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Secret revealed


sage

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Lets me reveal the secret behind my Happy New Year post.

Some people suspected that it was a joke. Some suspected its been a nice hack. But seems nobody tried to use one of the search machines.

The main work was neither to create the three levels nor to patch them into the ROM. The main work was to change the Level Codes. Unexpected, isnt it?

There is a large community supporting Chips Challenge... but not for the Lynx. There exists an active(!) community which created not only level editors but thousands of levels and the utilities to convert them in a format to be run my the M$DOS version of CC ... and the Lynx version. This was actually done YEARS ago by Brian Raiter. As a starting point a few links:

 

Tile World, c4: http://www.muppetlabs.com/~breadbox/software/tworld/
Newsgroup: http://chips.kaseorg.com/newsgroup/
Forums: http://cczone.invisionzone.com/

 

If you like to read a bit about how to patch existing ROMs, you can find the story in the usual location, including a script which enhances the original script by some nice features (like level codes). Have phun creating your own ROMs.

 

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You cannot. Copyright etc.. Even the orginal author (Chuck) tried to get it back, but they wanted 100k$ for it.

Different issue. I know that, but it doesn't stop people from doing it.

 

The very hacking of the ROM to insert new maps and display a message like "Happy 2013" violates the rights already. Yet people do it, they hack the code and create and offer for download something that they mustn't. Not only do they mess with someone else's code, but they present the character and world in a way arguably not intended by the copyright holder. Technically, wishing people a happy 2013 sends iut a message that is now connected to that IP but may not reflect the company's view.

 

You're already on copyright violating territory with small stuff like that. Creating more new levels for the game and offering a patch for "CC 2" doesn't really go any further than other unsanctioned levels for the DOS-version. The ROMs hosted on AA are all illegal. The Chip's Challenge ROM people will modify with this is too, unless you dump it yourself. Welcome to copyrights, next to nothing you do with an existing game beside playing is legal.

 

Just don't go any further to draw attention. Like doing cartridges for the new levels.

And even going that far goes mostly unnoticed, as shown by the numerous homebrews sold on AA (store and forum) violating copyrights and trademarks. Homebrew versions of Pac-Man, Bentley Bear, Star Castle, Wolfenstein, Alien etc... repros of stuff like Tron Collection for the Inty... carts with unreleased games like Eye of the Beholder or the Tiny Toons alpha on Jaguar.

 

Honestly, hacking the game an editing levels of a downloaded ROM is not kosher already, so if the AA community would design a map pack for download, it's not taking it much further.

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Sadly the copyright stuff will not be settled before the year of Robotron, 2084 (nice coincedence). That's when the copyright will expire. Or earlier in the unlikely event the rights holder releases it into the PD earlier.

 

As I said, personally I wouldn't worry. Even posting those pics could be a point of dispute as my example pointed out, since the copyright holder may not wish us to have a happy 2014 and we are made to believe he does.^^

 

It's a matter of how far you go. Selling stuff like that would be a no-go I'd say, but the moment such tools are released you won't e able to stop people from offering their own levels for download instead of just playing them by themselves. And that's the CC2 I am talking about, the levels that will inevitably be made public by fans. ;)

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