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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 6530
Author: andrewbroad
Date: 21/03/2009
Subject: Re: Cheekah's Exploits / The Steelyard Blues
On 13th June 2008, Daniel wrote:
>I have added The Steelyard Blues to my alpha-copy of the List.
> Among them is the game "Cheekah's Exploits" (by Julian R.E. Wood,
> Your Computer, 1985), which you describe as "a machine-code type-in
> game from the January 1986 issue of Your Computer, based heavily on
> the code for Manic Miner, and featuring a built-in room-editor".
> Since you have included it, I think it will be appropriate to also
> add some information about "The Steelyard Blues" (Tynesoft, 1987),
> which is apparently a Harry S Price's rip-off of "Cheekah's
> Exploits", so it must be equally based on the code for MM. The more
> so that you have also included in the same category both
> "Pyramania" and its Harry S Price's rip-off, "Odd Job Eddie".
> A compilation of Harry S Price's rip-offs can be found on PaulUnfortunately, JSWED only provides a hex-editor view of Cheekah's Exploits, but I managed to load the data into JSW CK and view them as 16x16 graphics:
> Equinox Collins's website (http://equ.in/ox/spectrum/hsprice/),
> which is where I learned about them.
>
> A question to the technically-knowledgeable among you: can any
> portions of the MM code (data?) in "Cheekah's Exploits" and "The
> Steelyard Blues" be transferred to the standard MM format easily?
> I mean like sprites or rooms to be used in a "real" MM game?
1. I converted the Z80-file to an SNA-file.
2. I used SPECSAISIE Count to observe that the bytes in 32768-64511 are all zeroes, but that there are non-zero bytes in 23296-32767.
3. I used SPECSAISIE SNAtoTAP to convert the SNA-file to a TAP-file:
java SNAtoTAP CHEEKAH.SNA CHEEKAH.TAP Cheekah 23296 9472
4. I loaded JSW CK Part II, broke into it, and loaded CHEEKAH.TAP, relocating it to the free space from 32768 onwards:
LOAD "" CODE 32768
5. I got JSW CK running again:
LOAD !"0"
6. In "EDIT 16x16 GRAPHICS", I saw some meaningful graphics in sprite-pages 132-134 (after relocation as per Step 4).
It would be so much easier if JSWED provided a 16x16 graphics-view of arbitrary SNA/TAP/Z80-files, and without restricting the addresses that can be viewed as such. For Cheekah's Exploits, the graphics appear to start at #5FC0.
> And a final comment: I have noticed, Andrew, that you don't displayLast time I checked, the S-word was the second-rudest in the English language. So I don't want to give my enemies easy ammunition by using it on my site.
> the Drunken Master's latest game's name fully, using *** to cover a
> part of the second word. I could possibly understand it in the case
> of the "f" word, but, surely, "s***" is not really a rude word any
> more, in this day and age. Or is it? I'm just curious how all ye
> native speakers feel about it :-) .
--
Dr. Andrew Broad
http://tinyurl.com/andrewbroad-mmjsw
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