Help with Magic Pockets - Bad Crack?

[hipoonios]

I'm stuck on the last level (Transport to get home). The version i using is the CSL ver.

Here is the walkthrough:

The solution to the endgame world:
I saw many people whining because they didn't make it past the last world. But it's so obvious! As the title of the world states, you have to "trans-port to get home". So, kill a couple of monsters until you reach the 5000 points mark, get a silver star, kill more monsters until you reach the 5000 points mark again, get a golden star, touch it and wear the transporter
helmet. Now you are transported in another room with several Space Hoppers and Snowmen. Kill at least one of them, grab the Hopper and blast the other Snowmen. Now go right and collect the masses of bonuses (altogether 200000 points), then go to the exit door and you have finished the game. I must admit that it is not very easy to get a transporter in the last world, but: no pain, no gain.

I have manage to get the second star a few times but that star is also silver. That should be gold if i understand it correctly. And collect 3 stars is impossible. There is not enough enemies to kill and time is end.

Any help is appreciated. My savestate is here if anyone want to try.

[jotd]

It's not a bad crack. I always wondered that too. One way (I thought it was the only way) is to get the fruit juice in the level before. That way you get a 5000 point bonus at the start, so get the silver right away and go for gold afterwards.

But in this video it seems that the player gets the gold star first, and he gets the teleport right away! [ Show youtube player ]

anyone can clear that up?

[Galahad/FLT]

Definitely not a bad crack, Copylock only decrypts level data, if the level works then the Copylock was correctly cracked or bypassed.

[DjDiabolik]

This game it's definilly BUG!! I have reach this same level and it's impossible to BEAT!!
I have I have reach to pick the GOLD STAR but instead of TRANSPORTER HELMET i obtain the a USELESS FACE MASK!!! How it's possible ???
This games it's fucked bugged....... and if I am wrong something comes that damn bubble to kill me.


This it's simply bugged games.

[jotd]

hey keep cool. It's not buggy it's just very complex. I thought I understood how the game worked (I've coded a few levels of a remake, and a level editor so I know the game pretty well) but it seems I did not, and even now, with the longplay (that you can watch and see for yourself: you can beat the last level), I don't understand how it works.

To get the teleport helmet you have to get exactly ONE silver star, THEN the gold star.

If you have NO silver star, then you get the face mask (waste of gold star, true). If you have more than 1 silver star, you get various weapons (bag of nails, nuke shades, gas tank, etc...). Strange that you didn't notice that earlier. The game interest relies on secret rooms, only based on teleports. There are 1, 2, or 3 secret rooms per level, and 1 warp at each first level of each world (and even a second warp at level 3 of world 1 for the US version).

At level 26 if you teleport, you reach a super bonus room with lots of points and a teleport helmet so you can even teleport back to level 1 and start again (with increased difficulty) instead of completing the game ! I don't know how this can be pulled without cheating though, as it's roughly the same issue: it's very hard to get silver+gold, plus the level is super hard.

Plus, each 5000 points, the bonus switches from normal sweets to specials (10 from silver star, ... to gold star).

It's explained in the manual. But if you follow this on the last level, you get one silver star, and find you don't have enough enemies to kill to get gold star.

One thing that worked for me was to get the glass of fruit juice at the previous level (which makes a big ice cream bonus appear at the "teleport home" level and gets you instant 5000 points, which allows you to get silver star immediately, then gold easily).

In the long play, the guy doesn't do that, and ends up getting silver then gold anyway. That's because he optimizes the scoring and the 5000 point boundary. But I'm still unsure how he pulls that. It seems that the special items don't "reset" to silver star in this case (else you need too many enemies to get gold).

I'll watch the longplay again and the scoring (and will peek at the reverse engineered IDA file that genius Kroah guy sent me). In the meantime if someone can provide a better explanation...

[DjDiabolik]

Originally Posted by jotd

hey keep cool. It's not buggy it's just very complex. I thought I understood how the game worked (I've coded a few levels of a remake, and a level editor so I know the game pretty well) but it seems I did not, and even now, with the longplay (that you can watch and see for yourself: you can beat the last level), I don't understand how it works.

To get the teleport helmet you have to get exactly ONE silver star, THEN the gold star.

If you have NO silver star, then you get the face mask (waste of gold star, true). If you have more than 1 silver star, you get various weapons (bag of nails, nuke shades, gas tank, etc...). Strange that you didn't notice that earlier. The game interest relies on secret rooms, only based on teleports. There are 1, 2, or 3 secret rooms per level, and 1 warp at each first level of each world (and even a second warp at level 3 of world 1 for the US version).

At level 22 (?) if you teleport, you reach a super bonus room with lots of points and a teleport helmet so you can even teleport back to level 1 and start again (with increased difficulty) instead of completing the game ! I don't know how this can be pulled without cheating though, as it's roughly the same issue: it's very hard to get silver+gold, plus the level is super hard.

Plus, each 5000 points, the bonus switches from normal sweets to specials (10 from silver star, ... to gold star).

It's explained in the manual. But if you follow this on the last level, you get one silver star, and find you don't have enough enemies to kill to get gold star.

One thing that worked for me was to get the glass of fruit juice at the previous level (which makes a big ice cream bonus appear at the "teleport home" level and gets you instant 5000 points, which allows you to get silver star immediately, then gold easily).

In the long play, the guy doesn't do that, and ends up getting silver then gold anyway. That's because he optimizes the scoring and the 5000 point boundary. But I'm still unsure how he pulls that. It seems that the special items don't "reset" to silver star in this case (else you need too many enemies to get gold).

I'll watch the longplay again and the scoring (and will peek at the reverse engineered IDA file that genius Kroah guy sent me). In the meantime if someone can provide a better explanation...

I NEED... I NEED to explain my post


Immediatelly sorry me my frustation but i made this reply during a gameplay and problably after about one hours tryed to beat this level.


I need to say........ to all....for the tones used in the reply.


Come back to reality and after a good night


Anyway, I saved last night a "Save State" at beginning of this level.If I understand correctly whit this this level it's unbeatable because I had to prepare/optimize the beat on previous level ?!?!? No... Please say no i need to restart the games from beginning


I have also see some cheat site there's a level code but apparently there's no way to insert that code on Amiga ADF version..... strange.

[jotd]

noone is blaming you. Swearing at a game isn't considered as an offence.

The method I described works, but I'm pretty sure the level can be beat without that. Let me analyse the longplay/the code.

If you have whdload, get the NTSC version, there are codes for each level. There is also a NTSC adf crack somewhere probably (Konami publisher) on TOSEC or such.

Too bad that this game is underrated and the creator thought too much of the players because some secrets and even the last level needs to know the game mechanics perfectly, something that the creator himself knew after several months developping it...

IMHO not enough playtesting on that one, too bad as it's really an awesome game, bit of a rough diamond.

[DjDiabolik]

Originally Posted by jotd

noone is blaming you. Swearing at a game isn't considered as an offence.

It's ever better to explain when it's possible
I was really freaking out when replying and I was frantically looking for solutions everywhere ... look also on youtube comments on famous long play video

Originally Posted by jotd

The method I described works, but I'm pretty sure the level can be beat without that. Let me analyse the longplay/the code.

If you have whdload, get the NTSC version, there are codes for each level. There is also a NTSC adf crack somewhere probably (Konami publisher) on TOSEC or such.

Too bad that this game is underrated and the creator thought too much of the players because some secrets and even the last level needs to know the game mechanics perfectly, something that the creator himself knew after several months developping it...

IMHO not enough playtesting on that one, too bad as it's really an awesome game, bit of a rough diamond.

I never count exactly how many enemies are in the level.... but look here:
http://www.bitmap-brothers.de/tcr/co...kets1.htm#wld4


Apparently it's an official guide...... if you look here theorically at begin of stage you need to kill 10 enemies for obtain the MP COIN.
At 11 kills theorically you obtain the silver star and at 20 kill the Gold Star.


At this level there's no 20 enemies to kill and also if you kill 15 enemies on previous level before to reach this the count it's restart from beginning....

[jotd]

yeah, I checked the longplay and looking closely, the player NEVER gets the silver star. Actually when switching from sweets to specials, it gets directly to the soda pop brown bottle.

Player skips until he gets gold, traps enemy, gets gold, and teleports. It looks like there's a special case for this level to get gold directly... I have to try this like NOW!!!

Tried it, and really I don't understand, as I'm getting the silver star when reaching 5000 points boundary. Getting gold gives you damn solder mask, useless...

NOW I think I figured out something

When you cross the 5000 point boundary with a KILL (and not with a bonus), the special system is different. I never figured out what was different but what I did is I had a score like 4900 (with password) then kill an enemy and get 500 points, that gets you special, but advanced by 4 (soda pop directly). This skips the first special bonuses, but still gives you solder mask when you get gold.

Now what the player did different was to kill the nasty which allows to cross the 5000 point boundary by jumping on it. I didn't try that but I'm convinced that it's the key.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by jotd

yeah, I checked the longplay and looking closely, the player NEVER gets the silver star. Actually when switching from sweets to specials, it gets directly to the soda pop brown bottle.

Player skips until he gets gold, traps enemy, gets gold, and teleports. It looks like there's a special case for this level to get gold directly... I have to try this like NOW!!!

Tried it, and really I don't understand, as I'm getting the silver star when reaching 5000 points boundary. Getting gold gives you damn solder mask, useless...

NOW I think I figured out something

When you cross the 5000 point boundary with a KILL (and not with a bonus), the special system is different. I never figured out what was different but what I did is I had a score like 4900 (with password) then kill an enemy and get 500 points, that gets you special, but advanced by 4 (soda pop directly). This skips the first special bonuses, but still gives you solder mask when you get gold.

Now what the player did different was to kill the nasty which allows to cross the 5000 point boundary by jumping on it. I didn't try that but I'm convinced that it's the key.

How was the NTSC version cracked in the WHDLoad version?

Did you skip the code entry completely or did you crack the compare?

[jotd]

I think I cracked the code compare. But don't worry I'm pretty sure that it's not a hidden protection. Anyway the code doesn't pop up unless you end a level.

So basically with all level codes you are able to play all the levels individually without encountering the password. I'm pretty sure that it behaves properly. Plus DjDiabolik has the issue with the PAL version (using copylock, that you helped me to crack in ... 2001 oh well )

It's just that the programmer thought that you had figured out the secret of the bonus system since you reached that end level... but I think he was wrong: I've been playing this game since 1991 and I'm pinpointing this just now.

It doesn't surprise me, since the game is full of hidden bonuses that most people didn't discover. Specially the teleport room at level 26 that brings you back to level one with 2 extra continues. Even with the "T" cheat of whdload it's super hard to get a gold star so that seems impossible to get it without cheating (or you need to do the same trick than on last level to get the star very quickly, problem is enemies are super aggressive. I suppose that it's easier with full power - gold chalice on)

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by jotd

I think I cracked the code compare. But don't worry I'm pretty sure that it's not a hidden protection. Anyway the code doesn't pop up unless you end a level.

So basically with all level codes you are able to play all the levels individually without encountering the password. I'm pretty sure that it behaves properly. Plus DjDiabolik has the issue with the PAL version (using copylock, that you helped me to crack in ... 2001 oh well )

It's just that the programmer thought that you had figured out the secret of the bonus system since you reached that end level... but I think he was wrong: I've been playing this game since 1991 and I'm pinpointing this just now.

It doesn't surprise me, since the game is full of hidden bonuses that most people didn't discover. Specially the teleport room at level 26 that brings you back to level one with 2 extra continues. Even with the "T" cheat of whdload it's super hard to get a gold star so that seems impossible to get it without cheating (or you need to do the same trick than on last level to get the star very quickly, problem is enemies are super aggressive. I suppose that it's easier with full power - gold chalice on)

No worries, the only thing I spotted was when I did the ADF version was later in the code there was several checks on the location of where the protection code was stored and I thought it might check to ensure there was at least a code entered so I copied the protection code to the expected destination.

But as you say, if there is the same problem with the Copylock UK version, then its not likely to be protection related as that didn't have any additional checks, and i'm now thinking it was unlikely they would bother for the US version which was likely an after thought and not expected to sell very many.

[jotd]

The bitmap bros protections were all copylock. But for the US, maybe there were duplication issues locally with trace machines because all BBros konami/NTSC titles have passwords. And easy-to-crack ones!

[jotd]

I'm pretty sure that this has to do with the scoring. Note in the video how the guy gets 1369900 points prior to killing the nasty at 2:39:48

At 2:39:58 he has killed the nasty by jumping on it and gets directly the bottle of pop (because it gives 500 points, so 400 points over the 5000 boundary I figured, even if this isn't documented anywhere!). I was able to reproduce that, but still no teleport in the end.

[ Show youtube player ]

If you can reach a score like xx4800 points at start of this level (or you get the fruit juice drink just before to get +5000 points immediately) it's perfectly possible to get silver then gold. But the way it's done in the video, no way. There has to be a cheat somewhere (note: this is the only longplay of magic pockets i found)

[DjDiabolik]

Originally Posted by jotd

yeah, I checked the longplay and looking closely, the player NEVER gets the silver star. Actually when switching from sweets to specials, it gets directly to the soda pop brown bottle.

Player skips until he gets gold, traps enemy, gets gold, and teleports. It looks like there's a special case for this level to get gold directly... I have to try this like NOW!!!

Tried it, and really I don't understand, as I'm getting the silver star when reaching 5000 points boundary. Getting gold gives you damn solder mask, useless...

NOW I think I figured out something

When you cross the 5000 point boundary with a KILL (and not with a bonus), the special system is different. I never figured out what was different but what I did is I had a score like 4900 (with password) then kill an enemy and get 500 points, that gets you special, but advanced by 4 (soda pop directly). This skips the first special bonuses, but still gives you solder mask when you get gold.

Now what the player did different was to kill the nasty which allows to cross the 5000 point boundary by jumping on it. I didn't try that but I'm convinced that it's the key.

Last night i tryed sooooooo many times.........


First of all I have to say i use that ADF "Magic Pockets (1991)(Renegade)[cr CSL][t +4 LGD]". It's can enable a cheat for infinite credit but also this it's not really infinite because after a lot of tryed i obtain a GAME OVER definelly and i see the games step backward to main menu.
In the first instance I had played all the levels until 3-1 how i found the warp to level 4. I have beat the level and reach the last level...... tryed so many times and sure to have infinite credits I kept trying and continuing every time after the fuc***ng bubble killing me.

At some point I found myself written "game over" directly without the possibility of continuing... when i see the games step backward to first level I freaked out


At this point i restart from first level but i have used the SKIP LEVEL cheat to re-reach this level and i have created a "Save State".


I've tried a couple of ways to get there "Silver Star" but after that it's very impossible to reach and obtain also the "Gold Star".
For obtain the "Silver Star" i need to kill only the upper enemies at the top (and not those inside the holes) start from left to right. At some point you can obtain the silver star but when i begin to kill the enemies inside the hole i see the fuc**ing killer bubble catch me and kill me (and again a freaked out )
Believe me I have tried billions of times ....


For all my tryed i have used the ADF on a A500 configuration.... i have also a WHDLOAD Setup (A1200 + RTG on WB 3.1) but whit current installer (or some full package found online) it's not avaiable the infinite lives or infinite credit and it doesn't seem easy to reach the last level whit this....




Oh... if you can't understand some of my reasoning sorry me but i'm italian and i help myself whit google translate in some phrase.....

[Don_Adan]

Try to play IPF version and compare, game can be protected in Gods style (very hard to play, if bad crack).

[jotd]

I'm resuming the work on the whdload install, partially on request to add trainer:

- REALLY infinite credits & lives.
- speed fix (the game is too fast on higher cpus, including bubble timeout and all, you move faster, but enemies are also faster and when you don't move the time elapses faster)
- if I can, I'll add an option to suppress the bubble

There are 3 versions out there. I suspect that only one version is completable without having to get the fruit juice just before the teleport level (note: that definitely WORKS but the previous level is super-hard, I could barely finish it with 0 lives, again maybe that's because the game is too fast). We'll see.

@Don_Adan: I don't think so. There are 2 copylock versions, with a nasty copylock that we beat in 2001 with Galahad (well, Galahad beat it ). There's also a password protected version. ATM password protected version behaves the same. Plus I don't see why all the game would be playable and suddenly the last level doesn't work. Almost nobody reached this level anyway.

And playing the IPF means NOT CHEATING and play all levels or try to pull warps (which can be difficult).

I've played it to death in 1992-1993... and my memory is fuzzy. What I'm sure of is that I never completed the game. I don't remember when I saw the end screen exactly too. At some point I used the whdload version of the NTSC version which has passwords, just to be able to warp to any level.

And once again: this is perfectly expected not to get a teleport helmet "for free". This longplay (and the fact that there's only ONE longplay) is suspect. With the whdload version and my "T" cheatmode, I can create a video like this ...

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Don_Adan

Try to play IPF version and compare, game can be protected in Gods style (very hard to play, if bad crack).

Not the same on this game.

Gods used the copy lock to decrypt some long words which would alter how the game played.

Magic Pockets used the copylock to decrypt the level data for every level and would simply crash if decryption didnt occur.

[jotd]

ATM I really think that this video uses a cheat of some sort.

Nothing in the original code indicates an extra silver star awarded by some magic hack...

What's possible to do WITHOUT CHEATING:

- reach the level
- go for the green fruit drink
- die / lose one credit when bubble gets you
- on restart, try to get silver star then gold start. That will be easy since an icecream bonus is present now, giving you 5000 points. So you'll get silver very quickly, then gold. If you can't make it, go for fruit drink again, lose one credit, repeat.


Of course, getting fruit drink in the previous level allows not to lose a credit (but it's super hard so you can lose a lot of credits trying to do that )

[rygar]

I remember playing Magic Pockets many years ago and also without success of beating last level. I was playing version without passwords so i was using warps to get fast to last level. In this time i've no idea how to beat this freaky level.
Few years ago i spotted "longplay" on YT which show solution but i wasn't able to reproduce it also
Still have the "unfinished business" with this game