How to download from Big Fish Games?

May 27, 2018

Hello all,

After spending about 2,5 hours here's my latest tutorial on how to download from Big Fish Games.

Before we start, you need BFG Game Manager installed. Get it here

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You have two options to get the installer:

1. Open C:\BigFishCache\GameManager\GameDB folder (this is the default download location)

Start downloading the game and keep an eye on the progress bar.
You'll see a folder named something like F_GAME_ID_T1L1 (_GAME_ID_ is the catalog number of the game). You'll find game setup inside that folder.
When it comes to 100% copy and paste the downloaded installer to a new location before it gets deleted.

2. You can use Wireshark (or any other network sniffer) to capture the location at the start of the transmission.

Open Wireshark. You can get WS here

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Start capturing your default connection (wired or wireless) before downloading anything.
At game manager window, start downloading the game and stop after 1% or so.
Go back to Wireshark and stop capturing (you can set an auto stop limit - read WS manual on how to do that)
Click on protocol column and search for HTTP requests (not for TCP or others)
The second GET request holds the download location (see picture)

You can also use Nir Sofer's SmartSniff tool which is a lightweight packet sniffer to capture the link. But again you need to start capturing before you start dowloading the game. The biggest data sized packet will be your target (depending on your capture time).

You can get the tool here

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Afaik the download urls or the file names are random (looks like SHA-1 hash but you can't be sure - I've checked file hash, name hash, id hash - no matches)

My test subject was Fright Chasers: Soul Reaper Collector's Edition

game info page

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14280 is the _GAME_ID_ mentioned above

download url (captured by WS)

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the file was named to

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by the game manager. There are lots of json, js files which are the core components of game manager. May be digging deeper would reveal the naming scheme at some point. But I don't have plans of wasting more time :lol:

Hope this helps!