I was closer to the end than expected.
I have finished the game, and my previous posts are needed to make sense of this one.
Before the grand finale, I wanted to tag something else that seems likely to have been an inspiration; not from Advanced D&D, but “Basic” D&D as published in 1977, also known as Holmes Basic.
Via Scrum in Miniature.
Remember, Cornucopia starts out in a cottage in a “fungus forest”.
You find yourself in a strange forest of giant fungus growths, they create an eerie feeling. No particular direction seems to suggest itself to you here. There is a particularly huge specimen here, with what appears a dark opening in it.
I originally contextualized this in relation to Goblin Towers, the author’s previous game, with the notion it was a “ruined” version of that map, but I didn’t know the level of D&D connection at the time.
In Search of the Unknown was an extremely popular module, as it was B1, the first created for the Basic Set and was even packaged with it for a time. The actual fungi location in the dungeon crawl is just a single room, number 22 on the map, the Garden.
The floor is covered with a carpet of tufted molds that extends to all the walls and even onto parts of the ceiling, obscuring the rock surface. The molds appear in a rainbow assortment of colors, and they are mixed in their appearance, with splotches, clumps, swirls, and patches presenting a nightmarish combination of clashing colors. This is indeed a fuzzy fairyland of the most forbidding sort, although beautiful in its own mysterious way …
B1 was intended as a “beginner adventure” (not just beginner players, but beginner Dungeon Masters). The author, Mike Carr, explained for the Goodman Games reprint:
…I wracked my brain to come up with as many interesting and mysterious features as I could think of for what could be considered within the place, particularly the garden of giant fungi and the room of pools. That had to be done considering that the adventurers were going to be low-level characters, so nothing could be too deadly or too challenging to overcome — and that meant that there were limited options on the design side.
Mike Carr picked the fungus room for the cover as he felt would be “striking as well as exotic”. The art was done by David Trampier and David Sutherland III; specifically, Trampier did a version with characters that were deemed too cartoony (the art later showed up in The Polyhedron Issue #5, they almost look like something from The Smurfs) and Sutherland (art director at the time) re-did the characters in a more realistic style that matched the look of the Holmes Basic cover.
Even though the Cornucopia forest is outside, the prominence of the B1 imagery at the time makes me believe the two are connected. An old blog post at Grognardia from an author recalling that period discusses the imagery being “seared” into their imagination. There was revised art in 1981, but it too was done with fungus.
Via Dungeon of Signs.
I had left off last time on being attacked by an ice devil and an ice warrior, and unable to win the battle. This leads directly to finding the Cornucopia (with one hiccup along the way as I had missed an item) so represents a climax with a denouement following (the treasures still need to all be arranged back at the cottage, and there’s one more thing that needs to be done in order to deliver the Horn of Plenty back to the gods).
Passing through the Hall of Regeneration whilst holding a mummified hand, rather spectacularly, causes it to grow back into a monster. Avoiding that fate allows you to reach the magic circle with a crystal key, but upon picking it up, you get attacked from the west by a ice devil and from the east by an ice warrior.
>GET KEY
Taken. As you lift the key an unseen panel lights up in the north wall. It says ‘UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY DETECTED GUARDS HAVE BEEN ALERTED’. As quickly as the sign appeared it disappears. You notice that two things have appeared to the east and west of you.>W
You are at the west side of the magic hall. There is an exit to the west. In the centre of the hall is a huge magic circle. The north and south ends of the hall can be reached by going northeast and southeast. There is an ice warrior here, he is very menacing.
The ice devil guardian has followed you.
You receive a gash in the arm from the Ice warrior.>KILL ICE WARRIOR WITH RUNE SWORD
The flat of your sword hits the ice warrior on the side knocking him over, it quickly regains its feet.
The Ice devil strikes you across the back as you attempt to run away. You get a numbing blow from the Ice warrior, you don’t feel too good.>KILL ICE WARRIOR WITH RUNE SWORD
You strike at the ice warrior but it easily side steps.
You manage to dodge the Ice devil’s thrust. You stagger back under a hail of blows from the Ice warrior.
The variety of messages is quite good, and there are even some rare ones (once I slipped on my own blood, causing me to dodge a deadly attack). This feels like — and ends up being — the climactic battle of the game.
The “ice warrior” isn’t specifically a D&D monster, but Cotton may have been thinking of Frost Giants from the first edition of AD&D. Source.
The two monsters will follow wherever you go, so I figured quite quickly the environment mattered. Back at the door opened with the hand, you can jump back into the main underground world, so I figured there had to be some opportunity back there. (You can also use the transport box, but upon arrival at the mirror room, in another classy/frustrating touch, one of the guardians smashes the mirror instead of attacks you.)
I tried the warmth of the dragon, or even getting the dragon fire to kill one of the enemies rather than myself. I tried to see if the toxic tree would help. I tried fighting in the dark. (I found out that the “grue” stayed down in the troll area, so you can safely walk around in the dark! You get followed by the devil and warrior but they don’t attack until the lights come on again.)
I was making things too hard on myself: the key was the Hall of Regeneration. I think it occurred to me early but I thought the picture meant the devil and warrior would receive regeneration, not me.
You are in a hall the walls of which are covered in murals. The theme of the murals seems to be that of severely wounded indeed fatally wounded people recovering in a miraculous manner. The murals also contain pictures of the corpses of many hideous beings, these seem to be an interlinked part of the story. There are doorways to the south, west and northeast.
The ice devil guardian has followed you. The ice warrior guardian has followed you.>KILL ICE DEVIL WITH RUNE SWORD
You feel so full of vitality and energy here that with a single swipe you dispatch the ice devil. The ice devil falls rigidly to the ground and disappears in a violent blue flash.
The Ice warrior guardian takes a mighty swing at you, the blow seems to have had no effect at all.>KILL ICE WARRIOR WITH RUNE SWORD
You feel so full of vitality and energy here that with a single swipe you dispatch the ice warrior. The ice warrior falls rigidly to the ground and disappears in a violent blue flash.
Can’t regenerate if you get vaporized in one shot. (taps forehead)
With the crystal key in hand, I was almost ready to claim to the cornucopia, but I still was missing one thing: the ruby rod. This ended up being an unglamorous use of EXAMINE ALL everywhere (again) although with a particular emphasis on the multiverse worlds.
High Priests Chamber
In the centre of the east wall is a small stone alcove. A large old writing desk stands in one corner, the left hand side of the desk contains a drawer.>EXAMINE ALL
alcove : In the centre of the east wall is a small stone alcove. Having moved the small idol you notice that the alcove has a false floor.
writing desk : The writing desk is large and ornate made from carved oak, it must have taken two men to move it. The writing desk has seen much use from the ink blots and doodles on its surface, all of which are quite unintelligible. The left hand side of the desk contains a small drawer.
drawer : The drawer is closed.
false floor : Examining the false floor reveals that a ruby rod is hidden beneath it.
Whoops! That was being hidden by a small gold idol sitting on top of it before (I think EXAMINE ALL would’ve worked anyway). With the ruby rod, the opal rod (from the pixie forest), the diamond rod (from the magi area), it was now time to go back to the three holes, and use the combination ROD.
>I
You are carrying:- transport box; battery lamp; spell book; crystal key; opal rod; diamond rod; ruby rod.>PUT RUBY ROD IN TOP HOLE
Ok.>PUT OPAL ROD IN MIDDLE HOLE
Ok.>PUT DIAMOND ROD IN BOTTOM HOLE
Ok. As the last rod goes in an opening quietly appears at the south end of the passage.
This leads to a “Centre” with a crystal case.
You are in a square room made entirely from crystal. The crystal seems to be pulsating with a life of its own. In the centre of the room is a large crystal case, apparently extruded from the floor itself.
>EXAMINE ALL
crystal case : In the centre of the room is a large crystal case, apparently extruded from the floor itself. The crystal case is closed and despite being crystalline, its contents, if any, cannot be seen.
With the crystal key via the guardians, the case can be unlocked revealing the horn of plenty!
>OPEN CRYSTAL CASE
You find the crystal case locked but discover that the crystal key unlocks it.>EXAMINE HORN
Cornucopia, the fabled horn of plenty, is something of a disappointment – it appears much like any other ram’s horn except for being much larger. How it is used though is not at all apparent and I suspect attempting to use it would not help you to live to a ripe old age.
Now, taking the corncuopia isn’t an instant win, and taking it back to the treasure storage place (the cottage) doesn’t help either. I had PRAY tagged from back when I made my verb list, but with the item in hand:
Nothing happens.
This can be worked out by process of elimination, as there’s only one multiverse world that hasn’t been used yet: the swirling mist with nothing else.
>ENTER MIRROR
You are in a swirling grey mist, all directions are the same.>PRAY
You are in a small but luxurious room, well it would be small if you were a giant. The room has no obvious exits, but then Gods don’t really need doorways.>WAIT
Time passes……>I
You are carrying:- transport box; battery lamp; brown sack; horn of plenty.
All of a sudden amidst a burst of golden light one of the Gods who originally sent you on this mission appears. He sees you have the Horn and takes it. The God speaks ‘You have performed your task adequately and so we pardon you for your crimes against our Temple this time.’ With that you find yourself transported home with all the treasures you managed to salvage, you did manage to salvage some! didn’t you? You have scored a total of 670 out of 740 in 1284 moves giving you a rating of Pardoned.
I turned out to be only short one puzzle (and corresponding treasures). It turned out not to be:
- The gold coins in the fountain — those don’t count as a treasure
- The gems at the acid tree — those also don’t count as a treasure
- The compost heap, which is just a compost heap
- Anything to do with the pixie (from the walkthrough after I finished, I found out that the pixie is supposed to steal things unless you appease it with the whistle, but the code is broken)
Fake-out treasure feels more aligned to D&D than normal adventure games. The D&D module In Search of the Unknown includes a “Wizard’s Annex” with illusionary treasure.
No trap, I assume because it’s a beginner module.
The true missing puzzle in Cornucopia was back at the mould near the sleeping demon and the mirror.
You are in a small closet which is very unwholesome with rotting clothes everywhere, basically it stinks. The centre of the closet floor seems covered in what appears to be a horrible brown mould.
I had done the right thing but had a misleading parser response, so never pursued it further. BURN MOULD WITH TORCH gives a colorful exploding death, and my attempt to THROW TORCH just resulted in “Dropped.” so I didn’t think further of it.
>THROW TORCH AT MOULD
The torch seems to have been enveloped in the mould.
You can then leave, and an explosion will happen behind you. This gets rid of the mould and reveals a way down.
Reception room
There is a small explosion nearby.
>S
You are in a small closet which is very unwholesome with rotting clothes everywhere, basically it stinks. There is a flight of steps leading down into the floor. There was a trap door covering the steps but the explosion seems to have completely destroyed it. There is a torch here which is all used up.>D
You are at the bottom of a flight of steps which leads back up to the closet you came from. An archway to the south leads in to the King’s treasure chamber. Built into the middle of the floor here is a strong iron safe. On the safe’s door is a small dial with numbers around its edge. The safe contains:- pearl; amethyst rod; tiny key.
This is modified from the original game (I’m playing the “fixed” version from CASA made by Alex, who also wrote a walkthrough). To the south is a portcullis blocking the treasure chamber, which I already lifted via using the wheel in the toxic gas room. However, something is broken in the code so you can’t move south, so the fixed version moved the safe from the treasure chamber over one step so you can get at it here. Consequently, you don’t need to dial up the safe code, which turns out to match the four-digit number on the rolled die.
Fortunately, I can still show you the vault, as further reading on the CASA forums led me to two debug commands: TVQREX and XERQVT. Those let you advance the location counter by one or subtract by one, so XERQVT from the bottom leads to:
You are in the King’s treasure vault. Unfortunately it has long since been looted and vandalised and little or nothing remains to be found. The archway you entered the treasure chamber through is to the north. Built into the middle of the floor here is a strong iron safe. On the safe’s door is a small dial with numbers around its edge. The safe contains:- pearl; amethyst rod; tiny key.
With the pearl and amethyst rod safely placed, I had all the points, and earned my final ranking.
With that you find yourself transported home with all the treasures you managed to salvage, you did manage to salvage some! didn’t you? You have scored a total of 740 out of 740 in 1336 moves giving you a rating of Demigod.
Well. That was a bit of a mess.
I found it an interesting mess and I always felt engaged, although some of that might be due to the meta-mystery of the game (nobody had gotten a full score before this weekend). I do think the story behind the freed demon and the “long departed” owners of the castle made for a decent amount of environment and atmosphere, even given the much more random assortment of multiverses.
I will say — despite seemingly like it might diverge into total evil — the game was essentially fair. The troll puzzle was arguably the worst (I solved it, but by accident); I also wasn’t thrilled about the glitch with the torch-throwing puzzle, or the random assorted glitches otherwise. Once when trying to wrangle the bottle to get another drink of water (you get thirsty every time you pass through the illusion-gold card route) the game responded with
water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water
etc. As LanHawk points out in the comments, this port may not be from Brian Cotton at all.
However, everything else fit together in a logical way, in a much better way than many other authors trying to aim for “difficulty”; it helped that Cotton kept track of enough conditions (even small things, like not taking a torch into an igloo) that the complexity level rose just naturally on its own; trying to parse through what was important and what could be discarded was a major part of the gameplay.
The original was a 32K disk game for Commodore PET; the 32K + disk explains why this managed to be much more ambitious than nearly any UK game that wasn’t made on a mainframe or via Level 9 (which had its own compression technology, that worked even better than Infocom’s). There wasn’t even a C64 version made of this one. It likely is very rare and it is possible the original 1982 disk is now completely lost to time. So I am thankful I did have some way of playing it, even with the glitching around the edges.
As far as historical interest goes, this was by far the most integrated-into-D&D adventure I’ve played. Dungeon Adventure had parts allegedly adapted off a real campaign, but Level 9 filed off the edges enough it isn’t clear where the points of inspiration were (except for being able to see when items are magic). Cornucopia put a water weird with a straight-from-the-manual method of destruction, as well as an actual Dungeon Masters Guide with accompanying in-joke. I found it interesting even given the elaborate combat message system, the only straight-combat was the entirely optional fight with the giant rat; the pull of adventure-gameplay is towards interesting solutions to problems and not regular combat, so the more elaborate encounters (troll, ice creatures) both required puzzle-solving instead.
Coming up: No idea. I wasn’t expecting be done with Cornucopia yet. Likely some small games; you can peek at my final stretch of 1982 list and speculate if you’d like.
Renga in Blue 
It’s too bad you didn’t find the amethyst rod first so the ruby rod could have been the Fifth Element.
Congratulations on the first ever perfect score! Summing it up, it is a shame about the glitches, but it does seem fairish overall; even the troll puzzle makes sense once you back into the solution. The EXAMINE ALL thing is weird though.
Exploding brown mold sounds like another D&D thing but it seems to be very much not, as the Brown Mold in the Monster Manual heals from fire. Unless the idea is that the fire leads it to grow explosively. But yellow mold is affected only by fire. THROW TORCH AT MOLD seems fair…ish. (I always hate mapping THROW to DROP though.)
When I started reading that the warriors were solved by the regeneration room, I thought “Oh! Have the monster attack them, since the creatures show a great antipathy to each other!” Guess not. Having them smash the mirror seems like an effective “nice try” move.
Re: perfect score. Roger might’ve got there first? It was a team effort anyway.
A good analogy to EXAMINE ALL is how some modern point and click games let you easily see all clickable objects. Back in the Sierra days that would definitely be considered a cheat (pixel hunting builds character!) but these days it doesn’t seem weird at all. Examine all feels weird but I also acknowledge it might be a path not taken in game design.
Yes, though I didn’t really express it, my congratulations were meant for the you/Roger solving collective!
I had originally tried humping the pallet and the large weight to the thin bridge to try and send them plunging in to the river but to no avail.
I’m sure I tried throwing the torch on the mold as well as burning it (the latter kills you of course) right near the beginning of my game play; perhaps it is coded to prevent you decending early or, far more likely my memory is not what it should be.
oh man, ON, I got nabbed by that a couple times
The system considers ON to be specifically like putting something on the surface of a table, and the game either says it “doesn’t understand that” or it gives some message about it would just fall off as the default. This is what was happening with the water jet — it was hitting the default message and it was never going to let you place anything on it. I got puzzled for a while putting the hand in the imprint at the ice palace because I was saying PUT HAND ON IMPRINT which seemed more natural to me than IN IMPRINT.
So probably you did type ON MOULD which (I checked) gives just a “I don’t understand that” message. (I might’ve even tried that too and switched to THROW TORCH after — I know I got annoyed about the dropping but I don’t remember if I tested another syntax.) It has to be AT MOULD specifically to work.
It’s worth repeating for truth: the most “climactic battle of the game” way out would be defeating the ice guardians with the regenerating hand monster. But that would also require knowledge only achievable through prior player death, so there are some sequence issues with it.
I did try it, btw, but you get clobbered by the monster that comes from the hand before the ice monsters even do anything
I really wonder if EXAMINE ALL might not have been an addition to the PC port. If we accept that Zork (the early Barbarian version of Zork I) was Cotton’s primary inspiration in writing adventure games at the time, then it’s notable that, as far as I can recall, that was not a valid command there. TAKE ALL was, but EXAMINE had to be paired with a specific object. It strikes me as unlikely that he would have just suddenly come up with this fairly novel (and somewhat puzzle-breaking) command circa late ’81/early ’82 when Cornucopia was being written on the PET. I think this may be a case of “improvements” added to the port that resulted in it being a buggy mess of spaghetti code. Some of the weirdness with the magic system, the “stapled-together” nature of the main game content that Roger noted, and various other problems may also point to this. It may never really be known, unless the original ever turns up.
For what it’s worth, EXAMINE ALL isn’t a valid command in almost any adventure I can think of, including modern ones made with Inform (it’s very easy to program in something that will allow EXAMINE ALL but almost nobody does). Of course there may be precedents that didn’t get taken up elsewhere, but if it’s an innovation of Cotton’s, it might be one he made in the original version rather than in the port.
I think the excellent Robico adventures allow for EXAMINE ALL; at least the rewrites of the Magus games and their own did. I have never tried the original version of Village Of Lost Souls.
looks like it starts with their ’86 games (same year as Classic Quests came out, that is)
as Matt points out, even if it didn’t come until the later version (reasonably likely), it’s extraordinarily novel
so it probably was invented for the game
we’ve seen randomly novel commands before, like the macros in Warp or the language-switching in Bilingual Adventure
I see that on 8bitag’s home page there is a picture of Supersoft’s Weird Wood written in DOS 2.5 from around July 1982. I wonder if it is still knocking about somewhere? Apparently one half of the game is a mirror image of the other, which sounds a unique conceit.
Mark Cox sent me a fixed copy of Rob Watts’s Weird Wood 2 which was originally written in early 1984 I think after I play tested his rewrite. Now that is huge. I put it up on CASA but 1984 must seem a long way away.
I see that on 8bitag’s home page there is a picture of Supersoft’s Weird Wood written in DOS 2.5 from around July 1982. I wonder if it is still knocking about somewhere? Apparently one half of the game is a mirror image of the other, which sounds a unique conceit.
Mark Cox sent me a fixed copy of Rob Watts’s Weird Wood 2 which was originally written in early 1984 I think after I play tested his rewrite. Now that is huge. I put it up on CASA but 1984 must seem a long way away.
Interesting that you mention it, because I was meaning to ask Strident about this if he’s reading:
Did Håvar Bruvold Hojem send you that picture personally, and if so, would there be any way to put me in contact with him? I’m working on a bunch of Norwegian research right now, and would like to ask him a few questions. I see that he may be active on some social media, but I never use it, so I can’t contact him directly. If so, I’ll try to see if he’d be willing to help with preserving Weird Wood.
I see that on 8bitag’s home page there is a picture of Supersoft’s Weird Wood written in DOS 2.5 from around July 1982. I wonder if it is still knocking about somewhere? Apparently one half of the game is a mirror image of the other, which sounds a unique conceit.
Mark Cox sent me a fixed copy of Rob Watts’s Weird Wood 2 which was originally written in early 1984 I think after I play tested his rewrite. Now that is huge. I put it up on CASA but 1984 must seem a long way away.
Regarding the upcoming games: Will you be playing the original Acornsoft version of Countdown to Doom, or the expanded Topologika version? I might be up for a play-along of that one, as well as Windmere/Zodiac, Crystal Caverns (had that one as a kid, but haven’t played it since) and Dark Star, if it can be fixed.
probably the z-code (which was converted off of the original Phoenix code)
(a bit of warning though — I’ve beaten the game before! so it won’t be quite as lost as usual)
Crystal Caverns is a great old school treasure hunt Rob. I think it was one of the first Commodore 64 games that I played after downloading the Vice emulator. I have never played Dark Star.
I created a fixed version of Dark Star if you guys are interested. I will send to Jason and he can share with you guys. Someone recently posted what probably needed to change here: https://oldcomp.cz/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=13188&view=next
So I made that change and tested that it still starts. Or if you prefer, you can modify the line yourselves and save your own copy.
Yes please do send it along. I haven’t played any Sharp MZ games before. I will have to hunt for an emulator to play it on. I don’t want to be all fur coat and no knickers.
I have a download here packaged with the emulator
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aGs8pcDGcf3ANKfue4-osPF3u–jrK6F/view?usp=sharing
you can either load save state 1, and hit ENTER to start (you’ll hear music, be asked for instructions, etc.)
or load save state 2 to skip straight to the starting room
keep in mind the machine uses DELETE as the backspace key
I fixed it, thanks for the link!
It’s funny, but I have a very specific memory about Crystal Caverns from back then. My mother took me to a toy store along with a friend of mine (circa ’82/’83). In the games/software section, where all the games were lined up on a wall, the odd cover of a game called The Caverns of Dr. Goodcode caught my eye. It seemed to be some kind of adventure, and was by Gebelli, who was a huge star in the Apple II gaming scene back then. I was eager to grab it, but my annoying friend gleefully pointed out that it was for the Atari 800, which he had, and I had an Apple II. He grabbed the only copy and left me in the lurch. I looked around, and just a couple of rows over was Crystal Caverns, which also looked okay, but I was still irritated about not being able to get that Gebelli game. A few days later, I excitedly went over to my friend’s house to finally try out Dr. Goodcode. He casually asked me how my new game was, and I said something like “It’s pretty good, kind of like Zork!”. He then glummly loaded up Dr. Goodcode, and it was weird and terrible. After an hour or so, I rode my bike back home to go have dinner, smiling all the way…
Haha! I was the “Rob” who made the original post on that Czech forum. I had kind of forgotten about it, but it’s good to see it finally payed off. I also asked there about trying to get the Japanese MZ-700 adventure Fushigi no Mori no Adventure running, as I had finally found a copy but it seems to have issues. I got a little advice there on that, but haven’t had time to follow up on it.
I wondered when I saw the original post was by “Rob”. I thought, what are the odds it could be someone else.
Naturally I searched for Dr. Goodcode and found the review by The CRPG Addict. And also that he was on a podcast with John Romero and Stuart Smith, which is pretty amazing!
(That is, the CRPG Addict was on a podcast with Romero and Smith. Dr. Goodcode’s identity is mostly left to be buried by the sands of time, though an anonymous commenter on that entry says that it was an Army buddy of his named Marty.)
I didn’t realize that Dr. Goodcode had gotten a little more exposure over the last few years via the Addict and Explorador. In skimming through, I noticed that they both mentioned the nearly complete lack of reviews or coverage that it received contemporaneously. However, I plumbed the depths, and came up with one review from 3/83 issue of the long-running S.B.A.C.E. Gazette newsletter from one William Cagle, who had his own game review column around that time called Cagle’s Corner. He liked it, and gave it a 7 out of 10! Then again, in the same issue, he wrote an angry rant about Atari moving their production to Asia, which he repeatedly referred to as “Tiawan”, so there you go…
Nice work! I tried to post a link at the CRPG Addict, but I overdid the links and it is in the moderation queue–hopefully Chet will see it! (And yes, I independently checked to see that the review was there after the Bosomy Stalagmite prank.)
Maybe it will run in the Oriculator which I have used in the past.
Thanks for the packaged game.
Thanks for the packaged game.
If you’re interested in trying out the MZ series Sharpsoft adventures, here’s my quick take on them:
Escape from Colditz: Really primitive (1 letter parser!), and a bit odd.
Secret Kingdom: Pretty decent traditional treasure hunt.
Haunted House: Simple treasure hunt, but I found it fairly amusing.
Mexican Adventure: A couple of decent ideas, but kind of a maze/mapping slog with some choice parser shenanigans thrown in for good measure.
Dark Star: Was enjoying this little sci-fi ditty until I encountered the number-input bug. Glad to finally be able to continue it now.
btw, I’m doing Dark Star next (wasn’t my original schedule, but this seems like as good a time as any)
Roger, you’d probably like Secret Kingdom, I’ve got a package here
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hn3T6PtCvNixfn63nqZVd5CD2VLSy7GV/view?usp=sharing
Thanks. I’ll have a look at Secret Kingdom next Monday when I get home.
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I left a rather long post on Jason’s Catacombs page explaining the RNG background here: https://bluerenga.blog/2023/08/13/catacombs-the-bug-threshold/
The RNG evaluator on Cornucopia is broken in the same way. I have not tested this to see if it makes the game work as intended without Alex’s fix applied. Hopefully someone has the time or inclination to test it.
Hex edit to fix the RNG, change this:
8A D8 F6 26 D0 74 3A E3
to this:
8A D8 F6 26 D0 74 3A C3
I’ll test it out if someone can upload a fixed version.
Rob, thanks for doing that. I understand the fix Alex did and why I bit better due to your explanation. I may be able to fix this if it present but just has the wrong value set. I will check it out.
As for the snake RNG, how many times did you attempt this? Once or twice isn’t enough to really test it. You would probably need to test about 10 attempts to truly know that he always strikes you.
I found the place in question, “Bottom of Steps”. There is no provision for movement to go south from here. So Alex’s workaround is probably the best option.
In theory I could add it into the game, but to do so I would have to replace one of the existing actions for that room. Also, I don’t think I could enforce that the portcullis has to be open before being able to move south.
My guess is it’s a “flag exit” which is meant to have some other byte there that’s special-coded to let the player through if they’re lifted the portcullis. I don’t know a good cheat-engine way to check that though.
Could you give me the exact byte that’s being checked there?