| |
Magic Pockets Demo |
| |
richcheng (11:09 27/1/2010)
moss (13:02 27/1/2010)
richcheng (13:27 27/1/2010)
monkeyson2 (13:45 27/1/2010)
swirlythingy (19:50 27/1/2010)
highlandcattle (11:56 13/4/2010)
Phlamethrower (12:39 13/4/2010)
filecore (18:23 13/4/2010)
adrianl (21:17 13/4/2010)
Phlamethrower (22:03 13/4/2010)
moss (16:56 13/4/2010)
chiefwhosm (17:16 3/5/2010)
swirlythingy (17:34 4/5/2010)
|
| |
|
richard cheng |
Message #113075, posted by richcheng at 11:09, 27/1/2010 |
Posts: 655
|
A while ago, Acorn User (or possibly Acorn Computing) included a demo of Magic Pockets which included a small number of levels. Usually, once these levels were complete, the demo would stop. However, very infrequently, you would instead find yourself carrying on to some other level(s).
Does anyone know how it decided whether to offer you the other level(s)? It's been bugging me ever since. |
| |
 [ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
John Hoare |
Message #113084, posted by moss at 13:02, 27/1/2010, in reply to message #113075 |
Posts: 9348
|
A while ago, Acorn User (or possibly Acorn Computing) included a demo of Magic Pockets which included a small number of levels. Usually, once these levels were complete, the demo would stop. However, very infrequently, you would instead find yourself carrying on to some other level(s).
Does anyone know how it decided whether to offer you the other level(s)? It's been bugging me ever since. I've always wondered this too! Many a school lunchtime we tried to figure out how to make it do it consistently. Never figured out how. |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
richard cheng |
Message #113089, posted by richcheng at 13:27, 27/1/2010, in reply to message #113084 |
Posts: 655
|
A while ago, Acorn User (or possibly Acorn Computing) included a demo of Magic Pockets which included a small number of levels. Usually, once these levels were complete, the demo would stop. However, very infrequently, you would instead find yourself carrying on to some other level(s).
Does anyone know how it decided whether to offer you the other level(s)? It's been bugging me ever since. I've always wondered this too!
Oh yes, so you have. I just did a slightly different google search than what I did before and found this:
http://desk.iconbar.com/forums/viewthread.php?threadid=8331
No answers there, though  .
[Edited by richcheng at 13:28, 27/1/2010] |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Phil Mellor |
Message #113090, posted by monkeyson2 at 13:45, 27/1/2010, in reply to message #113089 |
 Please don't let them make me be a monkey butler
Posts: 12380
|
Someone will have to disassemble it and find out.  |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Martin Bazley |
Message #113105, posted by swirlythingy at 19:50, 27/1/2010, in reply to message #113084 |
Posts: 460
|
A while ago, Acorn User (or possibly Acorn Computing) included a demo of Magic Pockets which included a small number of levels. Usually, once these levels were complete, the demo would stop. However, very infrequently, you would instead find yourself carrying on to some other level(s).
Does anyone know how it decided whether to offer you the other level(s)? It's been bugging me ever since. I've always wondered this too! Many a school lunchtime we tried to figure out how to make it do it consistently. Never figured out how.
Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one! 
The demo in question included only the first level - well, at least it was supposed to. They actually included the file containing all the levels for the first world; they just inserted a bit of code to restart the first level when that was complete.
Unfortunately, they made one teeny little oversight. It was in fact possible to get to, and play, the other levels, right through to the bicycle race (after which it would crash because, unsurprisingly, it couldn't find the levels for the next world).
The way to do this was to lose all your lives at the precise moment you skidded to a halt in front of the exit. This would cause the game-over and level-complete screens to play at the same time (an interesting experience). I don't know how it worked, but somehow the two cancelled each other out, so after that (having lost one of your credits, of course) you would find yourself in level 2.
While we're at it, another juicy titbit of Magic Pockets-related information I also found out completely by accident. If you use three transporter helmets in the first level (to do this, generate and collect a silver star followed by a gold star three times in succession), the third one will take you to an endless corridor containing a single gold cup. After you have collected this cup (which makes a nice >kerching!< noise), every time you start a new level you will be instantly fully powered-up! |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
van Engelen Thomas |
Message #113955, posted by highlandcattle at 11:56, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113105 |
Member
Posts: 78
|
I love the paradise games . Overload is my favorite. Sadly we will never be able to play these on our Beagleboard becasue they all need to check the floppy drive. Sniff |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Jeffrey Lee |
Message #113956, posted by Phlamethrower at 12:39, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113955 |
 Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
|
I love the paradise games . Overload is my favorite. Sadly we will never be able to play these on our Beagleboard becasue they all need to check the floppy drive. Sniff There's always emulation. With a decent JIT emulator a beagleboard should be more than capable of emulating all the pre-StrongARM games. With the right techniques it's probably even possible to achieve full speed emulation of StrongARM machines (although that shouldn't be too hard, considering the abysmal memory bus!)
The ARMv7 MMU makes it trivial to swap between different page tables (i.e. memory maps), so if we can move the lower 32k of the RISC OS 5 memory map elsewhere programs would be able to remap the entire 512MB application slot however they like. I.e. provide a full RiscPC-compatible memory map and allow the JIT translated code to access memory directly (instead of doing costly manual page table lookups or address offsetting to map the emulated address map to the real address map). Abort handlers can be used to trap reads/writes to emulated hardware, and alignment exceptions can be used to do lazy fixup of instructions that require rotated load behaviour. If you aren't too concerned about RAM usage you could also use massive lookup tables for quick translation of emulated PC addresses to JIT code blocks, for tracking dirty pages/code blocks if self-modifying code is detected, etc.
Ultimately emulation is the only way we'll be able to continue to support all the old software that doesn't stand a chance of being updated for newer hardware. StrongARM machines had StrongGuard; the Iyonix and A9 had Aemulor; now for ARMv7 perhaps it's time we tried something a bit more comprehensive.
</insane rambling>
[Edited by Phlamethrower at 13:40, 13/4/2010] |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
John Hoare |
Message #113957, posted by moss at 16:56, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113105 |
Posts: 9348
|
[Ooh! Ooh! I know the answer to this one! Sorry, forgot to reply to this! Thanks for answering something that's bugged me for ages! |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Jason Togneri |
Message #113958, posted by filecore at 18:23, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113956 |
Posts: 3868
|
</inane rambling> There, corrected your typo. |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Adrian Lees |
Message #113960, posted by adrianl at 21:17, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113956 |
Member
Posts: 1637
|
The RiscPC has a 512MB physical address space; it still has a 4GB logical space. |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Jeffrey Lee |
Message #113961, posted by Phlamethrower at 22:03, 13/4/2010, in reply to message #113960 |
Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot Hot stuff
Posts: 15100
|
True. But there's no reason why you can't allow the guest OS to take over the full memory map (ish); all you'd need is a fake podule that sets up a fake dynamic area, providing the emulator a window through which it can expose all the important bits of the host OS. |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
chief |
Message #114249, posted by chiefwhosm at 17:16, 3/5/2010, in reply to message #113105 |
Member
Posts: 55
|
I always thought it was to do with grabbing the helmet and getting caught by the bubble at the end of the bike race since I have got onto the next level and not lost any lives on the demo level (that I noticed).
Wocki's site (acorn.revivalteam.de) has the demo for download as an .adf
Curious though, you said levels, as though it's possible to get past even the second level (with the falling troll (and sometimes a 50000 points bowl of porridge) at level spawn which was something my family never managed (it was quite a surprise when we played that demo back in the day and suddenly found a new level loading from a single level demo......Ahhhhhhhh memories!). |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
Martin Bazley |
Message #114291, posted by swirlythingy at 17:34, 4/5/2010, in reply to message #114249 |
Posts: 460
|
I always thought it was to do with grabbing the helmet and getting caught by the bubble at the end of the bike race since I have got onto the next level and not lost any lives on the demo level (that I noticed). There may be other ways, but that's the one which I know definitely works. I used to do it as a matter of course whenever I played the demo.
Wocki's site (acorn.revivalteam.de) has the demo for download as an .adf Well, now's the time for somebody to find out, isn't it?
Curious though, you said levels, as though it's possible to get past even the second level (with the falling troll (and sometimes a 50000 points bowl of porridge) at level spawn which was something my family never managed (it was quite a surprise when we played that demo back in the day and suddenly found a new level loading from a single level demo......Ahhhhhhhh memories!). The second level is one of the most difficult (although not terribly, IMO), but after that you go onto levels 3, 4, 5 and finally a bicycle race against a gang of trolls (which I have never, ever even come close to winning).
The 5000 point bonus at the start occurs if you pick up a glass of green juice (equivalent of 800 points) on the previous level or credit. If you pick up more than one glass, it becomes a bowl of fruit (10000 points), and finally a huge cake (20000 points, I think). Oh, and it's a bowl of cornflakes, not porridge.  |
| |
[ Log in to reply ] |
| |
|
