Pharoahs Curse (Cursed!)

[Michael Brown]

Some time back I mentioned somewhere that Pharoahs Curse by H-soft did not work). I thought it may be a fault with Beebem (like the one with Rig Attack or Chrysalis) but I have now tried the disc copy on B-Em and the same fault occurs yet Rig Attack and Chrysalis work fine.

Now my memory comes back to me and I seem to remember having a tape copy of this years ago and it having a tape protection routine that needed fooling in order to work.

I fixed the bug with the disc copy so the game works on Beebem, but the game hangs when you finish the first level.
I am not yet sure if it hangs due to another bug with Beebem or if this is caused by the tape protection checking (like Brian Jacks did).

It would be marvelous if anyone had a uef tape image they could send in so I can at least have something to check against and start from scratch (if necessary!).

Mick

[billcarr2005]

To work in BEEBEm, remove conditional branch at &1E42 (pre-relocation)

.endless_loop
LDA #&C5
STA &FE4C
LDA #&E5
STA &FE4C
LDA #&10
STA &FE00
LDA &FE01
SEC
SBC #&06
CMP #&04
BNE endless_loop --> change to NOP:NOP
JSR &1A42
etc.

To finish the level, remove conditional branch at &2BC4 (pre-relocation)
CMP #&0A
BNE endless_loop --> change to NOP:NOP
LDA #&00
etc.

CHAIN"FIX" to play the game as normal
or SHIFT-BREAK to load the modified cheat, with the standard game's 3 lives, 128 lives, infinite lives and (NEW) invulnerability selectable

[Michael Brown]

thanks billcarr2005 for the fixed Pharoahs Curse.

I don't suppose you (or anyone else) has a copy of the little loader screen that was on the original tape (same sort of loader as Pengo), just for completists like myself.

Mick.

[tautology]

To work in BEEBEm, remove conditional branch at &1E42 (pre-relocation)

.endless_loop
LDA #&C5
STA &FE4C
LDA #&E5
STA &FE4C
LDA #&10
STA &FE00
LDA &FE01

Why's it reading from the Light Pen register? This is a strange behaviour to have!

[SarahWalker]

On the Beeb you can trigger a 'fake' light pen interrupt, which makes the CRTC latch the current video address into the light pen registers. Handy for synchronisation. Beebem doesn't emulate this though, only B-em and BeebinC do.

Hacking out that loop will make the screen flicker quite badly I think...

[SarahWalker]

Did you just remove a post Bill? I'm asking because I just tested the STH version of Pharoah's Curse and that completes levels fine - has that already been hacked? If so then I think that's an argument against 'fixing' games for emulators.

[billcarr2005]

Did you just remove a post Bill? I'm asking because I just tested the STH version of Pharoah's Curse and that completes levels fine - has that already been hacked? If so then I think that's an argument against 'fixing' games for emulators.

I *thought* i had attempted to complete a level on both B-em and BeebEM last night, although evidently i hadn't, because after posting that the 2nd hack was required for both emulators, i discovered this wasn't the case!

Will B-em 2.1a fix the issue (i'll try to explain the best i can) that after loading a state, via the menu... it's almost as though the ALT key gets stuck, so pressing ENTER on the emulated BBC will result in ALT-ENTER on the PC, shifting from windowed to full screen mode. Also, when ALT-F/D/T/S/M is used to access the menu, then that character is repeatedly typed on the emulated BBC - possibly the same error, explained differently be me
I'm running 2.1 in windowed mode

[SarahWalker]

Yes, that _will_ be fixed - it's incredibly annoying!

[b_b_c_m_i_c_r_o_2]

Pharoah's Curse loader screen

thanks billcarr2005 for the fixed Pharoahs Curse.

I don't suppose you (or anyone else) has a copy of the little loader screen that was on the original tape (same sort of loader as Pengo), just for completists like myself.

Mick.

[Michael Brown]

Yep, I managed to recover this myself from one of my discs some time back. It has since been added to my discs in the other thread.
However, If anyone has a scan of the inlay, I would be interested in adding the instructions to this game to my disc at some point - like I did with Pengo some time back.

regards,
Mick.