Atari Works Document | 1994-03-10 | 13KB | 139 lines
Dungeon Master/Chaos Strikes Back
Park Avenue
oper Black
Bitstream Cooper Black
The AMAZINGLY, ASTONISHINGLY, ASTOUNDINGLY, W O N D E R F U L
DUNGEON MASTER / CHAOS STRIKES BACK
EDITOR
Version 1.0
, or some large number if you count all the versions that
were written in
STOS BASIC
Introduction
======
A few weeks ago, my good friend Antony Burden, with whom I wrote the original version of this program (in
STOS BASIC
), told me that he had had a request for an updated version which was
compatible. That shows how long it was since we last did any work on this program -- roughly 3 years.
Anyway, I managed to dig out a copy of the source code from the bottom of a disk box, and set about compiling it with the most recent version of
which I possessed.
There was a slight hitch. After compiling, it simply didn't run.
So, faced with the choice of picking my way through the old version to find out why it didn't work, and re-writing it from scratch, I decided to do a complete re-write.
So, a few weeks later, this is the result. This program is now written completely in C, and compiled with the
GNU C
compiler with all the optimisation settings on.
It isn't very pretty, it doesn't use
, and control is by keyboard only, but it works. (Having said that, I haven't had the opportunity to test it on any other machine than my 5-year-old
, with
TOS 1.2
, but it ought to work on any
version).
The one big restriction is that it runs in low (320 x 200) resolution only, and it takes up the whole screen.
Enough waffling, on to the instructions.
Instructions
======
Run the editor. You will be faced with a simple title screen; press a key to clear it.
You will now see my simple file selector. You can either type a filename in directly, or press
to switch to a list of files which you can scroll through with the cursor keys. Pressing
RETURN
will select the currently highlighted file or directory. You can change drive by pressing
SHIFT
+ the drive letter. Undo will quit without returning a result.
When you select a file, the editor will load it and attempt to identify what type of file it is by its length. If it cannot tell what type of file it is, it will ask for another.
The editor will recognise several types of file: game positions saved from within
and
, as well as game positions saved from the
Prison
(useful if you want to get both of the hidden characters in your team) and the
DUNGEON.DAT
and
MINI.DAT
files which are used as the initial state of the dungeon for
and
respectively.
I should mention here that there are 2 versions of
Dungeon Master
. The original version (sold by
Mirrorsoft
) creates saved game files of 47914 bytes, and as far as I can remember the later version (which I believe is included in the
double pack sold by
Psygnosis
) makes saved game files of 47916 bytes. The extra 2 bytes are used as a checksum, and since I don't know how to calculate it,
Dungeon Master
will complain about damaged files when you try to reload a file that has been edited.
Having loaded a file, the editor will display a map of the top level of the dungeon contained in that file.
The following keys now come into effect:
Cursor keys:
Move the pointer around the screen. As it moves across the map, a brief description of the current map square will be displayed in the top-right of the screen.
Return:
Changes the map square currently pointed at to something relevant -- e.g. doors open and close; walls change to empty spaces and vice versa. For full details, see the list at the end of this file.
Asks for a new byte value for the square currently pointed at. A full list appears at the end of this file.
Read another file from disk for editing.
Save the current file back to disk under its original name.
Ask for a new file name and save the current file under that name.
Ask for a file name and save the current screen image under that name in
DEGAS .PI1
format.
Move up 1 level.
Move down 1 level.
Ask for a level number to display.
Toggle whether descriptions of map squares are displayed.
(.txt)