lot of files in the ROM have an identifier that correspond to which level/event/cutscene/etc, they're used in. Something like: "s17p01" for example.

First/Second level directories:

/BACK/

Contains large compressed BGP images. Some of those appear on the main menu, some later during the game.

In Explorers of Sky, the backgrounds used in Explorers of Time and Darkness are present but unused.

/BALANCE/

Seems to contain value relative to pokemon stats and various information about levels/dungeons.

/DUNGEON/

Contains what seems to be some dungeon tiles.

/DWC/

Data for the standard NDS Wifi setup screen.

/EFFECT/

Contains some of the effect sprites.

/FONT/

Contains fonts, UI element resources, palettes, and the portraits for the talking pokemon during the game.

/GROUND/

Contains various sprites, apparently mostly for decorating the maps.

/MAP_BG/

Contains what seems to be map tiles.

/MESSAGE/

Contains the strings for most of the game!

/MONSTER/

Contains the pokemon sprites for battle and the "overworld".

/RESCUE/

Possibly linked to SOS code generation.

/SCRIPT/

Contains the scripts for the whole game. Each directories has an identifier related to the context it takes place in.

/SOUND/BGM/

Contains the main instrument sounds bank, "bgm.swd", and all the music in the game. With each tracks being a pair of a SMD and SWD file.

/SOUND/ME/

/SOUND/SE/

/SOUND/SWD/

A bunch of sound effects stored as SWDs

/SYSTEM/

/SYNTH/

Possibly data for the swap cauldron.

/SYSTEM/

/TABLEDAT/

/TOP/

Contains BGP files for the backgrounds used in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team.

It can be deleted with no immediately apparent side effects, as the backgrounds are unused.

ROM Overlays Details

A list of all the overlays, and what they're used for.

NDS9/ARM9 Overlays

Overlay #01 :

• Load address:
• Length:
• Description:

Overlay #13 :

• Description: Controls the personality test, including the available partners and playable Pokémon. Personality test questions are stored in the MESSAGE folder.

File/Data Formats

A list of all the file/data formats used in the game.

Graphics Formats

BGP

WAN

WBA

W16

WTE and WTU

CHR

PAL

BMA

BPC

BPL

BPA

Audio Formats

SWD

SMD

SED

Data Formats

BIN

DAT

MD

TLK

STR

Script Engine Formats

SSB

SSA

SSS

SSE

LSD

Container Formats

BIN(pack files)

KAO

SIR0

Compressed Container Formats

AT4PX

AT4PN

PKDPX

Misc

DIC

Files with Unique Formats

A list of files that have their own unique format.

• /BALANCE/monster.md
• /FONT/kaomado.kao
• /MESSAGE/tbl_talk.tlk
• /MESSAGE/text_e.str
• /RESCUE/rescue.bin
• /SYNTH/synth.bin
• /SYSTEM/manpu_ma.smd