Dragonstomper ROM weirdness

[Fellow Atari Man]

Due to getting obsessed with my Supercharger over the last year, once I got it working again (for the first time since '88 or so), since my 2600 conked out and I didn't know about the modification for the original 7800 model (which I have), I suddenly got three new Supercharger games last year (I only had Phaser Patrol for years and years and years), one of them being Dragonstomper. I hadn't had much of a chance to mess around with it, though, due to the picture becoming bad on my tv until it just finally went out, and I haven't gotten a new one to replace it yet (might finally be getting a new one in the next few weeks though!!).

 

Because of only getting some gameplay in on a real tv only here and there and not knowing about certain aspects of the game (items do random things with each new game, you need a lot more money than I was going into the shops for to defeat the dragon [less than 1000 gold pieces!], etc.), I finally gave up and caved into looking at defeating it by reading it's entry on www.atariprotos.com and StanJr.'s guide and by using the ROM.

 

But as I was discussing it more and more with StanJr., and as he was pointing out to some of my suggestions for tips to add to his guide as to being wrong, I started realizing things were different on the ROM, like various things weren't random: crosses ALWAYS heal, certain castles *always* have a certain item there (which I'm not talking about the one that always has gold, two Maniacs and the scroll, I'm talking about the one above the temple that contains the shield ALWAYS being unlocked and always having a Ghoul in there), etc. (Yet another argument against emulation there )

 

So, I was wondering what the deal was with the ROM (available at some place called this old copy, or something ), if it wasn't the final, released version of the game, or if someone changed around the code. Is there some way for someone to disassemble, check out and compare the code (note: I have pretty much zero programming knowledge, so I'm probably getting the terminology wrong, but you probably know what I mean) with the released version? And is there any way to tell about this, or does someone know anything about the ROM as it is? Probably not, but this place is so full of knowledgeable people, so I thought I'd ask.

 

And last, here's something a bit strange (only thing GOOD about the ROM is saving the game before plunging into the pit, in case the dragon kills you!): if you're able to defeat the dragon, DON'T get the amulet. Go around it. Walk up to the center part of the chamber that the amulet is in. If you go straight up, you'll go right through what appears to be a wall. I've kept the up arrow key on the computer pressed for a good 30 seconds or so, never running into a wall that I know of (you can't see where you're

going), but you don't reappear (wraparound) at the bottom of the screen or anything. I also tried moving left and right a bit, but I wasn't able to find my way back out; the word "rock" kept on appearing at the bottom of the screen, as I bumped around the place; whups. I tried using the lantern, reading the scroll, using the handaxe, etc. in there, but if there's some kind of secret to it, I don't know what it is. And I beat the *real* game on a real tv last week, and no, you can't go through the wall (unless there's some secret about it, which I doubt now: at first I thought I had stumbled across something really cool that no one else knew about!), so that's not in the real game.

 

As a lot of us get fed up with noobs putting up a post every few weeks or so about "back in the day, I used a switchbox for my Atari, but tvs only have a cable now, so how do I get it to work?" without doing a (*#! search first, I checked out several Dragonstomper topics, and couldn't find anything about this. So if anyone has any information about these things (especially the tunnel, I'm REAL interested about that!), do share it with us;

inquiring minds wanna know!

 

NOTE: ok, things are getting even MORE weird now...

 

Due to not having much time lately, I wrote this up last night, and was going through a 'stomper game on and off, and was going to put up some pics of it. Well, I beat the game, and everything's the same, except I couldn't get into that tunnel I was talking about, it's solid rock now!! (I had deleted the ROM in disgust, once I found out it wasn't the "real" game, then re-downloaded it again this week.) But then I forgot that the site that has the ROM has several versions of it--a couple of which are demos--so I don't recall which one it was and don't feel like going through them all to get it; feh. Sorry about that. So attached is a picture, and the asterisk denotes where the tunnel is, depending on which ROM you have!