Greetings all! Just found this great place in my search for more AR City info - what a fantastic resource
I'd fully agree with the sentiments that the 8-Bit Atari version was the best; I spent *way* too much time playing it when I was younger... and have recently rediscovered how cool it is via the Atari800MacX emulator!
I've been running a few characters through their paces in an attempt to get one who can compete in the challenge, but of the first half dozen none have made it past level three... the worst thing was that the sixth character was doing _really_ well, but it all fell apart when I was taking a screenshot... no image file was generated, and I observed that whenever I pressed the F13 key it appeared to advance the clock - the sky got darker, night fell, rain came... but then when I tried to do anything else the keys didn't respond!! Argh!

Reboot and lose all progress... curses!
I have fond memories of placing a help-wanted ad in Page 6/NAU once asking for AR:City help - some guy from Scotland called to let me know the best weapons (Magical Flamesword and Magical Spiked shield, maybe Tower shield) and armour (Magical Crystal Plate)... the only time I've ever found anything remotely interesting was getting a Flamesword once - but I didn't check its status... not magical, but Cursed! Typical
Anyway, my 7th character was getting fed up of being kicked around, so I had a look around for some ways to hack the game (knowing that this will invalidate that characters competition status) - after finding the FAQ on eobet.com, I took the plunge and went into hack mode. My fiancee is probably really p'd off with me for playing around with this all day, but it's been fun... and I've found quite a lot more interesting and useful stuff...
Format is Memory location, followed by a description, and some of my notes... use these at your own risk (for example, increasing the hunger/thirst/fatigue counters too much kills the character! I found that out the hard way... oops!)
8924 X coordinate (current)
8925 Y coordinate (current)
8926 X coordinate (previous)
8927 Y coordinate (previous)
892e Strength
892f
8930
8937 Intelligence
8938
8939
8940 Wisdom
8941
8942
8949 Skill
894a
894b
8952 Stamina
8953
8954
895b Charisma
895c
895d
8964 Speed?
8965
8966
897d Potions *2^0
897e Poisoned (not sure if the value indicates the strength of poisoning?)
89d0 Noticeability? (appears to be a count down, or something?)
8aa6 Experience *2^24
8aa7 Experience *2^16
8aa8 Experience *2^8
8aa9 Experience *2^0
8aaa Level *2^24
8aab Level *2^16
8aac Level *2^8
8aad Level *2^0
8ab8 Hit points (current) *2^8
8ab9 Hit points (current) *2^0
8abc Hit points (maximum) *2^8
8abd Hit points (maximum) *2^0
8abe Gold *2^24
8abf Gold *2^16
8ac0 Gold *2^8
8ac1 Gold *2^0
8ac2 Silver *2^24
8ac3 Silver *2^16
8ac4 Silver *2^8
8ac5 Silver *2^0
8ac6 Copper *2^24
8ac7 Copper *2^16
8ac8 Copper *2^8
8ac9 Copper *2^0
8aca Gems *2^24
8acb Gems *2^16
8acc Gems *2^8
8acd Gems *2^0
8ace Jewels *2^24
8acf Jewels *2^16
8ad0 Jewels *2^8
8ad1 Jewels *2^0
8f9d ?
8f9e ?
8f9f ?
8fa0 ?
8fa1 ?
8fa2 Inebriation (0-FE=Tipsy, FF=Drunk)
8fa3 Blackout?
8fa4 Blindness?
8fa5 ?
8fa6 Treasure finding (each item found decreases counter?) (WOO!!)
8fab Food packets *2^0
8fac Water flasks *2^0
8fad Hunger level (00-06=Normal, 07-0C=Hungry, 0D+=Famished)
8fae Thirst level (00-06=Normal, 07-0B=Thirsty, 0C-0F=Very Thirsty, 10+=Parched)
8faf Fatigue (00-0f=Normal, 0f-?=Tired)
8fb1 ?
8fb2?
Some other observations:
8b0a-d seems to contain the primary weapon, and 8b0e-8b11 the secondary. The first two addresses of each (e.g. 8b0a-b and 8b0e-f, respectively) contain the low and high byte memory address for the relevant weapon - for example, the 8b0a=94, 8b0b=8D. If I was to look in location 8D94, there's the details for my Magical Sword (the first 7 bytes are either all 00 for a normal weapon, or CDC1C7C9C3C1CC for a magic variant; not sure about cursed).
The second two addresses from the original location (e.g. 8b0c and 8b0d) are again a low-high memory address pair; e.g. 89 BD points to memory location BD89. This location seems to be a three byte number containing the strength of the weapon, but I'm not too sure what each of the bits mean... but shove them each up to FF, and whatever you're wielding becomes unstoppable
Hope that this is of interest to someone - if anyone else has done any digging, then I'd be interested to see what you've found...
(e.g. where is the alignment held? Temperature must be in there somewhere, too, as is the disease... Are the potions random, or are their details held somewhere? etc. etc.)
Regards!