High Score Challenge - S22 - Round 9 - Uncle Claude

[MatthewThompson]

A bit further on - got to level 5 this time.

[KarateEd]

Slightly better......

[FourthStone]

Slowly progressing.

Score: 6000

[FourthStone]

Mode 2 colour cycled high score.

[maniacminer]

I've tried four versions of "Uncle Claude" and they all have the same bug, so I assume it is baked into the program, or there was a single source of the game and it has some corruption inside it? Perhaps the coder Marcus Altman (I wonder if a relation of Sam Altman) made a last minute change to the code but didn't thoroughly test it? It does amuse me no-one noticed the obvious spelling mistake! (shows how good the testing was I guess)

The 8bs version comes from this disc image at http://www.8bs.com/pool/tbi/tbi120.zip my current hi-score in Uncle Claude is 18,600.

Apart from the collision detection bugs and the fire-after-death thing and of course, the level 11 corruption, it's a fun game that has responsive controls and fast character movement - it suits my playing style well. Time to try "Electro Freddie"

[Michael Brown]

This is one of the main reasons for people play testing ALL BBC games on this forum, so we can come across little errors in the games that either the buying public never found (possibly because they never played the game to the point that an error popped up) or because the software house didn't do the same or something was accidentally changed when doing some extra work,

So, I hope I have found the error and the image below works.

Claude.zip

(8.42 KiB) Downloaded 11 times

Firstly, this game was released by Softspot as Electro Freddy and as confirmed that version works perfectly with no bugs at screen 11.
So comparing the EF2 file with the CLAUDE2 file that Alligata released shows a few differences. What has probably happened is that someone at Alligata has added a routine to select Joysticks or alternative keys. This new routine hasn't broke the game as such, but it looks like whoever altered it loaded CLAUDE2 at &1900 and the code at &1900 has been changed from &060C to &0DFF possibly by corruption and it looks like this is what has broken level 11.
If I am correct, then Uncle Claude has been faulty all this time, but no one knew until now.

Just one other thing that was mentioned, the inlay says an extra life every 4000 points, but it was mentioned that this may only be at the first 4000. Can anyone confirm if you get an extra life at 8000 and 12000 etc so I can amend the instructions if not.

I am not good at playing games and so in order to check the fault, I poked the game to start from level 10 and upon completion it clicked to level 11 with no corruption and then onto level 12 etc.

Mick.

[Pernod]

Firstly, this game was released by Softspot as Electro Freddy and as confirmed that version works perfectly with no bugs at screen 11.
So comparing the EF2 file with the CLAUDE2 file that Alligata released shows a few differences. What has probably happened is that someone at Alligata has added a routine to select Joysticks or alternative keys. This new routine hasn't broke the game as such, but it looks like whoever altered it loaded CLAUDE2 at &1900 and the code at &1900 has been changed from &060C to &0DFF possibly by corruption and it looks like this is what has broken level 11.

That sounds very careless and amateurish of Alligata to obliterate those two bytes!

[tom_seddon]

That sounds very careless and amateurish of Alligata to obliterate those two bytes!

They probably did a *BASIC, or a NEW, or pressed BREAK, or similar, before doing the *SAVE!

Superior's Ghouls rerelease suffers from a similar thing. There's an 0D FF making a mess of the level goal sprite.

--Tom

[KarateEd]

This is one of the main reasons for people play testing ALL BBC games on this forum, so we can come across little errors in the games that either the buying public never found (possibly because they never played the game to the point that an error popped up) or because the software house didn't do the same or something was accidentally changed when doing some extra work,

And here I thought we were just having fun.......

[Michael Brown]

Hi,
Yes, I can also confirm that the G2 file from Superior should have &1050 instead of &0DFF.
I will correct that asap. This only affects the SAM 7 copy and not the original.
Mick.

[maniacminer]

Just one other thing that was mentioned, the inlay says an extra life every 4000 points, but it was mentioned that this may only be at the first 4000. Can anyone confirm if you get an extra life at 8000 and 12000 etc so I can amend the instructions if not.

Cheers Mick, the extra life is not forthcoming at 8,000 so it is safe to assume it is one extra life at 4,000. I did a binary comparison of the two versions and saw those bytes, I hadn't got around to testing it yet, so fingersX... Level 12 is almost pointless as the goon that looks a lot like Sir Clive, moves diagonally at double speed sometimes. Plus the collision detection is so shitty that there is a ring of black around the objects and the goon's head doesn't seem to interact with the magic "pixel" and the item passes right through them and I die. Then there's the oddity where several items, when cunningly/accidentally arranged, cause the player's death due to pixel EOR... I have spent an afternoon minding children, whilst trying to use as much free electricity as possible - not necessarily as mutually exclusive as I am led to believe I'll replay "Uncle Claude" with this new version and maybe post the score if it is better than my "Electro Freddie" score. Damn, it is an easy game until the next play-through - apart from lack of software testing, I would add this game suffers from lack of play-testing...

[Michael Brown]

Hi, Thanks for confirming the instructions are wrong. I will amend them too asap.
Thanks
Mick.

[maniacminer]

Yay! Uncle Claude works for the first time!

Not quite what I got on Electro Freddy but I'm done with it now. Too frustrating after level 11 to bother with.

the spelling mistake is really bugging me

[chrisn]

Sorry everyone, I didn't realise this game was bugged ... I've never got anywhere near level 11. My best so far: 6250

[Rod C]

Started this one a bit late so I've gone straight to Freddy. I keep falling into the trap of taking risky moves to keep things going, but I think a more patient approach would be safer.

Strangely, I played two games in which the key failed to appear after clearing level 3. I got killed while roaming around the top, thinking it might be invisible but I doubt this was the case, as I've now successfully completed level 3 when the key appeared as expected. Any ideas about the missing key?

[maniacminer]

Any ideas about the missing key?

It's because you've moved two items on top of each other rendering them invisible. I do it accidentally when moving around quickly avoiding the goon on later levels. I've not had a missing key in over 100+ games.

[Rod C]

Any ideas about the missing key?

It's because you've moved two items on top of each other rendering them invisible. I do it accidentally when moving around quickly avoiding the goon on later levels. I've not had a missing key in over 100+ games.

Ah, yes, that must be what happened. I've seen how items can conceal each other. So, if that happened without me realizing, it would look like I had collected all the items. Anyway, I just engineered that very situation and sure enough it looked like the key hadn't appeared but of course it hadn't because there were still two invisible items left!

Thanks!

[maniacminer]

I found myself singing "we got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these colour TVs"

[Rod C]

Doing a bit better now.

[Rod C]

I found myself singing "we got to move these refrigerators, we got to move these colour TVs"

That must be why the kids let you keep playing!

[KarateEd]

High Score Tables Updated

[necronom]

I've just spotted that there's a fixed version! Excellent. Thanks for doing that.
I just had a go and was doing well (level 6 no lives lost) when my BBC crashed again and won't stop beeping again. I need it to be stable for an hour so I can get some decent attempts at this.

[Venger]

Can't connect to Stardot from the PC again for some reason so I've had to take a photo on my phone and log into Stardot via phone.

[maniacminer]

I've just spotted that there's a fixed version! Excellent. Thanks for doing that.
I just had a go and was doing well (level 6 no lives lost) when my BBC crashed again and won't stop beeping again. I need it to be stable for an hour so I can get some decent attempts at this.

Try with the lid off, it's probably a marginal timing issue, exacerbated by temperature.

[Michael Brown]

Hi all,
Glad Uncle Claude is now finally fixed and playable after 40 years.
BTW The version on the Fistful Of Fun compilation (also by Alligata) is also bugged in the same way too, so only the original version from Softspot was released in a playable version.

Have fun!
Mick.

[KarateEd]

Hi all,
Glad Uncle Claude is now finally fixed and playable after 40 years.
BTW The version on the Fistful Of Fun compilation (also by Alligata) is also bugged in the same way too, so only the original version from Softspot was released in a playable version.

Have fun!
Mick.

Well, it's still playable, just up to level 11 but often on this site we find bugs not originally found because some of our members are very good at games and we usually go further in them than we might have on our own. I remember this game from when I had a Beeb in Iceland in 1984/5. I didn't get as far as some of the folks here so never saw the bug.

Often that's what happens here, no bugs found during the day, bugs found here because we're relentless......

Good job programming.....

[necronom]

Is anyone else playing on real hardware using a joystick? I'm just wondering if the joystick is backwards for everyone else. I assume so, but it's really odd. I did find another game that does that yesterday (Weetabix game), but every other game I've played has worked normally.

I haven't been able to get to the old corrupt level yet as I couldn't manage it last night, and today I've been trying to get the Beeb to work all day without success.

[FourthStone]

My best so far: 7300

[klintworth]

[MatthewThompson]

Little bit better score.