Games with bugs

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I just went to atarimania forum, after longer time. And seen this my article there. Was posted in 2012.

Done few corrections in it, right now:

 

"Games with bugs

This should be list of known bugs in game originals.
Bugs like:
Not possible to finish game - probably the worst case.
Diverse errors occasionally - like graphic ones - but it may happen on certain configs, TOS versions only.
Not working on STE - but not because TOS version.
Not working on specific configs or emulators - because silly bug.
Not working with more RAM in machine.
Bad files, corrupted data on original floppies - some releases of game involved.
Other.


Iron Lord: not possible to finish maze - no stairs down from 6th level.
Additionally, single floppy English release (Action 16) has corrupted file, and game will
crash after winning battle.

Crazy Cars 2 - after doing all routes, driving thru final location makes nothing
- instead some message, congrat. you can only drive further.

Dyter-07 - game crashes at final level (descent to end boss). Code/data bug.
After some hacking I reached and defeated end boss, and may say that it is
poorest of all them - just to mention.

Trantor - one version of game tend to crash after some playing.
Recognizable by 45283 bytes long executable.


Bad release:

Tetra Quest - US release has corrupted last 2 files on floppy. - Correction: Microdeal release - should be same for UK and US .

Iron Lord, action 16 release - corrupted file, crashes after winning battle.



Not working on STE - because bugs:

Grand Monster Slam: palette writing overshot - on STE will see lines instead graph.

Hyperforce - same as above.

Nightdawn - writing into video pointer crashes on STE. (On ST does nothing).




Not working in Steem with current Pasti.dll :

Rubicon - there is silly bug in code (forgotten #), what causes both floppy
drives being selected at once. On real HW, with solo floppy drive it harms
not, and likely not on 2 drive configs, when second drive is empty. If Pasti is
inactive, it works in Steem.

 

Not working on higher TOS versions - but not from usual reasons like more
low RAM occupied or Timer-C problem - caused by bugs in code.

Deflector - stoopid bug with address register: copy (w instead l) in game.

Heimdall - graphic bug appears by running on higher TOS versions. Because
some silly code part.



Not working on specific configs or emulators - because (silly) bug:

Pro Tennis Tour - will crash on 2MB TT, if going straight in tournament - because
uninitialized var. - then try to access RAM area between 2-4MB, what on ST(E) does
nothing, but on TT with 2MB causes bus error.
Well, this is really very specific error, and likely only few people, or even
only me noticed it - but is interesting, and needed some time to track down.

Technocop - crashes on TT, Falcon because silly bug with sr setting.

Rick Dangerous II - '0FFF' bug - and it is present in some others. Makes trouble on
TT only - surely, the reason is mistype by coding, so we have something like: $FFF8800 instead $FFFF8800 or $FF8800 . Problems only with 32-bit address bus.

Ivanhoe - '0FFF' bug - see above.

EPIC - If play with mouse on Falcon, will loose controls after little time. The reason is some
strange code (in traps) activated periodically if 68030 is detected - but it does nothing useful.
I guess that because game is released in 1992, they planned Falcon support, but since it delayed game is published without testing on Falcon.


Not working with more RAM in machine:
There is many. For instance Sidewinder.





Other:

Wolfenstein 3D - this is not commercial game, and is not really finished. I found diverse bugs and
partially fixed it. But some levels still make problems. According to coder, he placed crucial parts of code in low 32K RAM, for extra speed. But that area is TOS workspace, so what works under one TOS version, may crash under other. Bad idea for TOS calling game.

Crossland - in audio code IR level is lowered, what may cause activating IR again, before current is finished - and it causes crash. On ST(E) it happens very rare, but on TT for instance after few seconds.

Shiftrix - I don't know on what they tested it, because there is extremely silly bug at start: enabling interrupt before setting it's vector !

Nicky 2 - even if game self needs only 512KB, it crashes with 512K RAM only. Because bug in code.



Special cases, affecting mostly hard disk adaptations (with exit to Desktop opt.) :

Sometimes RAM area above 512KB is intentionally cleared, but there are cases that it is because bugs:

Prehistoric Tale - mistype d7 instead d0 in code.

In many games, mostly graphic code has overshots, writing in higher RAM - Vroom for instance.

IKBD coding seems as big problem - there is a lot of games with bad IKBD code. Usually, playing on regular HW, from floppy you will not notice it. But if doing exit to Desktop from game strange things may happen, if IKBD chip is driven nut. Bad IKBD code may cause problems in Steem too - which has not perfect IKBD emulation. I guess that lack of good documentation is the reason for many bad coding.


If someone of game coders, publishers accidentally reads this, and has some objections, corrections, info about updated versions, feel free to write here.

And of course, I expect users that write here own experiences. "

 

I found some others in meantime, of course. Maybe will write about them, one day .

 

[marakatti]

Was Batman The Movie already fixed? On the last level if you die, the hero is placed outside the church and cannot reach the playing area anymore.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Was Batman The Movie already fixed? On the last level if you die, the hero is placed outside the church and cannot reach the playing area anymore.

I see diverse releases at atarimania. Possible that problem exists only in some version.

I did hard disk adapt based on first 2 disk release. With trainer was possible to finish. Or was just so good that didn't die there ? Or may be just got report that someone finished it. Really don't remember now.

[marakatti]

It is present at least on the original 2 disk retail release (the first game i ever bought in 1990). I need to check if it was fixed in the budget release.

 

Your adaption seem to use the internal cheat code with infinite lives and a level skip, so it's easy to check that version too when i'm on the computer next time:)

[Megalomaniac]

Didn't the budget reissue of Bad Company kill you immediately?

[+DarkLord]

Just asking, but didn't a lot of these games get "patched" after going through

the HD adaptation process? (example, P.Pera)...

 

Thanks.

 

[Megalomaniac]

On 9/23/2022 at 1:54 AM, DarkLord said:

Just asking, but didn't a lot of these games get "patched" after going through

the HD adaptation process? (example, P.Pera)...

 

Thanks.

 

Probably, and those patches are awesome, but many of us would ideally prefer to play from unmodified boxed originals, and its not really acceptable for those to leave the publisher with game-breaking faults, or incompatibilities with existing hardware - and its useful for us to know. In those days you couldn't just release patch after patch over the internet until it worked properly. Ideally they should have been checking games on faster processors and higher memory amounts too, as it was clear that upgrading a system was a much more realistic opportunity than on the 8-bits.

Edited September 24, 2022 by Megalomaniac

[MasterMotorola]

I believe "Centipede" had lots of bugs. 😆

[.mad.]

53 minutes ago, MasterMotorola said:

I believe "Centipede" had lots of bugs. 😆

that's because they didn't have "mushroom" for the code. 😛

 

[krupkaj]

F29 Retaliator does not work with more than 2MB RAM for me.

[Zogging Hell]

Lords of Chaos has a blank title screen on more than 512kb (minor bug as you can still click through and play the game as normal), and I believe there is a strange bug in Laser Squad by the same programmer, where if you press the fire button too many times/ too quickly during the inter round stats screens (i.e. try and rush through them) between game turns, you can trigger some sort of series of explosions thing during the subsequent turn which randomly blows up the whole map killing everyone off (this may be some copy protection thing though, although it has happened on two original disks that I own).

[+DarkLord]

On 9/24/2022 at 4:27 AM, Megalomaniac said:

Probably, and those patches are awesome, but many of us would ideally prefer to play from unmodified boxed originals, and its not really acceptable for those to leave the publisher with game-breaking faults, or incompatibilities with existing hardware - and its useful for us to know. In those days you couldn't just release patch after patch over the internet until it worked properly. Ideally they should have been checking games on faster processors and higher memory amounts too, as it was clear that upgrading a system was a much more realistic opportunity than on the 8-bits.

 

I prefer *having* the unmodified, boxed originals but when it comes to *playing* them, especially if they

are multi-disk, then far and away I prefer playing an adapted version from a mass storage device...

 

No disk swapping and much, much faster, thank you very much.  

 

 

[zzip]

On 9/24/2022 at 2:50 PM, MasterMotorola said:

I believe "Centipede" had lots of bugs. 😆

And they made the users deal with the bugs on their own too!   Lazy coders!!