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Kroah

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Posts posted by Kroah

  1. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I'm 29 and live in France at Orléans (near Paris) working as project manager (and sometimes as developer).

     

    I've played my first game on Atari 2600 and my father bought the Atari 800 XL (initially with a tape recorder, but quickly got the costly 1050 disk drive) and on which we were spending nights copying code (full of bugs) from a french magazine named "Hebdogiciel".

     

    My next computers were an Atari 520 STF upgraded to a 1040 and an Amiga 500 (for my brother). I hated the war between those 2 computers because both have strength and weakness.

     

    I have no special hardware nor any of these systems at home (everything stocked at my parents home).

     

    Cheers,

    Pascal (Kroah)

  2. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    Hi all,

     

    The ST Version uses at least 2 simultaneous palettes. One for the view representation (exterior, buildings interior), one for the text (top and bottom). Personally, i've played the 8bits and 16bits on Atari and i've found them very similar in the gameplay. Even if the gfx are really different on Atari ST, i love them. I've played on Amiga and PC too, but found them like unfinished. The atari 8bits version is far superior from the others, but the disks accesses are killing the game.

     

    I'm actually decompiling the Atari ST version of the game (and not the 8bits) because it progressively keeps everything in memory (easier to work on). I thought the coding was much simpler (it's a port) but, heh, it's like a mini multi-tasking environnement with function vectors everywhere. I've found lot of interactions between stats like the 8bits version does. For me, it sustains this version is really similar to the original (with some added features like spells). But it will only be confirmed when someone will have decompiled the 8bits version. And it's not an easy one.

     

    What do you think about the differences between the Atari ST and 8bits version ?

     

    Kroah

  3. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    Thank you James. The disk images you've sent me work perfectly.

     

    The MBC-550 was just a PC clone. I can't find a special version listed for it anywhere but that page so it might just be the PC version.

     

    I don't think so. The gfx of the PC version with different video mode (CGA, EGA, VGA and Tandy) and the levels aren't the same. But they're similar to the Coco version:

    post-8766-1173487979_thumb.png

    post-8766-1173488005_thumb.png

    post-8766-1173488011_thumb.png

  4. Posted

    Thank you all for your kind words. This push me everyday to keep on working :)

     

    Like Blake said it, i've added a preview of my tool to my site.

    Next I will add (when ready) a ST disk containing new levels. And finally i'll release the editor.

     

    @Cybergoth: the release of the source code is planned, but i must clean it before. It's not on my priority list :sad:

     

    PS: If anyone has got a playable color version of the disk image on Coco, i'll be really happy :P

  10. Posted

    Hi all !

     

     

    I have opened a new section in my website about the game "Seven Cities of Gold". I've almost decompiled the game, but i have no time to write everything down now.

     

    I have added a new Utility allowing you to browse the maps and your saved game too !

     

    Thanks to Goochman having provided me a saved game of a very peaceful Explorer... :ponder: (Berzerker is a better word i think). I've corrected lots of bugs :)

     

     

    @Heaven/TQA: nice informations about RoFL. But the disassembled code is a real pain to read... i love gotos so much...

     

    @doctorclu: Ultima games are already well known, not very intersting for me. But i think i'll try something with Archon!

     

    @Gury: Thank you, every links to my site are welcome.

     

    Have fun,

    Kroah

  13. Posted

    Hi all,

     

    I'll post any updates to my Website here :)

     

    And by the way, i announce you that the Gateway to Aphsai section is opened !

     

    The status of my website is actually:

    - Mule decompiled, section to finish (translation)

    - Dragonriders of Pern decompiled, section to write

    - Gateway to Apshai decompiled, section opened

    - Return of Heracles decompiled, section opened, Utility to add !

    - Colonial Conquest decompiled, section to write

    - Phantasie 3 decompiled, section to write

     

    If you have any comments/suggestions, i'll be happy to read them :)

     

    PS: I use the verb "decompile" and not "disasssemble" because half of the binaries i decompile come from compiled C code (most from Atari ST) and i go further than disassembling (i translate some disassembled code to pseudo code to understand the mechanisms of the game).

     

    Have Fun !

    Kroah

  14. Posted

    Hi BLarry71,

     

    You have sent me a PM. Your question is interesting, and i think it's not really off topic. That's why i'll answer it in this forum, some people could found it useful :)

     

    hello,

    I have never seen the key or staff appear in the game! I see them in the code but how did you get pictures of them?

    When you play a dungeon, the level is stored from $1000 to $2FFF. The player start at X cell 32, Y cell 5 (for dungeon 1 level 1). The width of a map is 128 cells, so a cell in front of the player is at adress $1000+32*128+5+(2 or 3 cells) = $2007. You can pock this cell with a number and you'll see the objects of the game, but you can't pick it up because the item is not added to the list in the dungeon (Most objects are split in 2 cells, $24 and $25 for the staff for example). Only 6 bits ($00-$3F) are used (bit 7 holds the information 'discovered (0) or not (1)' and bit 8 holds 'if the cell is passable (0) or not (1)').

     

    1 byte:

    $00 Wall

    $01 Door

    $02 Secret Door

    $03 Floor

    $04 Floor border

     

    2 bytes:

    $08 Key

    $0A Armor

    $0C Weapon

    $0E Spell

    $12 Bow

    $14 Arrows

    $16 Potion

    $18 Shield

    $1A Gauntlet

    $1C Amulet

    $1E Helm

    $20 Wand

    $22 Cross

    $24 Staff

    $26 Trap

    $2E Chest

    $3F Extern

     

    Calls the debugger (F8) when you just start level 1 dungeon 1 and types:

    c 2007 24

    c 2008 25

     

    Also do you know what these letters are for? They look like upside-down "FC"

     

    0fc1 |  X   X |
0fc2 |  X  X X|
0fc3 |  XX X  |
0fc4 |  XX X  |
0fc5 |  X  X X|
0fc6 |  XX  X |

     

    It's a coincidence, the adress $0fc0 and following are part of the end level bonus code (by the way it looks like the death of jumpman too ;)):

     

    [...]
0FB6	 INC strengthMax
0FB9	 INC strengthRealTime
0FBA
0FBC loc_0FBC:
0FBC	 LDA console; 001: luck
				; 010: strength
				; 100: agility

0FBE	 AND #4
0FC0	 BEQ $0FD3
0FC2	 LDX #19
0FC4 loc_0FC4:
0FC4	 LDA string6,X	   ; __HIGHER_AGILITY!__
[...]

     

    I'm doing the Gateway to Apshai part of my website, you'll be able to see the effect of the Wand (as if it was generated in the dungeon... Suspense !) :)

     

    Regards,

    Kroah

  16. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    Do you plan to release the source code for this? I would be really interested to see the algorithm.

     

    Yes, i'll release the source code with the binary soon. I clean a little the code of the algorithm because it's full of wonderfull gotos (thanks the old coding style in assembler :ponder: ).

     

    I have been studying the game Telengard recently and it has a really interesting way of generating it's map. The map in Telengard is huge, 50 levels with 2,000,000 rooms, but it doesn't generate if randomly. It has a clever little algorithm that generates the map mathematically so that it's the same every time you play the game.

     

    In this game, the maps are randomly generated but are the same each game. The game uses an (ugly) random number generator to compute the sequence of random numbers. If the seed is the same, the sequence will be the same. That's why the maps are the same each game, but are programmatically generated 'randomly'. That's why the first step of this reverse engineering was to write the same random number generator the game uses. A good way to have a different sequence every game, is (generally) to use the clock as seed. But the developpers wanted fixed seeds to let the player learn the dungeons and choose the good and bad ones. The lack of memory prevented to store all the dungeons (9k per dungeon). So they've done a random map generator using fixed seed.

     

    Does your word 'mathematically' mean the same thing ?

     

    edit: spelling

  17. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    I've added the feature suggested by Rybags. You can now play the game with the seeds you have carefully chosen. Some maps are really interesting, some are... really ugly :P

     

    But i still think this map generator is surprising for its time :) Another game having a good random map generator (some years later) is 'Captive'. I have the original generator for PC created by mindscape in 1992 and it's... surprising for its time too.

     

    Have fun !

     

    v1.01

    Added: The seed of each dungeon can be modified.

    Added: Load feature which can get the seeds from an existing ATR image of the game.

    Added: Save feature which can put the seeds to a new working ATR image of the game.

    GatewayToApshaiUtility___v1.01.zip

    post-8766-1158543181_thumb.png

  18. Posted

    Thank you for your kind words.

     

    Like i've said in the ReadMe, the Dungeon 8 from Level 7 loops endlessly.

     

    Could someone tests the cartridge version on a real Atari ? It's easy to do (Supposing you have the hardware) because you can skip each level until the level 7 and choose the dungeon 8.

     

    I've tried 3 different disk version of the game, but i had the same result. Never tested the cartridge version, nor the apple II version (dunno if they have the same dungeon generator algorithm though...).

     

    Being able to change the seed would be good.

     

    You could incorporate a feature that automatically generates the right patched .ROM image in that case.

     

    Huhu, i like this feature !

  19. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    Hi all,

     

    I've just finished to reverse engineer the map generation part of the game 'Gateway to Apshai'.

     

    I've done an utility you can download in attachment to show the process of the generation and the resulting map with all the items, monsters, traps and chests. For now, the seeds are the ones from the original game, but maybe i'll add the possibility to choose any seed you want.

     

    I've copy/pasted the readme file here.

     

    Gateway to Apshai Utility - v1.00 by Kroah

    ==========================================

     

    This utility allows you to generate the dungeon maps of the game 'Gateway to

    Apshai'. It's based on a disassembled dump of the Atari PAL version (50Hz).

    The ATR file used is included in the archive (CRC32 0xD60949B2).

     

    The generation can be done step-by-step by clicking on the corresponding

    checkbox 'Step by Step' and iterating with the button 'Iterate' (Easy ? ;)

    You can uncheck the checkbox to stop the step-by-step mode.

     

    The map can be saved at any moment to a PNG picture.

     

    Items, monsters, traps and chests can be clicked on the map (or on the list at

    the right) and some informations will appear in the bottom right panel.

     

    The game is split in 8 levels (beginning at level 1) and at each level, the

    player is asked to choose among 16 dungeons.

     

     

    Known bug in the game

    ---------------------

    The Dungeon 8 from Level 7 seems bugged, the generation never end. Both

    this utility and the game can't produce this map (never tested on a true

    Atari or with the cartridge version). Someone confirms ?

     

     

    Prerequisite

    ------------

    This utility is written in C# and needs the Microsoft Framework .NET 2.0.

    It won't run without it and will crash as soon as you'll launch it. You only

    need the the 'Redistributable Package' not the SDK (Software Development Kit).

     

    You can download the '.NET Framework Version 2.0 Redistributable Package' at:

     

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/dow...es/default.aspx

     

     

    Contact

    -------

    If you have some questions, want to leave me a word or simply discuss, you

    can contact me by email or through my forum at my decompilation website:

     

    http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/

     

     

    Releases

    --------

     

    v1.00 Initial release.

     

    Have Fun !

    Kroah

    (Pascal BRINGER)

    GatewayToApshaiUtility___v1.00.zip

    post-8766-1158542971_thumb.png

  21. Posted

    Hello all,

     

    I'm looking for the manual of the game "Age of Adventure: Return of Heracles".

    I've only found the text manual of the "Age of Adventure: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from Project 64.

     

    Could someone make a (good) scan of the manual if you own it ? I want to use it for my website.

     

    Thanks in advance,

    Pascal

  22. Posted

    Does anyone already finished at least one or all of these games ?

     

    Warriors of Ras I: Dunzhin

    Warriors of Ras II: Kaiv

    Warriors of Ras III: Wylde

    Warriors of Ras IV: Ziggurat

     

    When i was young, i rememeber to always die after few battles. Is there any trick to survive ? Or i've missed something ?

     

    Before playing them again, i'll want to hear your opinions :)

     

    Thanks,

    Kroah

    • Like 1

  25. Posted · Edited by Kroah

    Another thing that may help is looking at the original document--some of the goofier parts of the translation are things that are originally in English.

    Mostly pretty clear, but some odd-seeming changes.

    Yeah, at first i was using google and babel tanslation service (for www). But the length of the document translated was limited. This solution was good because it didn't try to translate the sentences already in english.

     

    Now, i use a software from Systran, it's not limited in length, pretty fast, but it try to translate the english part. To avoid this, i can put some tags in the document, but i should remove them when i'll translate it manually.

     

    That's why for now you'll find very strange things like double-translated sentences... Next week, i'll translate it manually.

     

    Sorry for the convenience.

     

    Kroah

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