utkencode

About

EA MicroTalk (UTK/UTalk) is a linear-predictive speech codec Electronic Arts used across several of its games, first appearing in Beasts & Bumpkins (1997). utkencode is a set of open source, public-domain (Unlicense) MicroTalk encoders and decoders: utkdecode handles Maxis UTK (The Sims Online, SimCity 4), utkdecode-bnb handles the PT/M10 variant from Beasts & Bumpkins, utkdecode-fifa handles the FIFA 2001/2002 variant, and utkencode encodes the simplest Maxis UTK container, currently the only format the project can encode.

Getting started

Each tool is compiled separately from its own .c file with a provided gcc command, then run from the command line against the relevant game's audio files; there's no GUI.

Known issues & limitations

• The current encoder uses a simple LPC design with a large fixed quantization step, which the author describes as giving 'somewhat poor' quality below about 48 kbit/s; a better multi-pulse encoder is described as still in development.