Wrath of the Demon, proper 4 disk crack

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Ok. That would be... a monumentally strange thing to do.

Sometimes the Amiga community can be a monumentally strange place, but more often than not it's a monumentally impressive place

[ross]

Awesome work StingRay!
Can't wait to read the cracking diary.

--
A couple of years ago I also slipped into the same rabbit hole (I just checked the folder, I started the work in July 2019, abandoned and re-started it a few times).
I have my usual crack.txt ascii file in which I note the points the game is to be cracked/fixed/changed/adapted: 12KB!, usually for the difficult ones it is around 2KB.
Well, I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but this different version would have some cool features that would deserve a further release

[Radertified]

Thanks StingRay!

This is one of those games that I've always loved seeing in magazines but never played, or only booted to play for a minute. I think I might give it a serious shot one of these days.

And thanks for the accompanying WHDLoad slave. Is this one any better than the one by Harry + JOTD or is it just a new version of the slave for this particular release?

[Photon]

A nice crack by Stingray and with WHDLoad slave to go with accel fixes too, cheers to all involved!

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by kremiso

seems some good protection system on this game?
a lot of checksum checks ouch

The protection did its job pretty well, $1900 bytes long tracks, lots of checksums and (almost) no memory for any (crack) patches as the game use the complete 512k memory.

Originally Posted by Radertified

And thanks for the accompanying WHDLoad slave. Is this one any better than the one by Harry + JOTD or is it just a new version of the slave for this particular release?

The WHDLoad patch on disk 4 has been tailor made for this very release. It only supports the Scoopex crack and will never appear on the official WHDLoad site.

[malko]

(How can I have missed this thread ??)

Whaou ! Thanks a lot Sting for having made this 4 disk release !
Given the teeth that have been brokwn trying to crack this one properly, I am sure it was not a pleasure party. Will read with attention your notes.
Kudos man !

[SquawkBox]

Thanks for this release, Santa Sting!

[demoniac]

After not taking a break on playtesting and verifying my Amiga floppy transfers for several years now, I broke down and tried this release out. Excellent work as I completed the entire game. The diary was very interesting as well.

I forgot how long the dungeon section is and I don't remember if it was difficult to pass previously.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by BarryB

It's also playing the intro music faster, something that ross first noticed when looking at it!

This was one of the first things I fixed when starting to work on the game, the fix is already in my very first source from 16 June 2008. The bug is very easy to spot as the first line in the main binary is a cmp.b #50,d0 and I immediately wondered where this value was set in the bootblock. The result is dependent on the $60.w vector as there is a check for a cartridge in the bootblock. And the result of this check is passed to the main binary which in turn results in the NTSC flag for the replayer being set.

Originally Posted by BarryB

I've extracted the texts of the TRAINER INFO/GAME MANUAL and RELEASE DIARY/CRACKING NOTES for my reference, but is it permitted to Zone them for anyone else?

This diary should be part of the intro only so don't add it the The Zone! please. It's a good reminder that I need to protect all texts again next time so such questions are not likely to arise.

Originally Posted by SquawkBox

Thanks for this release, Santa Sting!

Only a week too late this time.

Originally Posted by demoniac

I forgot how long the dungeon section is and I don't remember if it was difficult to pass previously.

I find the castle levels quite annoying (it really was no fun to test these) as they are boring and way too long. Luckily, other levels were fun to play.

[tolkien]

Great! I have been playing it and died at the second stage (Im no very good I know) but game exits with Exception "Illegal Instructin" ($10) at $5BCAA ocurred.

Im playing the WHDLOAD version in an A1200 060.

Edit: It happends every time I die

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by StingRay

This was one of the first things I fixed when starting to work on the game, the fix is already in my very first source from 16 June 2008. The bug is very easy to spot as the first line in the main binary is a cmp.b #50,d0 and I immediately wondered where this value was set in the bootblock. The result is dependent on the $60.w vector as there is a check for a cartridge in the bootblock. And the result of this check is passed to the main binary which in turn results in the NTSC flag for the replayer being set.

I guessed as much, but I only ever saw it mentioned when ross was looking into it.

Originally Posted by StingRay

This diary should be part of the intro only so don't add it the The Zone! please. It's a good reminder that I need to protect all texts again next time so such questions are not likely to arise.

It's why i asked as I thought it was meant to be read via the intro so that's that question answered, and seeing as you'll probably encrypt/obfuscate future releases muppets like me will be well snookered!

[Alpha One]

I am excited to see the protection against people writing the text off from screen. :-)

Originally Posted by StingRay

This diary should be part of the intro only so don't add it the The Zone! please. It's a good reminder that I need to protect all texts again next time so such questions are not likely to arise.

[BarryB]

Originally Posted by Alpha One

I am excited to see the protection against people writing the text off from screen. :-)

Yeah, ROT13 FTW

/sarcasm off

[seuden]

Fantastic work StingRay! :-D

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by tolkien

Great! I have been playing it and died at the second stage (Im no very good I know) but game exits with Exception "Illegal Instructin" ($10) at $5BCAA ocurred.

Im playing the WHDLOAD version in an A1200 060.

Edit: It happends every time I die

Thanks for reporting, the disk change patch wasn't entirely correct, this caused wrong data for the "Game Over" picture to be loaded, which in turn caused the replayer code to be trashed as the game found "copperlist" data at completely wrong memory locations.

I have fixed this, new slave is attached.

[tolkien]

Thanks StingRay! Now It works great!

[DanyPPC]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Thanks for reporting, the disk change patch wasn't entirely correct, this caused wrong data for the "Game Over" picture to be loaded, which in turn caused the replayer code to be trashed as the game found "copperlist" data at completely wrong memory locations.

I have fixed this, new slave is attached.

Many thanks, fixed problem on my Blizzard 1230IV