Script patch files

[doomlazer]

Great, I'll let you know if I can get something put together.

I've been working on some other accessibility patches for KQIV as well that alter the whale tongue climb and remove fall death if those are of any interest.

[Collector]

This little guy was in the KQIV Ultimate patch. Not sure who he his.

A scarab?

[doomlazer]

Well... yes, but I've never seen it before. Must be visiting from the amiga version, but I don't see anything in the scripts that references view: 990

[Kawa]

That happens sometimes.

[doomlazer]

Is there a tool for converting exported AGI views to SCI? It wouldn't be too bad redrawing the views if need be.

Since I can't search for words across all scripts in AGIStudio, is there a tool to just dump them all as text files? I'd to avoid combing through 246 logic files. I did look through the utilities, but I'm hoping there is something I'm not seeing.

Also, the AGI pirate easter egg is activated by entering the debugger and entering "pirate" at the prompt. This seems like it might not be possible with the SCI debugger or is it? Just responding to user input for the word in-game would be easy, but feels like a poor compromise.

[Kawa]

I'm not currently in a position to check but with luck SV can export AGI views as sprite sheets. You can't import them as such in SCI Companion, but it's at least a bit of help.

For scripts I found when I checked if all three eggs were there that importing the game in WinAGI automatically decompiles the lot to a folder full of LGC files.

I haven't played the AGI version but it came with a readme file that claimed the pirate egg was activated in another way... if I remember correctly. I might not. Again, not in a position to check.

Personally I'd be tempted to make the Bobalu copy protection bypass trigger the pirate egg instead.

[Collector]

By all means do so.

[doomlazer]

Great, that points me in the right direction.

I looked at the readme and I understand the egg better now. The instruction Alt+D to open the debugger is to bypass the copy protection! If you type "marble" it launches the game, "pirate" shows the egg. The online easter egg descriptions didn't make it clear you were supposed to be using the debugger to bypass CP.

I like your suggestion about bobalu. Does allowing bobalu and marble to bypass CP, but pirate to produce the egg seem like a good compromise?

[EricOakford]

Great, that points me in the right direction.

I looked at the readme and I understand the egg better now. The instruction Alt+D to open the debugger is to bypass the copy protection! If you type "marble" it launches the game, "pirate" shows the egg. The online easter egg descriptions didn't make it clear you were supposed to be using the debugger to bypass CP.

I like your suggestion about bobalu. Does allowing bobalu and marble to bypass CP, but pirate to produce the egg seem like a good compromise?

"Marble" works in version 2.0. In version 2.2, the command was changed to "wave anchor".

On another note, I have actually completed my KQ4 system upgrade. It involved major code rewrites that take advantage of the procedures introduced since the game's initial release.
One thing I did was make the various objects into instances rather than new: objects. This gives the advantage of specifying their individual properties, freeing up a lot of heap space.
Another thing I did was replace much of the Load commands with the LoadMany procedure, freeing up some more heap.
Also, I restored the inventory item descriptions, lifted directly from the AGI version.
Finally, Lolotte's dialog sequences were moved into their own room, numbered 192, since room 92 used WAY too much heap space.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to test it. The LSL2 upgrade is up next on my agenda, and it should be much easier, since Sierra already did the major code rewrites for the Amiga version.

[doomlazer]

Great! I've been hoping to put everything back into that throne room!

Do the changes require an updated interpreter or is the 0.000.502 version still compatible?

[Collector]

Is there a tool for converting exported AGI views to SCI? It wouldn't be too bad redrawing the views if need be.

Try this.

[doomlazer]

I was doing it by hand with SV and SC, which works well, but slowly.

VEW2VEW.exe is the trick for converting AGI to SCI views, thank you! A bit strange there were no spaces between the flags and the arguments and you have to manually fix mirror views, but that's a huge time saver for something like this. 

[EricOakford]

Great! I've been hoping to put everything back into that throne room!

Do the changes require an updated interpreter or is the 0.000.502 version still compatible?

The game was completely rebuilt. The changes will require updating the interpreter to 0.000.685 (the newest SCI0 interpreter), since that is the interpreter version I've been focusing on. I've already got that covered, using the interpreter and drivers from the Iceman demo.

And I've just fixed a last-minute bug relating to the new room 192. It seemed like the castle region was not being disposed when leaving. That's fixed.

[doomlazer]

How will you handle the interpreter in regards to the archive? Just add the 0.000.685 requirement to the readme or would you include the interpreter in the KQIV folder?

A general question. Why are StrCmp and StrLen terminating at whitespaces? The SC docs show it using strings with spaces, but I can't get it to match {wave anchor} and StrLen thinks that's a 4 character string.

[Kawa]

Great, that points me in the right direction.

I looked at the readme and I understand the egg better now. The instruction Alt+D to open the debugger is to bypass the copy protection! If you type "marble" it launches the game, "pirate" shows the egg. The online easter egg descriptions didn't make it clear you were supposed to be using the debugger to bypass CP.

I like your suggestion about bobalu. Does allowing bobalu and marble to bypass CP, but pirate to produce the egg seem like a good compromise?

"Marble" works in version 2.0. In version 2.2, the command was changed to "wave anchor".

On another note, I have actually completed my KQ4 system upgrade. It involved major code rewrites that take advantage of the procedures introduced since the game's initial release.
One thing I did was make the various objects into instances rather than new: objects. This gives the advantage of specifying their individual properties, freeing up a lot of heap space.
Another thing I did was replace much of the Load commands with the LoadMany procedure, freeing up some more heap.
Also, I restored the inventory item descriptions, lifted directly from the AGI version.
Finally, Lolotte's dialog sequences were moved into their own room, numbered 192, since room 92 used WAY too much heap space.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to test it. The LSL2 upgrade is up next on my agenda, and it should be much easier, since Sierra already did the major code rewrites for the Amiga version.

It's kinda wild that this is a thing we can do.