Arcticfox 100%

[Estrayk]

Good work Stingray! thx

[vulture]

Fanstastic job Stingray!

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by StingRay

The actual cracking didn't take that long, I had the first working version ready in 2014. As I had coded a generic decrypter for the EA encryption, the encrypted binary was easily converted to a standard Amiga executable. Patching the game to load its files with dos.library instead of the trackloader was also quickly done. However, as I had converted the game to 100% Amiga DOS (original was trackloaded) I faced an annoying problem with sprite 0 which the game uses. As Amiga OS uses it too for the mouse pointer, there were graphics glitches in the game. Tried to fix it, but without real success. And then was so annoyed that I worked on other projects meanwhile.

Basically, all of the work (cracking, fixing, intro coding) was done in a few weeks. These few weeks were spread over 6 years though.



I may have a look, I'll most probably need your help for testing as I don't have any Vampire based machine at my disposal.

Sure thing, let me know how I can help!

EDIT: On a related note, the WHDLoad install also doesn't work correctly on a Vampire Amiga. It loads up fine and starts, but nothing works. And when you press keys it runs in slow motion and locks up. Not sure if that helps you.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

EDIT: On a related note, the WHDLoad install also doesn't work correctly on a Vampire Amiga. It loads up fine and starts, but nothing works. And when you press keys it runs in slow motion and locks up. Not sure if that helps you.

The WHDLoad version and my disk version are completely different, my version uses 100% Amiga DOS files and completely removes all protection layers. Both versions version use different approaches for disabling the protection and applying patches.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

but on A1200 Vampire 2 get black screen with music playing and game starts.

Please try attached version, do you still get the black screen on your Vampire A1200?

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by StingRay

The actual cracking didn't take that long, I had the first working version ready in 2014. As I had coded a generic decrypter for the EA encryption, the encrypted binary was easily converted to a standard Amiga executable. Patching the game to load its files with dos.library instead of the trackloader was also quickly done. However, as I had converted the game to 100% Amiga DOS (original was trackloaded) I faced an annoying problem with sprite 0 which the game uses. As Amiga OS uses it too for the mouse pointer, there were graphics glitches in the game. Tried to fix it, but without real success. And then was so annoyed that I worked on other projects meanwhile.

Basically, all of the work (cracking, fixing, intro coding) was done in a few weeks. These few weeks were spread over 6 years though.

Interesting that the one sprite held everything up. So how did you fix that in the end then? That's good you only slowed down but never gave up.

I used to read all the Making of/Work In Progress features on games back in those days and I often got the impression that few early Amiga games used sprites. So that was bad luck! I guess any extra speed is useful in a 3D game though

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Please try attached version, do you still get the black screen on your Vampire A1200?

Tried it, no change.

[StingRay]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

So how did you fix that in the end then?

Final solution was coding an input-handler which blocks all mouse events.

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Tried it, no change.

Try attached version, you should see a number in the upper left corner after starting the game and nothing else will happen. Tell me which number you see, depending on the number you'll tell me I may or may not continue on fixing the game for Vampire.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by StingRay

Final solution was coding an input-handler which blocks all mouse events.



Try attached version, you should see a number in the upper left corner after starting the game and nothing else will happen. Tell me which number you see, depending on the number you'll tell me I may or may not continue on fixing the game for Vampire.

I see no number.

[StingRay]

OK, that means I won't spend any more time trying to make the game work for Vampire machines, sorry.

[saimon69]

From Saberman video it looks pretty slow,even slower than Battlezone clones on a spectrum; is something that some competent coder could fix or is due to using the system API?

[StingRay]

The game code is mostly done in C but line drawing and some other time-critical routines have been coded in ASM. It would certainly be possible to speed up the code but it would be a lot of work to do this, so not feasible IMHO.

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by StingRay

OK, that means I won't spend any more time trying to make the game work for Vampire machines, sorry.

No problem! Thanks for trying. The game really is not all that great, so hard to control. Have to use the Joystick in port 1. Mouse sucks!

Edit: Was trying out the Atari ST version (to see how it compares) and I found something interesting. The ST version defaults to Joystick mode in port 2, and you can press CTRL M or CTRL J to switch between mouse and joysticks. (without unplugging anything.) The Amiga version defaults to Joystick in port 1 (mouse port), so you have to swap the mouse for a joystick. The manual says a mouse can be used but it's garbage trying to use it (I question if the Amiga code even supports a mouse?), wonder if it's possible to swap ports or add the CTRL M and CTRL J to swap between Joystick in port 1 and mouse in port 0?

[Valken]

Thanks for fixing this! Awesome Christmas present for Amiga fans!