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AdvII XE & Hiding Spots


Cafeman

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I've spent some hours recently going through all the game variations and double-checking that the more complex hiding spot rules work, and that the game's hiding routines don't create an unwinnable game.

I did run into one scenario in the beginner difficulty where the bridge was hidden in a locked castle , the magnet was blocked off by logs so you couldn't reach it, and the key to enter that castle was unreachable without either magnet or bridge. So I will tweak the logic to not hide the bridge inside locked castles, simple and best solution. I think this situation could only happen in the 3 Beginner levels, because in those the Troll doesn't active steal and re-hide items. In Intermediate levels for example, you could hang around that blocked-off magnet and Troll would eventually show up and grab it, rehiding it in a reachable location.

Another time I thought I spotted an error - the Chalice was in the Green Hedges in a small maze game variation. I though it was always hidden inside the Green Castle and that a bug existed. But after reviewing the code, I noticed that in 2013 I put in an extra bit of randomness - sometimes the Gold Key is hidden inside the Castle 2 and the Chalice is out in the hedges. You still need to open the Green Castle to get the Gold Key (and open the Seashore Kingdom Castle ) and thus beat win the game. So ... no bug.

When I start up a game of Adventure II XE in an emulator, I hit F8 (Atari800win4) and look at zero page memory to see the screens and (X,Y) locations for all the items and the 3 hidden dots. I can read those hexadecimal values like Tank reads the Matrix code.

blogentry-37-0-38271800-1443925038_thumb.png

There are a bunch of unique hiding spots for the 3 hidden dots, and no two game variations have the same 3 hiding spots. So I have also been playing and making sure its possible to "see" the dots and grab them. You need the bridge to reach many of them. When screens get busy with items or creatures , a hidden dot will change color from default black to the color of one of the creatures - easier to spot. Maybe you can see the dot in this next screenshot.

blogentry-37-0-97861200-1443925047.png

Just like in the 5200 version, when you grab a dot, it gives you some FLIGHT power (you literally turn into a bat for a while).

blogentry-37-0-22997900-1443925058.png

Once I am satisfied that my revised hiding-spot rules function correctly, I'll move onto fixing the laundry list of small corrections and minor tweaks so that the game can be finished and released soon. Most of the tweaks are graphical and sound tweaks. Experimenting in 2013, I added a new sound that has become INCREDIBLY ANNOYING to me and it plays too often. I can't wait to get rid of that.

(_)3

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