Magic Island fan translation?

[TheBoss]

Glad you like my little project guys, I hope it will be usefull
I thought it was a shame that Magic Island CD32 didnt have a real jewelcase cover so I started to fiddle around with photoshop just to make a private cover but I ended up with a website too

[viddi]

Simply perfect. What about creating CD Covers and Inlays for other CD32 Games without a beautiful case ?

[TheBoss]

I have made a new topic so I dont hijack this thread
Post your questions there so we can get a discussion open
Link: New topic

[AmigaHope]

More things I've noticed:

The mouse incompatibility in WinUAE is caused by the 68040 emulation. The game works fine (albeit with timing issues) in 68020+FPU emulation, even with JIT enabled, etc, even when running from workbench, switches fine from RTG to native display, etc. If your workbench config sets the mouse sprite to high-res it will look squashed since MagicIsland doesn't know about high-res sprites, but it otherwise works fine.

As far as real Amigas go, I have a 68040 but I don't want to rip apart my uber-expanded A4000 to reinstall and try it. I WILL see if the mouse bug happens on my real 060 that's installed in it (CSPPC 604e/233 060/60)

Magic Island *needs* setpatch. The game comes with an AmigaOS 3.0 setpatch, but the 3.9 one seems to work fine.

viddi, are you *sure* both floppy versions are the same? Please check checksums for the files on all sets. Since you only sent me one set I can't compare. Make sure to make as pristine a copy of each disk as you can and make sure it never gets written to, because...

MagicIsland, when run from floppy, DEMANDS to be able to write to disk 1!! This makes preserving originals very hard to do and in light of this I wonder if the beta disks may have already been corrupted in the past decade. The CD32 version, obviously, does not require the ability to write.

The CD32 version still has the copy protection routines in it, but I don't know how and when they are activated.

The HD-installed version you sent me viddi works fine until I am done with character selection, at which point it declares that I have an illegal copy and dies. At no point did it actually ask me for manual protection. I'm going to try copying the files over freshly from the floppies.

I still haven't found a way to coax any sort of version info out of the game, either from the executeable or in-game. The CD32 version is still a newer build I'm sure though. One thing I've noticed is that the main character has no default name in the English beta but does have one in the CD32 version (his default name is "LEMON" -- what a fruity name! ^_- )

The timing issues in the game seem to stem from bad assumptions made about the speed of certain operations. Some seem to be CPU-limited, others chipset-limited, others actually realtime-limted. Different operations are thus sped up at different rates, and some are not sped up at all. This leads to some strange effects like monster attack times becoming far faster than player attack times on a faster configuration.

I'll report more as I find out more info. I need to get a recent version of ReSource.

[viddi]

Hi Amigahope,

I already tried to set hires mousepointer to lowres. No chance

But I think it´s an OS 3.9 issue because it works fine after booting from Workbench 3.1 floppy disk.

Okay, I´ll send you the other version to be 100% sure there is no difference.
Will check checksums, too.

I don´t think someone tried to save on Disk 1, because it´s not possible to continue a saved game.


Nobody here with a recent version of ReSource?

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by viddi

I already tried to set hires mousepointer to lowres. No chance

It's not really a big deal anyway, it just makes your pointer looked squashed. I can play the game just fine with the squashed pointer. A simple degrader-type wrapper can run it without having to use WHDLoad or whatever.

Originally Posted by viddi

Okay, I´ll send you the other version to be 100% sure there is no difference.
Will check checksums, too.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by viddi

I don´t think someone tried to save on Disk 1, because it´s not possible to continue a saved game.

No, no, it's not to save a saved game! It's saving something else, I'm not sure what. Try running the game from floppy while write-protected, and it will try to write something to the floppy when you leave the inn (either by going to sleep with the prostitute or just walking away into the snow) after it starts up the main game engine executeable.

In other news, I've found that it only complains about having a pirate version if the bb: assign is not pointing to the first floppy. Otherwise it runs fine from the hard drive with b2: through b6: assigned to the hard drive. (It might even work with b1: assigned to the hard drive, with the floppy renamed to bb

If this was intended to be run from HD install I'm not really sure how it disables the protection. I'm going to have to look at it some more. I still have no idea where the manual lookup protection happens.

Edit:

I experimented more and created a dedicated hardfile so "Disk 1" could be on a real volume instead of in a directory. Amazingly, Magic Island no longer declares itself to be pirated then, however it also causes the game to hang right after it would normally say that it was pirated! Clearly it needs a real floppy disk (or something encoded somewhere on the real floppy disk) for some purpose, but I don't know what exactly.

Furthermore, it makes me seriously wonder how the hard drive install is supposed to work, since presumably it doesn't use the floppy then. viddi, did you make that "installed" version using the included installer? That part seems very, very broken. If we can't fix this or hack the English text into the CD32 version (which presumably should be easier to make work from HD) we may really need WHDLoad after all just to fake a fricking floppy image of disk 1 when the thing runs.

[viddi]

I´ll check the games later on.

But I send the second version of MI to you in a few minutes.

My mousepointer isn´t squashed. It´s not there under OS 3.9.

Okay, I´m in a hurry. Bye for now


Edit: Ah yes, I used the Installer from Disk 1 to install it.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by viddi

My mousepointer isn´t squashed. It´s not there under OS 3.9.

As I said earlier, I get the "disappearing mousepointer" bug in UAE only if I have my processor set to 68040. If I have it set to 68020+FPU, the mousepointer stays.

If you're running this on a real Amiga, what is the configuration?

Originally Posted by viddi

Edit: Ah yes, I used the Installer from Disk 1 to install it.

When you run your installed version, do you get the "Illegal Copy" warning when you go to the main game engine? (i.e. when you start the actual game by walking away from the inn or sleeping with the prostitute)

If you aren't getting it, I may have to try installing it myself to see if it does something different. o.O;

Edit: I got the second version, and just from looking at the CRCs in the .rar file, disks 2 through 6 are exactly the same, however disk 1 is different! I will try to see what has changed on this disk. It *could* be a result of the game writing mysteriously to disk 1 at the beginning for no good reason (as I observed earlier) essentially creating a new disk 1 variant every time you run it. =/ This makes TOSEC/SPS cataloging of the disks very very difficult. It could also be a genuinely different version of the executeables. When I'm not at work (like I am now) I'll take the time to examine them.

[viddi]

Hi!

I´m using an A4000 /060 and it works fine under OS3.1.
It works from floppy disks,too.

But it has this hiding mousepointer problem under OS3.9.


I don´t get the "Illegal Copy" warning.


Disk 1 of the second version was NOT write-protected
So I think someone already modified this disk.


At first I thought it´s to enable a quickstart option. But you´re right.
No idea what´s written onto the disk.

[AmigaHope]

New information!

Originally Posted by viddi

I´m using an A4000 /060 and it works fine under OS3.1.
It works from floppy disks,too.

But it has this hiding mousepointer problem under OS3.9.

Interesting. It still doesn't explain to me the 040 vs. 020 dichotomy under UAE. I'll have to try running 3.9 on my A500 (020@14Mhz) in addition to my uber A4000.

Originally Posted by viddi

I don´t get the "Illegal Copy" warning.

This might be because it customizes itself to your system when you run the install. I will have to try doing an install myself to see if that produces a working installed version when I have time.

Either that or it's somehow incompatible with UAE when installed to HD.

Originally Posted by viddi

Disk 1 of the second version was NOT write-protected
So I think someone already modified this disk.

At first I thought it´s to enable a quickstart option. But you´re right.
No idea what´s written onto the disk.

Mystery partially solved! The file that is being written is "MI.dat", which appears to contain, at the very least, information on the makeup of your party, including character names and such.

Both disks were run by someone who liked to name their main character "ANDI". Andreas, was that you? xD

A difference I noted between the floppy and the CD32 versions:

Character information in the floppy version appears to be entirely generated by the character selection executeable, with no references to the characters names, etc. contained in the main game engine executeable!

In the CD32 version, however, character information is not only hardcoded into the main game engine, but it accesses stored files on each character's setup from a the directory BB-Bor, where each character has a file, including a file for the "LEMON" default main character for each class that the player can pick for him.

There are also data files for playable characters who are NOT at the inn, named "Zanger", "Falin", and "Achil". Apparently there is a town later in the game where you can recruit them -- I'm not sure if this requires leaving your party slots empty at the beginning (i.e. not recruiting people at the Inn).

Anyway, the reason for the difference is probably due to the designers realizing that their original model for character selection (writing MI.dat to disk) wouldn't work on the CD32, and that they'd need to save as much of the CD32's nvram as possible just to store bare minimum savestate info.

Anyway I guess we're never going to find an "original" of the beta, but at least now we know which file is changing.

I'll need to compare the Czech floppy version. Time for me to pick up Amiga Future. xD

[AmigaHope]

There hasn't been a reply for a while so I'm bumping the text. xD Does anyone have any observations on what I found out?

I've been responding slow since I'm on vacation in California, visiting a female friend. xD Sex is better than games so naturally I'm not working on it right now.

I'll be more active when I get back.

[viddi]

So bad, we can´t find a WHDload coder to check protection and bugs

"Active" no comment on that Have a nice trip!

[hoborg]

Hi. Any news about this project?

I have original CD, but can someone give me hint, where i can got correct EN floppy version? I have found two, one have 6 and second 7 discs. The 7 one is working, but is is combination of EN/CZ texts :/

BTW, any idea how to make CD version store saves to HDD?

[AmigaHope]

It's been FOREVER but I'm posting! =D

Anyway, there are nonvolatile CD32 library replacements that let you emulate its storage and save to disk.

A WHD'd version of this game would still be great to have. I want to actually play through it someday. =(

[Haywire]

Is there a iso for the English CD32 version out there?

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Haywire

Is there a iso for the English CD32 version out there?

As far as I know, no English CD32 version exists.

[Gzegzolka]

Sorry to hear that, I would love to play that game and being able to understood what it is about.

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

Sorry to hear that, I would love to play that game and being able to understood what it is about.

There is an English floppy beta. The translation is kinda suspect but it exists. It could probably be patched back into the CD32 version. Just getting this game to run properly at all is a nightmare and I gave up long ago. It needs some serious fixing.

The CD32 version doesn't seem to offer much in improvements other than being more stable, but with the downside of no character customization (characters are hardcoded into the game due to CD32 nvram save game limitations).

But I couldn't even get the CD32 version to run properly in UAE, and didn't have a real PAL CD32 to test it on. The biggest problem is the authors used every kind of timing under the sun -- some stuff is CPU-cycle timed, some stuff is chipset-timed, some stuff is vblank timed, and some stuff is system clock timed. It's a huge mess of race conditions.

[viddi]

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

Sorry to hear that, I would love to play that game and being able to understood what it is about.

I have it plus manual and box.
The APC&TCP box is stored somewhere on top of the vocal booth, though.
So I can´t scan it atm.

[AmigaHope]

OMG there's a sticker on the SHIELD SLIDER? That seems like a good way to beg your floppy drive to get gummed up with debris. D=

Did you ever get the game into a playable state?