REQUEST: Patches for "The Ian Burton Adventure"

[Zero X. Diamond]

Hey all. I'm here looking for some patches for "The Ian Burton Adventure". Here's what I need:

1) Bypass showing the images from Preview2.ck1 and Preview3.ck1 when using the "Previews!" function on the main menu.

2) Somehow stick "Previews!" function directly after "Story" on the main menu.

3) All finale sequence text boxes appear in the bottom left corner of the screen. (As in all of them are wedged right into that corner.)

4) Butlerbot can be shot--possibly show 1SPR0030, then vanish? Alternatively, Butlerbot is invulnerable, but shots pass through it?

5) Purely aesthetic, but if at all possible, always show Garg searching animation in order of frames? (1SPR0060, 1SPR0061, 1SPR0062, 1SPR0063)

6) Again, purely aesthetic:

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#Icecube frezzes Keens animation [Whatever hes doing when hit he frezes as] 
%patch $270F $90 

At the end of the freeze, it shows the unfreeze sprite for a moment first, like normal. Would it be possible to show the freeze animation once, then the unfreeze frame? I'd like Ian to shake his head in confusion after becoming mobile again. If it's not possible, I'll work with what I have, but I'd greatly appreciate it if it is.

I'll add anything else I need as it occurs to me.

[levellord]

1.)We just skip over the previews:

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#Stop the previews images showing:
%patch $9702 $7E
%patch $96E5 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90
             $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90
             $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90 $90
%patch $9717 $C8

or, just one image:

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#Stop just image 1:
%patch $96EA $96
%patch $96F2  $01 $00 

#Or image 2:
%patch $9702 $7E
%patch $9713  $01 $00

2.) Not avalible yet, but maybe soon...

3.)It is possible to change the size and location of *all* finale textboxes; here is their 'usual' values. With these you can change the width and height of the textboxes however you want. Also, if you don't want a textbox to appear, I can patch that for most of them too. The width is in letters, the height in lines of text [plus 2 for the textbox border]

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#First map textbox:
%patch $821E $0F $00 #Top
%patch $8216 $14 $00 #Bottom
%patch $821A $2A $00 #Right
%patch $8222 $05 $00 #Left
#At keens house; 1st
%patch $8546 $13 $00 #Top, etc
%patch $854A $1B $00
%patch $854E $0F $00
%patch $8552 $04 $00
#2nd
%patch $85D5 $13 $00
%patch $85D9 $1B $00
%patch $85DD $0F $00
%patch $85E1 $04 $00
#3rd
%patch $8635 $14 $00
%patch $8639 $1B $00
%patch $863D $0F $00
%patch $8641 $04 $00
#4th
%patch $867B $12 $00
%patch $867F $1B $00
%patch $8683 $0F $00
%patch $8687 $04 $00
#5th
%patch $86AF $13 $00
%patch $86B3 $1D $00
%patch $86B7 $0F $00
%patch $86BB $04 $00
#6th
%patch $86EC $11 $00
%patch $86F0 $1B $00
%patch $86F4 $0F $00
%patch $86F8 $04 $00
#7th
%patch $8714 $11 $00
%patch $8718 $1B $00
%patch $871C $0F $00
%patch $8720 $04 $00
#8th
%patch $877C $15 $00
%patch $8780 $1D $00
%patch $8784 $0F $00
%patch $8788 $04 $00
#To be continued
%patch $88B4 $05 $00
%patch $88B8 $20 $00
%patch $88BC $03 $00
%patch $88C0 $0C $00

There are a great many ending sequence patches avalible in 'E' in the Patch index/Keen 1

4.) The butlerbot can 'borrow' a death from another sprite, it can be made to use the dead Yorp death for example, but not a unique death.

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#Butlerbot goes 'zap' when shit and dissapears:
%patch $17CB $49 $48

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#Butlerbot immortal, shots go through it [so does Keen]
%patch $1782 $01 $00

5.) The sprite patches folder in the Keen patch index has this patch, and ones to change ANY sprites animation frame, and usually how many frames they use [2 anims, 3, 8...]

As it happens however, it *does* always show the Garg searching like this; it animates this sequence twice before returning to walk toward Keen.

6.) Sorry, no chance We can however alter the length of time Keen stays frozen.

Enjoy!

[levellord]

Right! To disable menu sections we have:

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#Menu options disabled:
%patch $9570 $EB $E0 #New Game
%patch $9577 $EB $D9 #Continue game
%patch $957F $EB $D1 #Story
%patch $9589 $EB $C7 #About Id
%patch $9596 $EB $BA #High Scores
%patch $95A3 $EB $AD #Ordering info
%patch $95B5 $EB $9B #Previews
%patch $95C2 $EB $8E #Restart demo

The codes this corresponds to are:

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%patch $9570 $C7 $46 $FC $01 $00 $EB $53                                             #New game
%patch $95C2 $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $C3                                             #Restart demo
%patch $9577 $E8 $D4 $06 $89 $46 $FC $EB $4B                                         #Continue game
%patch $957F $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $EC $07 $EB $41                                 #Story
%patch $9589 $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $FC $D6 $E8 $9E $01 $EB $31                     #About Id
%patch $9596 $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $EF $D6 $E8 $B8 $04 $EB $24                     #High Scores
%patch $95B5 $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $D0 $D6 $E8 $22 $01 $EB $05                     #Previews
%patch $95A3 $C7 $46 $FC $00 $00 $E8 $E2 $D6 $33 $C0 $50 $E8 $8A $0D $44 $44 $EB $12 #Ordering info

In theory we can replace any piece of code with a shorter piece, but in practice that is not so easy. Also, it is possible to rearrange the menu any way you like, but this will require patching *all* of the above codes, and altering them a lot.

Fortunately what you want is one of the 'easiest' patches we can do; it switches the previews and about Id options. The only difference in them is the second CALL function, so we switch:

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#Make 'Previews' 'Id soft':
%patch $95BE $72 $01
#Make 'Id soft' 'previews':
%patch $9592 $4E $01

Enjoy!

[Zero X. Diamond]

Okay, a few oddities I've noticed with what I've put in so far:

1) The Butlerbot patch is neat and all, and works nicely... but if it collides with any sprite other than Keen, it instantly ZAP/ZOTs and disappears. Is there any way to avoid this?

2) That menu patch worked great... except hitting ESC to exit the moved "Previews!" screen leaves the screen black. Everything still works, apparently--hitting enter on the black screen without doing anything else shows the screen fading out from selecting new game and goes to one. But it'd be really nice if there were some way to do away with the blackness there.

EDIT: Perhaps this might be connected with the code that fades into the images, which I've removed using the other patch?

3) For that freezing patch, I'm not asking to change the length of his being frozen. That's the patch that freezes him in whatever sprite he's using when hit with the iceblock. I want to, when unfreezing, go to the frozen animation once, then show unfreezing. If that's at all possible.

4) Um... I'm no code expert. I have no idea what to change to what to get the bottom left corner with those finale text box patches. Could you enlighten me, please?

[levellord]

1.)Sadly we're rather limited in respect to death behaviours for Keen 1 The closest to what you want is:

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#Butleerbot shootable by Keen only, makes falling block
%patch $17CB $BB $22

The falling block can be avoided by this:

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#Don't spawn falling block when chain shot
%patch $2369 $C3 $90

2.) Sadly yes, that is a side effect to blocking the images; there's not much I can do about it right now;

3.) Sorry; I don't thonk thats at all possible, since the freeze animation patch makes Keen *ignore* the freezing frames entirely.

4.)Below is a picture of the endimage, with a grid superinposed on it; this is what I use for my endingscreens.

$04 is the left side of the screen; setting a windows 4th value to this will move its left side all the way to the left. $18 is the bottom of the screen, setting a windows 2nd value to this will put its bottom at the bottom of the screen.

As for the other two values, I find it easy just to cut out n paste windows on it to see where and how wide I want em. But basically if you want em the same size n all, just moved, here's what you do:

For the first box:

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#First map textbox: 
%patch $821E $0F $00 #Top 
%patch $8216 $14 $00 #Bottom 
%patch $821A $2A $00 #Right 
%patch $8222 $05 $00 #Left 

Its 4 too high and 1 too right, so we change the first two values by 4 [bigger] and the second two values by 1 [smaller:

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#First map textbox in bl:
%patch $821E $13 $00 #Top 
%patch $8216 $18 $00 #Bottom 
%patch $821A $29 $00 #Right 
%patch $8222 $04 $00 #Left 

Now just repeat that with the other textboxes; usually just playing around will give you a good idea of what these patches do.

[Zero X. Diamond]

Alright, here's a thought: perhaps the blackness is due to fading, as would be done in the event of the images showing? If this is possibly the case, is there some way to patch it so that the fading palettes don't load, or alternatively, the fading palettes are identical to the regular one?

Also, the chain shooting code works well, but... is there any way to make it so that shooting the chain won't kill all Vorticons present in the level?

[levellord]

Yeah, like I said, I'm working on the previews problem, no idea when I'll have the time to fix it though.

The chain should only kill [and turn into a commander] the vorticon right below it, all other vorticons should live. I'll see if I can stop this though; the code is iether in the chain death, or the vort death code.

[Zero X. Diamond]

The chain should ony kill [and turn into a commander] the vorticon right below it, all other vorticons should live. I'll see if I can stop this though; the code is iether in the chain death, or the vort death code.

I don't think so. I killed a butlerbot at the bottom of the level, and a vorticon far above it died.

[XkyRauh]

Yes--the Vorticon that died was the top-most Vorticon at the time the chain was shot. The Keen game will check from top to bottom, grab the first Vorticon it finds, and kill it. Everyone else should be fine.

Which means, I guess, you could just build the level taller than you want, and stick a Vorticon out in the middle of nowhere... (LL, can you confirm?)

[levellord]

I have tested this 147 times; from this I have learnt that the chain will kill the lowest rightmost vorticon, irrespective of where that vorticon is. Each chain will kill the lowest left vort, and can kill vorts *abpve* the chain if there are no lower vorticons to kill. Which vorticons are killed depends on where they were *placed* NOT where they ARE when the chain is shot. A low down vorticon can climb to the level top, but will still die when the chain is shot.

Vorticons that fall of the level edge no longer count. The code is found in the sprite-sprite interaction, and thus ANY sprite that uses $04 as its interaction will die when the chain is shot. [So Yorps patched that way have TWO deaths,normal when shot, and make a dead vort when a chain is shot]

So all we have to do to make the vorticons chain immortal is this:

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#Vorticons use Garg interaction [Kill, but chain immortal]
%patch $17E0 $03 $00

There we go!

[Zero X. Diamond]

Alright, it's been quite some time. I'm just wondering if there's possibly been any advancement in the fading issues with the previews screen? Or if perhaps anyone could look into what the trouble is? Now that my tiles are displaying correctly, I'm feeling the inspiration returning and I may be able to crank out this bad boy some time fairly soon... it would just suck to have that bug in the final version.

[levellass]

As far as I'm aware no improvement yet, I'll take a look, maybe I can do something?

[Zero X. Diamond]

Any help would be appreciated. :]