Ambermoon - Page 9

Wolfus · 08 February 2009, 21:53

I tried to install game from your archive ambermoong_105.zip yesterdayand it generated error with suspend/reboot requester. After I copied files manually, game works normally, but in save/load menu I see version 1.01, st-th is right. After applying patch from aminet (just amber.lha) version number changed to 1.05. I didn't encountered any problems before patch installation nor after it.

alexh · 08 February 2009, 22:32

I have the original disks here, they are not copy protected, I'll dump them again.

Wolfus · 08 February 2009, 23:15

And original is 1.05...?

alexh · 09 February 2009, 11:44

I have three copies of the German version which I assume are 1.00, 1.01 and 1.05

23 February 2009, 09:24

Hi guys,

Can anyone tell me how/where to combine the two parts of the amberstar amulett? (Tar/Bos)
I've found both of them and nearly completed the game without finding out how to do so.

Thx

alexh · 23 February 2009, 10:14

I've already given hints to this once in the thread.

You need to find a Jeweller to repair it. There is one called Theresa in the artists house in Burnville.

bb_neo · 22 March 2009, 20:23

Hi there!

I started this great game some years ago and never came very far. (no time and lost my savestate) Now, you all guys made me want to try it again, but this time with WinUAE. (Still have my A4000/40 somewhere in the cellar but want make the fighting scenes faster...)

As I want to start again (it is never late) Ambermoon, I would like to know what version has less bugs. The English V1.07 (26-3-1994) or the German V1.05? I speak german too so no problem to start the adventure in German.

@ Alex, I read on one of your previous posts that you published a list of known bugs (1 to 26 bugs) are those only for the english version or the german, too?

Many thanks

alexh · 23 March 2009, 10:26

If you can read German and English equally well you should play the German version.

There is a problem with v1.05 disks on the Thalion Webshrine so get your disks from somewhere else.

st-th · 28 March 2009, 10:19

This is not a hoax/paint job, but the result of quite a bit of resourcing and assembly programming over the last few weeks...

Attachment 20853

(The portrait colors are messed up, because I grabbed this on my A2000 with HRTMon which can't cope with images using a copperlist to create different palettes for separate image areas.)

This version implements mostly additional "background" functionality, mainly a mechanism that allows to inject arbitrary patches into any of the game's executables. It also contains several re-written internal functions, improved error handling and a few tidbits here and there.

It also fixes 5 code bugs, 2 of them quite severe. Unfortunately, there are a lot more bugs still present...

As of yet, I don't think of this as worth releasing publically. This will change once I've thinned-out my "to do" list though.

meynaf · 30 March 2009, 12:40

Perhaps you can make the actual version and sources available, so people can test your patches and/or help in making new ones.

alexh · 30 March 2009, 13:06

Listing details of the bugs would have been interesting...

As I have said in this thread, most of the bugs in the English version of Ambermoon are plain text typo's in the script files. They can easily be found and fixed with a series of tools which have been released over the years. (To decrypt JH files, decompress LOB packed files, split and join the script files). There is one current problem with the tools available for editing these plain text script files. Each file has multiple CRC's (or something like CRC) in them. When you change any of the text to fix bugs you change the CRC also. Non of the tools I have re-calculate the CRC's but not changing them does not seem to have any adverse effect... but you never know.

Verifying the fixes is the hard part. Currently all the files released with v1.07 allow you to play the game through to the end.

Take care when distributing binaries. The former Thalion staff do not own the rights to Ambermoon so they cannot officially authorise publication rights to you (or anyone!)

I would recommend posting patches & scripts which can be applied by the user to their own files, rather than replacement binaries.

Shoonay · 30 March 2009, 13:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexh

I would recommend posting patches & scripts which can be applied by the user to their own files, rather than replacement binaries.

Yes, that would be an idea, and maybe someone could finally (please) release a perfect version.
Honestly, I heard so much about the bugs it kept me from playing further a few moths (years?

) back... well, that and 'cause I suck at the game and can't figure out a way to buildup faster...

alexh · 30 March 2009, 13:20

If you read the bug list before you play you can go the entire game without seeing any of them.

First time I played it, (and I was almost certainly the first person ever to play v1.07 through!) the only bug I ever saw was the one in Luminor's Tower.

st-th · 01 April 2009, 08:38

It may sound funny, but all those corrupted text files are not the real problem. Sure, they are the most obvious "in your face" bugs, crashing the game to boot, but they can be properly fixed eventually. I have some ideas about it and when they work out, it will actually be rather trivial.

However, the real problem are code bugs. To give you an idea, here are a few small ones I've fixed:

- Calling graphics.library's VideoControl() function with a messed-up pointer argument. This affects every system running OS 3.0 or newer and could result in sprite display errors during and after the game.

- Testing the result of dos.library's Open() function with a wrong conditional branch with the result that every failure to open a file is treated as success followed by subsequent accesses to an illegal file handle.

- A major logic bug in handling a status flag which could result in messing up internal structures.

- Not restoring pr_WindowPtr to its original value under certain circumstances which will crash the system the moment dos.library wants to display a requester.

And the list goes on and on... The game opens libraries and uses them without checking for open failure. It has memory leaks under certain circumstances. It even has classic buffer overrun bugs (try inputting all words from the game's dictionary at a riddlemouth).

Seriously, the code is actually quite bad. Every time you look at it you find more bugs. My "to do" list has over 3 dozen things to fix so far. As I said, it will take some time before thinking about releasing anything is even an option.

meynaf · 06 April 2009, 10:55

I have found a lot of quite annoying code bugs too.

Here is my list (dunno if all of them are code and not data) :
1. you can not reach coordinates 1,1 by boat (incomplete read on 1map_texts)
2. I had a crash when the madman made an ice shower
3. sp-stealer sometimes crash (happens a lot on "beast")
4. map view spell while in camp gives incorrect palette
5. palette problem when Tolimar gives you his tools
6. sometimes your horses disappear when you take a transport portal with them
7. in Luminor's tower, selecting Valdyn as party leader makes the ceiling disappear
8. loads of dirts in the map view when you display it in the vessel while on a moon
9. "not enough memory handles available" if you repetitively take the eagle and get down from it
10. "not enough money" if you are in a shop with more than 32767 money and try to buy something
11. levitate from a scroll gives an awful display bug
12. herbs you grab at forest moon are totally inoperant
13. the 3D view sometimes crashes when you go through doors or secret passages (happens quite often in Luminor tower)
14. some herbs in the forest moon can be grabbed any times you want while others can't be grabbed at all
15. musics miss notes on accelerated machines (at least on 030), prob'ly bad dma wait

To alexh : you say that there are lots of checksums in the data files but I have never actually seen one. Are they in the compressed data ? Decrunch routines I've seen compute no checksum...

alexh · 06 April 2009, 11:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by meynaf

1. you can not reach coordinates 1,1 by boat (incomplete read on 1map_texts)

This is a "missing text block" error which indicates a typo in the script files. I have a fix for this. These errors occur in several places, the whirlpool, Luminors Tower, Beast Cave...

Quote:

Originally Posted by meynaf

13. the 3D view sometimes crashes when you go through doors or secret passages (happens quite often in Luminor tower)

I've only seen that happen in one place, the door to Vladyn in Luminors tower, which is a known (& fixable) script typo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by meynaf

To alexh : you say that there are lots of checksums in the data files but I have never actually seen one. Are they in the compressed data ? Decrunch routines I've seen compute no checksum...

Before / After each text block there is a data block. I think was described to me as a command & checksum for that portion of text. I believe the command section describes font, size, bold, italic etc. but I cannot remember exactly how it works, nor the checksum. Hexaae might know more as he looked into it deeper.

If I remember this correctly:

The AMB files are encrypted.
The unencrypted files are compressed (with the LOB packer).
The uncompressed files are actually multiple files all concatenated together.

The tools I have (not original tools) decrypt, depack and then split each AMB file into many sub-files. These can then be edited in any text editor.

I have another tool which can join the files back together.

Fortunately the Ambermoon exe will load files which have not been compressed/encrypted as no source for the LOB packer exists.

st-th · 06 April 2009, 23:10

All text-related .AMB files have the following format:

Code:

ULONG subtype_id;  /* 'AMNP' */
UWORD num_of_chunks;
ULONG sizes[num_of_chunks];
UBYTE chunk1[sizes[0]];
UBYTE chunk2[sizes[1]];
 ...
UBYTE chunkN[sizes[num_of_chunks-1]];

The actual text data chunks are usually LOB-packed and have this format:

Code:

UWORD num_of_strings;
UWORD sizes[num_of_strings];
UBYTE string1[sizes[0]];
UBYTE string2[sizes[1]];
 ...
UBYTE stringN[sizes[num_of_strings-1]];

All strings must be 0-terminated and the 0 is part of the size.

There are no checksums whatsoever. Strings allow for several imbedded formatting codes, e.g. ^ for "new line" or $ for "hard space". There's an oddity that all strings (should) start and end with a space, probably required by the text justification ("outline text mode" in the options menu). You CAN crash the game by fucking up the formatting, but this can easily be avoided by being careful.

I'm currently converting all texts of the English version into normal text files for easy editing (have done 3 of the 6 files so far; the German version is already complete). The result contains all information you need to create the data files completely from scratch. The tool to do this will have all of the relevant formatting checking in it, so one will be able to edit the texts freely without risking to create bad data files. Here's an excerpt of the file I'm currently working on:

Code:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ $Id$
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ FName: NPC_Texts.amb
@ FType: AMNP
@ Parts: 70
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ Chunk: 001
@ Texts: 9
@-
YOU SEE AN OLD SICK MAN. HIS CHEEKS ARE SUNKEN AND AS PALE AS ASH. HIS EYES
ARE TIGHTLY SHUT, FLINCHING WITH THE LIGHT OF THE FIRE. HIS BREATH IS
LABOURED AND RATTLES IN HIS THROAT.
@-
"HELLO ~SELF~, PLEASE COME CLOSER TO THE BED, MY BELOVED GRANDCHILD! MY BODY
IS WEAK AND MY VOICE IS NOT AS STRONG AS BEFORE."
@-
"I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU A STORY AND ASSIGN YOU A QUEST."^ AS YOU STEP
CLOSER TO THE BED TO LISTEN CAREFULLY TO YOUR GRANDFATHER YOU SEE HOW HIS
FACE DISTORTS IN PAIN AND ABOVE HIS HEAD YOU FEEL YOU SEE THE SHADOW OF
BALA.^ "WHEN I WAS JUST YOUR AGE, I HAD A DIFFICULT LIFE. [...snip...]

BTW, the conversion is done manually in CygnusEd. Reason for this is that there are quite a few problems in these files that can't be easily sorted out by a tool, e.g. string size mis-matches when two strings run into each other without 0-terminator, or missing text blocks. These problems are not exclusive to the English version but are also present (albeit much less) in the German data files. Doing it this way also revealed all formatting codes and how they are used.

Once the conversion is finished and the tool is written, any of those texts can be edited at will. The texts could also be translated into other languages, if someone wants to take on this task (the German texts have a total size of ~260 KB, the English ones will end up being a bit shorter).

It would be nice if, eventually, someone would make the English texts "nicer". The German ones contain typos here and there, but all in all they are quite "literally". The English texts are often rough German-to-English translations which actually make me shudder reading them. Any (preferably native) English speakers interested in doing this eventually?

alexh · 07 April 2009, 09:50

Quote: