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avatar_Otto

Deflektor: Cheat to disable Gremlin enemies?

Started by Otto, 13:43, 17 August 21

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Otto

The great Deflektor game: http://cpcgamereviews.com/d/index5.html

On Nikolas' fine web-page (above) there's a link to the CPC-Power website which has cheat modes for the game, like unlimited lives and time.

Is there also a cheat mode to disable the nasty enemies named Gremlins which move around and manipulate your laser-mirrors? For example, that they don't move anymore, or don't manipulate the mirrors, or just go away.

Thanks!

Shaun M. Neary

Personally I haven't seen one.

There is a level skip multiface poke I think, or a select level start multiface poke which is 003C,xx (xx is the level).

I'll have a scout through my AA's and see if I can help?
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

Otto

Yes, thank you.

The mentioned Cpc-Power cheat disk image from XOR has as option "unlimited lives", "unlimited energy+lives" and "enter start-level from 01..59" .
This is very helpful, but I need the Gremlins to stop, too.

(It's not for me; I played the game through some decades ago. But my youngest just can't stand the Gremlins and still would like to solve the levels containing Gremlins, just without them.)

Shaun M. Neary

Definitely not a game for the juniors unless you want them to suffer game rage!  :laugh:

I've had nothing in my search... It was reviewed in 1987 in AA 18 and I went all the way to January 1989 cheat mode.

It wasn't listed in either Cheat Mode 1 or 2 book either, so I'm guessing nobody submitted one. At least not to AA and ACU was way too stuffy and boring for my taste.

@Nich Any ideas here dude?
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

zeropolis79

No, I've never seen a cheat for that purpose in AA and ACU never covered it in the Hairy Hacker's pages. I'll check my Computing with the Amstrad/CPC Computing issues though.

Fessor

Set &2b23 to &c9. The Message for the Gremlins is drawn, but they don't spawn anymore.

Otto

#6
Well, that sounds great. Thanks a lot! Dankeschön.

I do all my emulator things via MAME, which nicely runs our old 8- and 16-bit guest systems on all my Linux maschines including the child's Raspberry Pi 4. There's no built-in debugger (I think?), so the next question is: for the trained XOR version of Deflektor, after I enter the POKE, then which address do I have to call to?

Deflektor (UK) (1987) (Trainer).dsk
38.09 Ko (Date : 2020-03-24)

cat
Drive A: user 0
DEFLEK.BAS 11K
141K free


I don't remember anymore how to see where a bin file starts and where to call to, so a guess that it's not below &2000:
memory &1fff
load "deflek.bas"

Works. So the new poke:
poke &2b23, &c9
call xyz
What is xyz, please? Or maybe this doesn't work, since 11 KB probably isn't the entire game. Hm...

Shaun M. Neary

Quote from: Fessor on 09:16, 18 August 21
Set &2b23 to &c9. The Message for the Gremlins is drawn, but they don't spawn anymore.


Damn! How long did it take you to find that?  :o 8)
Currently playing on: 2xCPC464, 1xCPC6128, 1x464Plus, 1x6128Plus, 2xGX4000. M4 board, ZMem 1MB and still forever playing Bruce Lee.
No cheats, snapshots or emulation. I play my games as they're intended to be played. What about you?

Fessor

I think around half an hour.
The program started with Winape. Memory block from 0x40 to 0xffff saved in a binary file. then started ghidra, read in the file and disassembled the code.
Looked in Winape for graphic definitions, where the first sprite is in the memory and then looked in Ghidra, which code sequence uses this memory address.
And luckily everything about the Gremlins, except for the text, was in a subroutine. Deactivated it briefly with "&c9" and tested it in an example level with Gremlins.


@Otto: Ok, I didn't know about Mame. Loading in the crack version will probably not work either, it seems to me that the code was saved compressed.

But isn't it possible to create a cheat database with Mame?
And when the program is running, activate the cheat via Mame?

Otto

#9
Thank you everbody for your help, in particular Fressor.

Quote from: Fessor on 11:37, 18 August 21@Otto: Ok, I didn't know about Mame. Loading in the crack version will probably not work either, it seems to me that the code was saved compressed.
I see.

QuoteBut isn't it possible to create a cheat database with Mame?
And when the program is running, activate the cheat via Mame?
Yes, it is possible "somehow", but I've still to find out, how. :-)


Just in case somebody packs all three cheats into one disk image, plase post it here, too. Thanks!

For example, cheats: 1) Unlimited Life; 2) Unlimited time; 3) No Gremlins; 4) All three.

Nich

Quote from: Fessor on 09:16, 18 August 21
Set &2b23 to &c9. The Message for the Gremlins is drawn, but they don't spawn anymore.

I tried this poke but it doesn't work properly. The Gremlins may be invisible, but they're still there, playing their nefarious tricks. >:(

Setting &29DE to &C9 should disable them fully.

@Otto - now that I've found this poke, I will try to create a 'definitive' crack of Deflektor.

Fessor

Okay... i should have watched longer if anything was changed by them...

Otto

Quote from: Nich on 19:17, 18 August 21
@Otto - now that I've found this poke, I will try to create a 'definitive' crack of Deflektor.
That's great news, and thank you very much!

We love your cool CPCgamereviews.com website, and we love your pokes – today they allow us to really enjoy these good old games in full manner.
These games have such great ideas behind them, like this fantastic Deflektor. They're the best games of all times.


tronic

#13
Hello,

I love this kind of thread ;)

Here is a (quickly made) dsk of Deflektor (deflek.bin, 37ko, patched) with a basic trainer (deflek.bas) that uses "pokes" from Xor, Fessor & the latest posted above from Nich :
- Unlimited lives, Unlimited energy, No overload, No Gremlins or All 4, or nothing...
- Also the choice to start from level (1-60).

Logically, it should work...

In case of... Also put 2 asm files (winape)  of the whole game with the "trainer-code" at the end.
- first one, alone, launch the game directly on winape without anything (for testing...).
- second is the one on the dsk (used by the basic-trainer listing).

Best & don't feed the Gremlins after 12pm ;)

Tronic/GPA
https://rasmlive.amstrad.info



||C|-|E||

Funnily enough, this is something I always wanted to try as well: just focus on the puzzles and forget about the bugs. Thank you so much!  :D

Nich

Here is what I hope will be considered the definitive crack of Deflektor. There's a ZIP file attached to this post. It offers all of the following options/features:

  • Infinite lives
  • Infinite energy
  • Prevent the laser from overloading
  • Disable those pesky Gremlins
  • Start on any level from 1 to 60
  • Skip levels by pressing TAB
  • High scores are saved to disc
  • Compressed (using Exomizer) into one 24K executable file
Enjoy! ;D

Otto

#16
Quote from: Nich on 11:13, 21 August 21
Here is what I hope will be considered the definitive crack of Deflektor.
Yes, that's the definitive crack!

Thanks so much Nich, and all others who made Pokes and Diskimages (like Fessor and Tronic) which paved the way for this definitive crack.

Deo gratias.

SkulleateR

Hm, guess that will be another Deflektor session for sure, love it :D

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