Worklog for Ginger Tea
Icicle Works
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title says it all really, this project is sitll on hold. my hours have
reduced somewhat, im now working 9:30-6ish insetad of 6-6ish so my
finishing time is the same. all that has happened is i get a lie in im waiting for the 6-2 guy to do the late shift so i can have the rest of the day to myself, thats when i get more time to read/understand blitz plus as ive decided to do this game in b+ but today i had an icicle works dream based on a level that i was having dificulties with (even with the infinate lives cheat) i went to the hex value of the level on the fly and turned the polar bear into a present and finally got off the level. seeing as ive not touched this for some time (pc dieing didnt help) im a bit impressed that my subconcious still wants me to do this spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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after filling in some survey to find the missing line in the download
page of some website (lied all the way through it too) i get a C64
download and lo it was cracked (ive not checked the thing in a hex editor but i dont think its packed like st/amiga games) so i selected infinate time and infinate lives but chose to keep collision as is even with these trainers enabled im still dying stupidly due to my growing up with qaop and this using aspl and reconfiging it to the cursor resulted in it crashing somewhat (perhaps i should try heracy and select wsad?) but i managed to complete a few levels that were giving me grief on the plus4 version (looks kinda the same but sounds worse, i thought the SID rocked, cos thats what everyone seems to say, speccy owner myself) and ive found myself stuck with infinate lives on two hard levels that i remember and remember beating (or watching my brother do so i forget), one a spiral with alot of feral polar bears hunting around and the odd present generating penguin, the other which i almost completed had alot of death snow to contend with as well as too many polar bears trapped in a single square, how the hell you are meant to survive level 16 is beyond me i think ill turn time back off and just try with the infinate lives cos the spiral level only gives you 90 seconds to complete it and im sure it takes me longer when i dont have to worry about such things spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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if ive counted it right there are only 16 levels to the plus4 version,
could have sworn it was 20, unless i was reading bout the C64 version,
but seeing as there is alot of wasted space in the prg file you could
squeeze an extra 4 levels i guess ... once i find a c64 version that
doesnt involve me filling out some survey ill give that a gander too but here it is the last level 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 89 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 84 44 70 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 07 44 48 84 47 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 74 48 84 76 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 67 48 87 66 66 66 66 66 66 67 76 66 67 76 66 66 66 66 66 66 78 86 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 7C CC C7 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 68 86 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 67 CC 76 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 68 87 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 77 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 78 8C 71 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 77 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 17 C8 8C C7 21 20 20 20 20 01 21 77 12 10 20 02 20 20 12 7C C8 84 C6 71 11 11 11 11 11 11 77 11 11 11 11 11 11 17 44 C8 8C 44 47 44 44 44 44 44 47 44 74 44 44 44 44 44 74 4C 48 84 46 44 74 44 44 44 44 74 66 47 44 44 44 44 47 44 C4 48 84 44 64 47 44 44 44 47 46 66 64 74 44 44 44 74 64 6C C8 84 44 66 44 74 44 44 74 66 66 66 47 44 44 47 64 46 4C 48 84 66 64 44 47 44 47 44 44 44 44 44 74 44 74 46 64 66 C8 87 77 71 77 77 71 77 77 77 77 77 77 77 17 77 77 17 77 78 80 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 08 80 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 08 81 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 18 81 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 18 81 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 18 81 1D DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD DD D1 18 81 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 18 81 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 18 80 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 0A 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 08 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 now A is you and 2 is a polar bear notice how you are RIGHT next to one in an army of polar bears iir my brother, who was better at this game than me, got this far with a life count of, well lets just say his score enabled him to get another life just by entering a room and if you did that on enough completed rooms you could rack up (till the last level) lives forever and a day (or what ever the max was which ever came first ;) ) spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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i got a very basic hex editor and found out 8 was the boarder wall by
virtue of their being 39 consecutive 8's at the top followed by on
average another 39 followed by a byte then more of the same, the only
differences were the odd 9 which were doors now if the levels were 32 wide seeing the levels would be easy peasy i could just go hmm 88888888888888888888888888888888 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 8??????????????????????????????8 88888888888888888888888888888888 but as they were 38 wide that meant they over shot the hex editors 32 per line limit at first i couldnt tell if the first chunk i stumbled upon was the first level or not, the second line looked nothing like my hand drawn map or anything else so was it the first the last or even flipped/flopped to make hex editing the levels on the plus 4 that little bit harder? what i wanted to do was just have the level chunk copied out into a new file so i could have a quick gander at it, but the hex editer i had didnt want to know about it so i tried another, again no joy i tried dragging along the text and an alert to the demo version being used scuppered those plans so i just went to the top of the level data and wrote delete this gumph!!! so in note pad when i saw that i knew to delete all that was before it this gave me something cleaner to work with but i would still liked to have been able to save the hex values as ascii so if it said 881FB985AA54FF53 the text file would read the same and not what all that meant as ascii i can probably read this in blitz and output what i want, but i wanted something kinda quick to work with so i could find out what was what regarding hex values and game elements anyway in hex here is level 01 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 88 81 41 11 41 11 14 14 41 11 A1 11 74 11 11 77 71 41 14 18 87 77 14 11 41 11 11 14 11 11 11 71 77 11 11 11 61 14 18 84 11 16 11 71 44 11 14 11 11 11 11 11 11 77 77 11 11 18 81 14 11 77 71 77 71 11 14 11 14 11 14 11 11 11 14 41 18 84 14 14 11 71 11 71 14 41 17 77 14 11 11 16 11 11 11 18 81 14 41 11 11 77 77 11 11 11 14 41 14 44 11 11 11 77 78 81 14 14 41 77 71 11 11 41 11 11 14 11 14 11 11 41 11 18 81 11 11 11 11 11 41 44 11 11 71 11 11 17 77 11 11 11 18 81 11 11 41 11 71 11 11 61 11 17 11 11 11 11 11 14 11 18 81 11 61 11 77 71 11 17 77 71 11 76 11 11 41 17 74 11 18 81 11 11 14 11 41 11 11 41 11 11 17 11 11 11 11 11 11 48 81 17 77 17 71 14 44 11 64 11 41 11 11 77 71 11 41 11 48 81 11 17 11 41 14 11 11 14 11 11 41 11 11 11 41 14 11 18 81 61 11 11 44 11 14 41 11 11 11 14 11 11 14 11 44 14 18 87 77 17 14 11 14 11 41 11 14 11 17 77 11 41 11 14 11 18 84 14 17 11 11 77 71 11 11 71 11 11 11 11 14 11 41 77 18 84 11 11 11 76 71 16 11 11 71 71 11 41 11 11 11 11 71 18 81 44 11 41 77 71 14 11 11 71 17 71 11 11 16 17 77 71 18 91 11 11 41 11 11 11 11 41 11 11 11 11 17 77 11 11 11 19 81 11 61 14 11 41 17 77 11 44 41 17 77 14 11 17 11 11 48 81 41 17 77 11 11 11 11 14 11 11 11 17 11 41 17 77 71 18 81 14 11 11 11 16 11 11 41 41 11 71 11 14 16 11 11 11 18 81 11 11 14 11 77 77 77 77 71 11 77 11 17 77 77 11 61 18 86 71 77 17 71 11 14 17 11 11 41 11 11 17 11 41 11 77 18 81 71 14 11 11 14 11 11 11 17 16 11 14 11 11 11 11 11 18 88 88 88 88 88 88 98 88 88 88 88 88 89 88 88 88 88 88 88 i kept the byte spacing as i was copying by hand from the hex editor and ive also made it line up to the levels themselves for ease of reading (?!?) some squares i could tell instantly but what got me at first was 7 was a wall, but so was 8, having said that 8 was the boarder and indestructable but 7 type walls were not, so that explains why i was never seeing 8's anywhere else in the level to show me where the walls were. and afaik here is the line up of the hex values and game elements 0 space 1 snow 2 polar bear left 3 penguin left 4 Boulder 5 Bonus ?!? 6 Presents 7 Wall (destructible) 8 Boarder (non destructable) 9 door? A Player B Explosion C Amoeba D question mark box E present again? F polar bear facing right i myself would have had the presents, bonus and question marked boxes as a single tile as presents turn to bonuses when the quota is reached. but hmm is the question mark box the magic wall? i'll have to drop some boulders and presents down a mockup hack of level one to find out. and why only one penguin but 2 polar bears? answers on the back of a fiver ... spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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i found a java c64 emulator/icicle works to play online (its faster
than the plus4 emu although i could speed it up but decrease my playing
time) i dont/didnt need to remake it and if i did my gfx skills would render me nicking the gfx for a while, i think i was just toying with the idea of getting a version running that didnt need me using aspl ;) but im still going to have a gander at the prg with a hex editor and find out the levels although they are 38 wide im assuming that there were only 16 tiles so that would make it 19 bytes long so i just have to look for 36 identicle bits (or were they nibbles well just half a byte either way) that will tell me what is the wall at the top of level 1 spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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yonks ago, (everything is with me) i started drawing gauntlet levels in
paint, pretending that each colour would act as a specific tile much
like greyscale images are used for heightmaps. again i set it around hex values black would be space and white a wall and the other colours whatever was needed, it gave a better visual idea of the 'level' than a whole load of data would or a zoomed out full size naffly drawn tile set still keeping 0 as floor and F as wall i expanded it somewhat when i ran out of places in the rather limited 16 slots so upped it to 256 and found way too many vacant tiles (even having 4 monster generators with 4 levels of damage left me with alot of white space user defined tiles) but gauntlet pacman boulderdash/icicle works and alot of other top down 2d (maze) games share a similar layout (chips challenge added direcional conveyor belts) so i just thought "if i think of a game ill slot in its tiles somewhere" so i am maybe kinda spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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then within the last week, commenting on two identical to the original
boulderdash clones being worked on i started googleing icicle works
again (avoiding the band links not that i had anything against them it
was just irelevant) then i found a prg download and plus4 emulator, the game used aspl for its controll method and i couldnt get it to accept using cursors as the joystic replacement and as i grew up on qaop this method was just to brain breaking (im not even a fan of wsad) i found myself using p (up) and wondering why i wasnt going right, plus the timing is a bit off i can hit the key and keep the key down and if im lucky he might move, but only if im lucky i took a few screen grabs of most of the first level to get some idea of the level size and what was there so i could try and brute force the level info out of the prg file at first my screen grab idea was to knit together the whole level as one "giant" image but i missed of bits here and there and making a pretend level dat was flawed due to the same gaps so i went back to the old method of doing these types of levels, i just got some square paper out and worked from there level one (including the wall border) is (if i did it right) 38*27 tiles, a bit of an odd number for gaming, i was expecting it to be 16/24/32 etc i think there are just 16 tiles in the game wall space snow snowball door present 4 polar bear's 4 penguin's (facing north east south and west one going clockwise the other anticlockwise) amoeba snow i dont know if the player start position was a tile or just xome xy coords and im not sure if there was a magic wall like in some boulder dash games or not spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |
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One Christmas Eve many many years ago Santa totally ripped off
BoulderDash for commodor's short lived plus4 in a game called icicle
works (it might have come out for the c64 but i never had one so i dont
know) iir it came bundled with the computer along with god knows how
many other cassette games and iir we never bought other games for it, it
was bought for the bussiness apps by my dad but he could never get me
or my brother off it with icicle works and treasure island taking up the
lions share of tape wear and tear then as they all seemed to the plus4 died a death (but we still kept it and afaik still have it) and we had long since migrated to the ST/Amiga (the amiga was my brothers) and i had gotten STOS for my birthday (which i never got into mostly due to the fact it was still numbered like the speccy was) and i wanted to remake icicle works as best as i could remember it (the machine long since dead so i had no levels to compare with) and my gfx skills sucked big time (i think im now worse at pixel 'art') so it wouldnt be icicle works as i rememberd just a game with a santa theme and i had found a fair few better boulderdash games by this time and shelved it as a "why compete against this?" i think i found it years ago via emulation but i dont recall getting back into it as a remake spread the word not the disc if i broke both of my hands i wouldnt be able to wsad + mouse but i could dual thumb stick through the cast and pain killers ;) |