Atarius Maximus

Yes, I'd say it's finished. It's hard to know when to stop, though! I could still add barriers or a simple maze into the empty rooms, change more of the colors, or make more changes to the black castle maze, but honestly, I'm pretty happy with how it is now. That's a tough one. I kind of liked them too, but they really simplified the game, and didn't always put you in the same place if you backtracked through one (which was a little confusing). If you went straight down out of the blue maze into the added lower exit, you would end up near the White Castle, completely bypassing the invisible maze. I didn't like that. And because the room graphics are re-used in many portions of the map, it's not possible to pick and choose which rooms have the extra exits. Thank you. It was alot of fun to make, I hope everyone has a good time with it. I'll have to check out E.T. - The Extra Testical, I've never looked at that one! AM

Awesome work Rob! Do you have any documentation you could share on how you pulled this off?

Here's a map I made for this hack: *EDIT 3/11/03* I updated this map with the final version I just completed.

Beats me, it was moycon's idea and I just thought it was kind of funny. "Furious Revenging Evil Dragons" fits pretty well! AM

I didn't know you made the map! Actually, I used your map as a working model for my changes, I modified it, and then changed the code to match it. Maybe you should get partial credit for this hack too. AM

Just for you, Moycon. http://www.stevesfiles.com/fred.bin

Yes. Actually, there was just a thread about this. I believe you just use the -q option on the command line. Here's the thread: http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18877

It's finished! After many, many hours of work in the past 24 hours, this hack is finally complete. I've playtested & completed all of the levels several times, and there don't seem to be any problems or bugs. Here is the final list of the changes, as well as some new screenshots: General Changes: *Title Screen Added ("Adventure+") *Red Dragon Difficulty increased (movement & bite speed) *Left and right border walls removed in main corridor *Game 1: Bat & Red Dragon added, one item moved to new location *Game 2: 4 Items are in new locations, including the Chalice. If you have difficulty solving the new layout of game 2, there is a spolier included in this thread, a few posts back. *Note: The extra exits that were in many of the rooms in the previous revisions have been removed from the final version. They made the game too easy. Graphics Changes: *Dragons changed to look more like dragons and less like ducks. *Chalice, magnet, castle gates, sword, and bridge graphics all changed. *Castles made wider at the top (I just thought it looked cooler!) *Barrier Obstacles added to many rooms. *All-New Blue Maze *All-New Invisible Maze *All-New White Castle Maze *Revised Black Castle Maze Color Changes: *Yellow Castle changed to a dark orange color *Yellow Key changed to orange, to match new yellow castle color *Blue Maze changed to a darker blue *Startup screen changed from purple to tan *Level select numbers changed to dark blue *Main Corridor colors changed to dark blue and dark purple *Room below white castle changed to dark purple

Ok, Adventure Plus is now 99% completed, I just need to go over the code one more time & do a little play testing to make sure there aren't any errors. Here's what is included in what will probably be the final update: *White Castle maze is all new *Black Castle maze was revised, but is not completely new. *Most of the extra exits in the rooms were removed, because I actually found them to make the game too easy. They allowed you to completely bypass one of the mazes. *Colors changed in main corridor to a darker shade. One final, significant change is the placement of the Chalice (in Game 2). Just in case you want to try and solve it yourself, I'm going to type the following in super small print .... you can cut & paste into notepad and make the font bigger if you want to read the spoiler. The hidden dot is now an integral part of retreiving the chalice and finishing the game (in Game #2). It has been changed to a line graphic and flashes, I guess you could call it a "gold bar". The chalice is now hidden in the screen that contains the easter egg (which no longer has any text, I moved that image and used it in the title screen). You'll have to take the dot (now a "gold bar") and take it to where the easter egg screen is to find the chalice. This of course does not affect Game #1, the chalice is still in the black castle in that game. Game 3 doesn't seem to allow the chalice to be placed in the hidden room, so this change only affects Game 2. Everything appears to be fine, I didn't find any bugs during my run through of game #2 tonight. I did notice that there were problems with the black castle maze in all of the previous revisions, that's been resolved. I'll do my final play testing on Friday and post the completed version by Friday afternoon. AM

Yeah, I actually prefer the Atari picture label style too, it was fun to make both though. I don't have a definite ETA, but hopefully within the next 2 or 3 days I'll have everything done that I want to. Here's what I'd still like to accomplish: *Completely change the red maze in the white castle *Completely change the invisible maze in the black castle *Change a few more of the colors. I never cared for the bright green corridor rooms, I may change them to a darker color. I could also change the color of the dragons and the other castles, but I may just leave them the same. *Item Placement. I may still change around the locations of the items in Game 2, but I don't want to make the game too tedious or difficult. I could make some items accessible with only the magnet or the bridge, for example, but that could make the game tortuous to play. That's all I can think of for now, all that stuff is going to take at least 2 or 3 more days to pull off. If you or anyone has any other suggestions, I'm open to ideas for additional changes. AM

I would absolutely give the Al's permission to sell this hack in the AA Store if they decide they want to. That thought inspired me to make a few label mock ups, I threw these together during my lunch hour today: . The dragon image wasn't created from scratch, but it's heavily modified from an image I found on the 'net. AM

I just finished my latest update. The Invisible Maze in Games 2 & 3 has been completely changed. Download link (again): [EDIT]: Please go to the first post in this thread for the latest downloads.

I guess that's a pretty subjective thing, there's no way for me to quantify what makes a map "improve" game play. It's hard to improve on the original, I know. As far as taking too long to find objects or find you way around, I think that's just because it's new and you aren't used to it. I could practically finish a game of the original Adventure with my eyes closed now, those maps are so familiar to me. Again, I was just shooting for "different" here, whether or not it's better is up for debate. Heh. Yeah, I know about that, and that's because of how Warren originally programmed the screens to connect. All I did in this hack was open up some doors... Where they lead you, and where you end up when you turn around is all based on how the playfield map is layed out in the original code...I didn't change a thing. I thought it was kind of an interesting twist on the game, but if you (and others) really hate it I'll just remove the extra exits/entrances that I added. If you want to see for yourself how the rooms connect, look at the map on Warren's website: http://www.warrenrobinett.com/adventure/adv-map1.gif The basic layout of this map is exactly the same as my hack, I didn't add any new screens or change how they connect. Ha! You're right, they do sort of resemble chickens. I did my best though, and I still think they look better than the original "dragons"! AM

Thanks for all the name ideas, but I think my working title is going to be "Adventure Plus". I've been known to change my mind, but I think that title fits pretty well. I've just finished the next stage of development on this hack, there is now a completely new, designed from scratch blue maze. Let me know what you think! Here is the lastest ROM: [EDIT]: Please go to the first post in this thread for the latest downloads. AM

That is a valid argument, however there are a whole lot of hacks here at AA that don't use the original title of the game in the title. "Adventure Plus" does sound pretty good, though! AM

Heh. Yeah, I've had a difficult time coming up with a good, unique name. I kind of like Channel 2's suggestion of Camelot, but I don't know yet. Actually, I'm just going to concentrate on making the additional changes to the game, and not worry so much about the title. AM

I renamed it to Adventure II, for lack of a better idea. I changed the title screen to use the new name. Download: www.stevesfiles.com/adv2.bin Cool, I'll have to take a look. AM

Thanks. This hack was made much easier using the detailed, commented Adventure disassembly on Nick Bensema's website (http://www.io.com/~nickb/atari). I've got a new G4 Mac and a Pentium PC, actually. I love OS X, but unfortunately having a copy of Windows running at home is a necessity, I need it for my job as a Windows 2000 network administrator. So yes, this was hacked on a Windows PC, using DASM and Hack-O-Matic (for easy graphics changes!). AM

I realize that. I was just trying to think of something original other than "Adventure hack", and lots of people change the name of games they've hacked. If anyone has any different suggestions, I'm open to ideas. Well, I guess a rename is in order. Your project was first, and it's a homebrew, not a hack, so I'll definitely concede the "Quest" name to you! I never meant to torture anyone Just wanted to try and make my favorite game better. Thanks. Doubling the ROM & Maze size had crossed my mind, actually, I'm just not sure if I can pull it off or not. AM

You are not the only one! I've yet to finish a game of Decathlon. At some point, I always accidently hit L1. AM

Edit: I updated the subject line because I had to change the name of the hack. I set out to make some big changes to Adventure, and I'm about halfway done with what I'd eventually like to accomplish. I thought I'd share what I've done so far with everyone here. I still plan to make more completely new mazes for this game, among other things, but it's going to take some time. All of the changes I made do make the game a little bit more difficult, but definately not impossible. Here's what's included in this hack: Title Screen Added! (Edited: "Adventure+") Red Dragon Difficulty increased Left and right "missle" border walls removed in main corridor. Game 1: Bat & Red Dragon added, one item moved to new location Game 2: 3 Items are in new locations Graphic Changes: *Dragons changed to look more like dragons and less like ducks. *Chalice, magnet, castle gates, sword, and bridge graphics all changed. *Castles made wider at the top (I just thought it looked cooler!). *Barriers added to many rooms. Colors Changed: *Yellow Castle changed to a dark orange color *Yellow Key changed to match new yellow castle color *Blue Maze changed to a darker blue. *Startup screen changed from purple to tan. *Level select numbers changed to dark blue. Edit: Blue Maze was completely changed from scratch. Many rooms now have extra exits that can take you to some unexpected places! (Great for escaping from Rhindle...) The Castle mazes were not changed, but will be in a future revision! Take a look at the screenshots below to see some of the changes. EDIT 8/5/2005: Download links were removed, and latest versions were attached below. adv_plus: original version of Adventure Plus adv_plus_pe: Adventure Plus 2005 (Packrat Edition) adv_plus_pe_invis: Adventure Plus 2005 (All Invisible Rooms) adv_plus_pe_source: Commented Source code for Adventure Plus 2005 adv_plus_map: Map of the original Adventure Plus adv_plus_dev: All of the bins created during the development of Adv Plus Enjoy! AM adv_plus.zip adv_plus_pe.zip adv_plus_pe_invis.zip adv_plus_pe_source.zip adv_plus_map.zip adv_plus_dev.zip

That's strange. I just played Atlantis last night and got the patch at 30,000. I wonder if the A/B Difficulty setting has anything to do with it? AM

I was playing Starmaster last night, and discovered that if you start the game on any level, and just walk away and let your ship fly in area with no enemies, you will eventually receive the patch. It seems to be based on a timer, you don't actually have to accomplish anything in the game. This made it really easy to get the "Supreme Starmaster" patch! BTW, has anyone received the patch in Dragster or Boxing? I've KO'd the computer several times and got nothing, and I've raced in Dragster over 100 times in one sitting, and my best race was 6.21. How do you get the patches in these games??? AM

I've been a casual collector since 1980, again for a few years in the early 90's when the carts were cheap & plentiful at closeout stores, and just got back into it seriously earlier this year. I dug out my old boxes of Atari stuff about 10 months ago (I already had 100+ games that I bought new in the 1980's), found this website, and the collecting bug bit me hard. I've got a little over 400 loose Atari carts now, including label variations. I don't collect the boxes, it keeps my collecting costs down, and I don't have space for hundreds of boxes anyway. My showpiece title would have to be my loose copy of Boing in the Xonox case, which I just recently acquired in a trade here at AA! AM

This was one of my favorite games as a kid, my parents bought this one for me when it first came out. I agree that it's quite difficult, but I got pretty good at it. I'm going to have to pull this one out again!