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Sorcery Plus Hack (Amstrad Computer User) | ¡Vencer al Necromancer! Pokes para Sorcery Plus (Amstrad User) |
Sorcery + made a bit easier and a little more fun. Chris Wood explains how. ‘Wow!', ‘Brilliant!', ‘Marvellous!', ‘Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs!' These are just some of the things most people said when ‘Sorcery' was first released on the market lastyear.This one program did more to raise the standard of Amstrad games software than any other. The ‘gang of five' have improved on the best with ‘Sorcery+'. The first game to be so big has to load parts of itself off disc as it plays, rather than just using the disc as a faster way to load the game It should be interesting to see what the ‘gang of five' come up with next. As the sprites are so colourful and detailed I soon began to play with my disc to see if there was any way to get at them, examine them more closely, alter them and, if possible, write them back to the disc. This is not as drastic as it sounds, as you have two copies of the program on the disc (one on each side) and it is easier to make a back up copy of a single disc file than a selected part of a normal tape game, that is if you can find the graphics in the first place. The sprites are stored in two obviously named files called ‘SPRITES1.BIN' and ‘SPRITES 2.BIN' which makes thing a little easier for a start. SPRITES1.BIN is used by the first part of the game and SPRITES2.BIN by the ‘Plus'bit. If you put your disc in the drive and type ‘CAT you will only get ‘DISC.BAS*' appearing on the screen; this is because the programs have been hidden from the directory using CP/M, the '*' after the filename means it has been made a ‘Read Only' file so that you cannot erase it from the disc. Unmasking the Sprites The files ‘SPRITES1.BIN' and ‘SPRITES 2.BIN' have been similarly made ‘Read Only' as well as hidden from your view, so armed with Hisoft's ‘Knife2' I set about finding how to change this. It is a fairly simple operation and so I have written the first program for you to do this. I should point out to the ‘gang of five' and anyone at Amsoft or Virgin reading this that this in no way helps you to copy the game. (Phew!- Ed) Type in, save and run the first program. As it is potentially possible to accidentally erase or otherwise muck up parts of the disc you have just spent the best part of fifteen quid on, the program is very extensively error checked. I think I have checked for just about every possibly thing that you could get wrong if you mis-type the DATA. Firstly it checks whether you have typed in a valid HEX number, and has a checksum after every eight bytes. As you could possibly swap around two numbers in a line and still get the same ckecksum for the line, the program also has a vertical checksum for all the lines. There is a checksum for all the first numbers in each line, all the second numbers, and so on. If you just get the numbers wrong you will be told which line to check, but if you get a ‘VERTICAL CHECKSUM' error then you must check all of them, as there is no way of knowing which numbers you have swapped around. Also check that you have typed in the checksums themselves correctly. Under no circumstances should you fiddle with the checksums or the checking routines. They are there for your own protection. Although this method should stop all errors - including the flukes where you type in the numbers in a line incorrectly and also type in the wrong checksum that gives the right total for the line - the magazine cannot accept any responsibility for damage to this or any other disc which may result The Happy Hacker You will have noticed that there is a fifth program. If you haven't have a look. This program will allow you to ‘Hack' the game. It is just like putting Infinite lives POKEs etc. into a game except you do it directly to the disc. As before you load and run program 1 to set up the sector read/write machine code. Then type in the ‘hacking' program. Don't worry, this program is just as extensively error checked as the first one. Remember to save it before running. Program 5 first checks all the data with a checksum for each line, then to see if the machine code is in memory, it then checks whether you have the right disc in the drive, and finally whether you have typed in a string properly which will be used for some of the POKEs. As if that wasn't enough, before it POKEs it checks to see what is already in memory. If not then you have swapped around some of the numbers in the data lines, and have got the equivalent of a vertical checksum error. This program does not have an actual vertical checksum because if the nature of the data, but this should trap any errors. What is Practice Mode If you are clever enough to have finished the first part of Sorcery and actually got into the ‘Plus bit, you will have seen the message ‘Practice Mode now available..', and wondered what it meant. Well it is a bit rotten of the ‘gang of five' since this is not mentioned anywhere, but if you hold down the ‘C' key and the fire button at the same time, then, when you start the game you will get the message ‘CHEAT BUT YOU WONT GET FAR...', you then will find yourself on the ‘Plus' part of the game. The only disadvantage is that you don't get any score and some of the later rooms are permanently locked, this means you can't get to the Necromancer. However, practice mode is a good way to see the new graphics. Some people who can't play the first part may never get to see the ‘Plus' bit except when the game goes in demo mode. An undocumented feature is that if you press the ‘S' key when it is loading it will go into a different demo which just flips between the large SORCERY + screen and the high score tables, In this mode you can remove your disc without the program resetting. This is really for shop-keepers who can leave it Demoing without the danger of someone half-inching the disc, although it also means you don't have to wait so long to read all the scrolling messages. If all is well, you have loaded the machine code, and put the ‘Sorcery +' disc in the drive. Program 5 will be ask you if. you want ‘Practice Mode' available? If you reply 'Y' to the prompt then you will always be able to get to the practice mode by holding down the ‘C' key. The second option asks you if you want ‘Infinite Energy'. If you reply 'Y' then none of the sprites in the game will harm you, although you can still die by drowning. If you answer ‘N' then you will remain vulnerable, or will become vulnerable if you have previously said ‘YES'. The last option asks you ‘How many sorcerers'. It will accept a number between zero and eight, and is the number of sorcerers you must rescue before being allowed to go to the ‘Plus' part. If you select zero you can go straight into the ‘Plus' bit through the door in ‘Sanctuary' with the advantage that, unlike practice mode, you can score, and none of the rooms are locked. To change this back to normal you simply enter ‘8' when asked. As you can see all of the features can be turned off so your disc is back to normal on both sides if you want it. Personally I have practice mode available, infinite energy and seven sorcerers to collect, because I always drown trying to get the book of spells for the eighth one. I must point out that there are three lines of data which tell the program where to put the POKEs for the number of sorcerers; lines 610,620 and 630. I found that only the first two POKEs are neccessary to alter the number of sorcerers but the last one alters a bit of code that was also checking on the number of sorcerers and as 1 wasn't sure if it does this when you are in the ‘Plus' bit somewhere or not, I put it in anyway. If you find that you cannot go somewhere in the ‘Plus' part you may like to change line 630 to be the same as line 620 and also make the last two numbers in line 650 the same, and see if it makes any difference. ACU |
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