Hello  ::)

I have been scouring the net for a version of Chaos (ST) that I can play with friends or even alone and not have to end up with loads of drawn games.

If I play with 4-6 players then fine, I will probably win just before the turn limit kicks in.  But with 8 there is not too much chance of that.  Playing with friends and trying to savour the experience and not rush it is impossible!  The turn limit will always ruin this.

I am posting this here simply because this site is where I first downloaded Chaos and MANY other classics!  Hopefully there is a file out there somewhere, even if it is the Spectrum version instead.

thank you,
Congealed

So I guess you're looking for a trained version of sorts?

Anyway... I went ahead and did it ;)

http://dbug-automation.co.uk/falcon/jul08/chaos.zip

Simply unpack the files in a directory and replace the "xxx" in "chaosxxx.prg" with the amount of turns you want the game to have. If you leave it at 'xxx' it will use the default values ;)

General notes.... Very nice code! Simple and to the point, almost no faggtry involved :). Finding the no of turns was easy because of that. Here's the code that calculates this btw:

[code]      MOVE.W    D0,D1
     ADD.W     D1,D1
     ADDI.W    #$F,D1[/code]

Also while I was at it, I falcon fixed it too ;).

[EDIT] I wanted to write more stuff last night but I was too tired! Anyway, Martin Brownlow is one of my fave game programmers (he went and did the masterpiece called MDK on pc, as well as Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Armed and Dangerous :))


P.S. I totally agree with you, with 8 players it's a bitch to win this game - but then I only played it like that ;)

Downloading... :)

Yes, sorry GGN, a trained version is probably the term that I was looking for!

Thank you very very much!  I thought that would take a few weeks/months for someone to get round to doing that, if ever!  But then I forget who we are talking about here.  The MIGHTY D-BUG  ;D

MDK is an awesome game!  I loved that and I still intend to complete it as I only really played the first few levels.  Armed and Dangerous was HUGE when that came out too.  I was not aware of the connection between these games.

Thank you thank you thank you  :) :) ;D ;D :) :)
This has made my day!

Alright, stupid question AHOY!

This file that ggn gave me is a .prg file, can I open this in STeem?  I would love to open it on my old Atari but it died many years ago and is now just a pretty box covered in fist-prints (due to anger/abuse).

I tried opening this in STeem but it is not showing up.  I also tried changing the extension to .ST but that was a dumb idea too.

BTW, what is 'falcon fixing'?  Sounds sweet  :o

CongealedWalrus wrote on 30.07.08 at 21:40:42:

Alright, stupid question AHOY! This file that ggn gave me is a .prg file, can I open this in STeem?  I would love to open it on my old Atari but it died many years ago and is now just a pretty box covered in fist-prints (due to anger/abuse). I tried opening this in STeem but it is not showing up.  I also tried changing the extension to .ST but that was a dumb idea too.

Well you'll have to set up a virtual hard drive in steem. This lets you map a windows (or linux) dir as a st drive in emulation. Just click the disk icon and you'll eventually find it! All you need to do then is copy the contents of the zip to the virtual directory, boot your emulated st and it'll be there!


CongealedWalrus wrote on 30.07.08 at 21:40:42:

BTW, what is 'falcon fixing'?  Sounds sweet  :o

Well, you remember atari's last home computer, the falcon? Well the game didn't work there, but now it does ;)

Thank you again for the help.  Its working, I had not used the HDD feature as I always used disk images.

Is the maximum 999 turns or can you enter more?  999 ought to be enough but I am just curious if I can put 9999 or even more.

CongealedWalrus wrote on 31.07.08 at 01:03:08:

Thank you again for the help.  Its working, I had not used the HDD feature as I always used disk images. Is the maximum 999 turns or can you enter more?  999 ought to be enough but I am just curious if I can put 9999 or even more.

Well, I didn't have enough digits in the filename :P. It should go up to 32768 or 65536 (depends on how he decrements the turns counter!)

Aha, no worries.  999 ought to be plenty.  I did test it breifly last night but sadly my Wizard got his arse kicked a little too quickly for me to be able to properly see the difference.  I will try a few games with multiple Human controlled players very soon!

Hi there CongealedWalrus,

Thank you very much for posting - you don't know how encouraging it is so see something like that, especially as some people don't seem to understand the work involved, the time taken, or even appreciate the simple fact that things don't "just work" and that they actually do "need fixing"

Anyway, welcome to the site :)

Dear CJ (and ggn),

Thank you for the welcome!  I am glad that this was of some encouragement to you guys, but it was simply awesome to me that I could contact the DBUG and Automation guys considering that I already feel indebted to you for creating and improving so many games and also they were the first games that I ever played on my first computer/gaming system when I was about 8 years old.

My first gaming experience was on my Atari (second hand) and playing games hacked, cracked and packed by you guys (whatever that means?)   I did not even understand why the games I played seemed to contain strange menus, weird imagery and wacky messages, but I think they shaped me as a person :)

It is awesome that by the power of t'internet we are now able to talk with people like you who did what you did.  But also, on the flipside, it must be a pain in the arse for you because you get me requesting updates and trainers and all that!  At least you must know that people turn to you because you are great at what you do?

Not that I really understand exactly what you do do.  All I know is that most of the games/game Menus (90%ish) I played and still play today bear the name of DBUG or AUTOMATION and that is enough for me!

By the way, 2 questions:  What would you describe crews like DBUG or Automation as?  Operants in the freedom of software and liberation/improvement of groovy games?  

And second question:  I was a little scared to mention Automation on this site since the d-bug logo is so proudly displayed but I now notice that this is the DBUG and Automation Forum.  The question is, arent you guys, not enemies, but eachothers competitors?

Sorry for the long post.
Congealed

As it was written: D-Bug was born out of the ashes of Automation.

Hi again,

You'll find our history here: http://www.dbug-automation.co.uk/extras.htm

How would we describe ourselves?

In brief: Pirates
In Verbose: Highly skilled pirates with a dash of sarcasm and an overdose of finesse.

Oh good, I am glad that someone has said something after my long and probably over the top explanation of how pleased I was.

Sorry about that, but I wanted to express my gratitude even though it would read like a whole lot of ass-kissing!  Plus I also found my old Atari in the attic and all of the Atari love flooded back.  I hope all my disks still work and perhaps there are some rareties in there.  I will not be able to check them for a little while as the ancient hardware is acting up.

The D-BUG/Automation history is interesting!  And I asked about what you would call yourselves because the term "hackers" has quite negative or destructive connotations and since the nature of your organisation(s) is so creative, it seemed to me like the wrong term.  "Pirates" is good but sounds eqally destructive.  Piracy also seems to apply equally to people downloading software as well as those modifying it.  Perhaps an appropriate term does not exist.

CongealedWalrus wrote on 06.08.08 at 01:32:07:

Sorry about that, but I wanted to express my gratitude even though it would read like a whole lot of ass-kissing!

Hehe, it makes a happy break from all the flaming we get :P


CongealedWalrus wrote on 06.08.08 at 01:32:07:

Plus I also found my old Atari in the attic and all of the Atari love flooded back.  I hope all my disks still work and perhaps there are some rareties in there.  I will not be able to check them for a little while as the ancient hardware is acting up.

That's great! If you need help in transfering disk images to real floppies or vice versa, you can check out some hints here. We are interested in finding some missing BBC menus, so if you have them in your diskbox, we'd be grateful if you could share them with us!


CongealedWalrus wrote on 06.08.08 at 01:32:07:

The D-BUG/Automation history is interesting!  And I asked about what you would call yourselves because the term "hackers" has quite negative or destructive connotations and since the nature of your organisation(s) is so creative, it seemed to me like the wrong term.  "Pirates" is good but sounds eqally destructive.  Piracy also seems to apply equally to people downloading software as well as those modifying it.  Perhaps an appropriate term does not exist.

Well.... If you like a game, you go and buy it. Simple as that. Try a demo or a cracked version before you buy, but buy it. Piracy doesn't kill the industry. People do.

ggn wrote on 06.08.08 at 06:13:07:

Well.... If you like a game, you go and buy it. Simple as that. Try a demo or a cracked version before you buy, but buy it. Piracy doesn't kill the industry. People do.

I agree.  The only thing is that I can't really buy Chaos anymore, or many other Atari ST games but I would happily donate cash to the creators if I could becuase it does make me feel guilty that I havent really paid for the right to play some of the oldies that I know and love.

Amazingly and quite annoyingly, I just finished a pretty epic battle with 7 level 8 Wizard Opponents vs. Me and we ran out of turns!  So it must have run the full 999 turns and it was declared a draw.  Admittedly, the screen was covered in Goey Blobs and Fire but I was prepared to wait for one (lucky) winner.

Is there a way that I can increase the limit to 9999 or perhaps more?  I might fiddle about with the file but I think I will cause more harm than good.

Also, if there is any way of freezing the (frighteningly fast) progress of the fire and goo I would be interested in hearing about it.  I think I read about a mod that does this but for the Spectrum version.

I just thought I'd point these things out, I am not demanding anything :P  

Actually, I am stupid!  That 'epic' game was actually a loaded game which caused the game to resort to the old settings.  It was not 999 turns, just the regular amount  :-[

I think that 999 is sufficient but I will keep on experimenting.  I realise that I am replying to myself here but thats ok, I do that a lot.

CongealedWalrus wrote on 03.09.08 at 22:17:01:

Actually, I am stupid!  That 'epic' game was actually a loaded game which caused the game to resort to the old settings.  It was not 999 turns, just the regular amount  :-[ I think that 999 is sufficient but I will keep on experimenting.  I realise that I am replying to myself here but thats ok, I do that a lot.

No worries, chaos is a very fun game and the samples are simply hilarious. Good to know my hack made at least one person happy :)

ggn wrote on 04.09.08 at 06:50:02:

Good to know my hack made at least one person happy :)

That´s not quite true! ;)