8bitAG.com/info

[Strident]

As I haven't posted about most of this stuff on here, I thought I'd give it a quick mention.

As well as having pages about my own games & my homegrown adventure games book, my website also has a small collection of other stuff on it. I'm gradually adding more, with plenty of archive information & reference material to come, but for now...

http://8bitag.com/info/

includes...

An archive of magazine adverts related to the Spectrum/Amstrad/C64/PC publisher, The Adventure Workshop... which aims to highlight how many titles are "lost" or MIA.

An interview with Zodiac Software's Andrew Lowe.

Mark Cantrell's excellent (unpublished) PAWs programming booklet 'Process One', from back in the day.

Some guides for using inPAWs to create PAWs adventures for Speccy & Amstrad.

Like I said, there's more to come at some point. They've all been individual links previously, so I'm just adding them to a combined page.

[Gunness]

Thanks - excellent info! I've nicked the Andy Lowe interview - or at least added a link to his profile. Very entertaining read

[pippa]

Hi. There seems to be a bug in the Play Online QAOP version of Trolley Mania. After opening the grate with the rod, I can't search the drain for the keys. It works fine on the .z80 snapshot version, but not the online one.

[Strident]

The version on the site has had some additional responses coded in, to make it a little easier in that section... as that's where most people were getting stuck.

The original version, which is the one on Spectrum Computing, iirc... requires you to FEEL (IN) WATER (it probably accepts a few other things but I can't remember what they were).

Not a bug. But a tweak to accept a wider range of responses.

[Strident]

Actually, I'm wrong about that... looking at the code... FEEL is a synonym for SEARCH...

Hmmm...

SEARCH WATER: AT 13 NOTZERO 66 ZERO 69 MESSAGE 45 ANYKEY MESSAGE 46 ANYKEY CREATE 7 SET 69 DESC DONE;
SEARCH DRAIN: AT 13 NOTZERO 66 ZERO 69 MESSAGE 45 ANYKEY MESSAGE 46 ANYKEY CREATE 7 SET 69 DESC DONE;
SEARCH WATER: AT 13 NOTZERO 69 SYSMESS 65 DONE;
SEARCH DRAIN: AT 13 NOTZERO 69 SYSMESS 65 DONE;

I can't see why that response isn't working. And definitely why it's not working in the v1 but it's working in the v1.2... Will need to investigate further.

[Strident]

Hmm... I'm not sure what's happening as I can't replicate the bug...

This is me, going straight for the bar and then doing the drain stuff... works fine...

[Strident]

Versions 1.2 and 1.0 don't really differ too much, version 2 just adds lever drain responses to the lever grate/cover ones...

LEVER GRATE: AT 13 ZERO 66 ABSENT 11 SYSMESS 66 DONE;
LEVER GRATE: AT 13 NOTZERO 66 SYSMESS 64 DONE;
LEVER GRATE: AT 13 ZERO 66 PRESENT 11 MESSAGE 43 SET 66 DONE;
LEVER DRAIN: AT 13 ZERO 66 ABSENT 11 SYSMESS 66 DONE;
LEVER DRAIN: AT 13 NOTZERO 66 SYSMESS 64 DONE;
LEVER DRAIN: AT 13 ZERO 66 PRESENT 11 MESSAGE 43 SET 66 DONE;

LEVER GRATE: AT 13 ZERO 66 ABSENT 11 SYSMESS 66 DONE;
LEVER GRATE: AT 13 NOTZERO 66 SYSMESS 64 DONE;
LEVER GRATE: AT 13 ZERO 66 PRESENT 11 MESSAGE 43 SET 66 DONE;

[Strident]

Oh! I've found it, I think!

I've used flag 69 is another place!

Both versions will be bugged!

(Attempting to correct)

[Strident]

I've uploaded a revised version 1.3 up to http://8bitag.com/games/trolleymania.html of the Spectrum version. I'm just building a new Amstrad version now.

The "play online" version won't be updated until/unless Spectrum Computing update their version of the files. I will send them the new ones.

Basically, the trolley counting routine (when there was more than one trolley in the location) used the same flag as the one set when you'd retrieved the keys... You'd only see this bug on a couple of occasions which is why I hadn't noticed it sooner... although the grate/drain had been an issue for one or two people... I hadn't realised why.

Thanks for spotting that bug! I can't believe I managed to use the same flag twice... particularly as I was being very careful to actually document the use of the flags in the game code!

[pippa]

Thanks.