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Forums > CSDb Entries > Event id #2314 : C64 Cracking Competition 2015
2015-01-16 18:22
Burglar

Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1090		 Event id #2314 : C64 Cracking Competition 2015

Howdy Crackers!

These days the cracking scene is pretty active, but it seems most effort is spent on rushing out a version first with non-protected games.
Now that we found this nice original that hasn't been cracked, we thought, let's turn it around. Have a cracking competition with all of you with a full price EA game, including a nice protection. So here we go with the first C64 Cracking Competition 2015!

You are invited to crack "Return of Heracles" (C) 1983-1986 Electronic Arts.

Download the original here: http://sh.scs-trc.net/return_of_heracles.d64

Please read the rules carefully, and take all the time you need, quality over speed please :)

Rules:

- Submit your entry before or at 23:59 saturdayevening the 28th of March 2015 by email to c64crackingcompetition@hushmail.com
- Your release must fully run on a stock c64 + 1541.
- Your release must be filecopieable and packed.
- Your release must contain a crack intro, but you also must provide an introless version. This will be used to accurately measure size.
- Recracking is strictly forbidden, you must crack the original we provide. When in doubt, we will dig through your release and ask a few questions to confirm you really cracked it yourself.
- Individuals may only be part of a single release, so a group may enter multiple cracks, provided they are done by other members.
- You are allowed to use whatever tools you want.

Calculating Results:

50% of the result will be determined by public voting, either using or own voting system or on csdb. Stay tuned for additional info.

The other 50% of the result is calculated by the compo organizers using the following criteria:

- The shorter the better *)
- The faster it loads the better
- Proper saving capabilities
- Full PAL/NTSC compatibility
- Amount of bugfixes (if any bugs present in game)
- Amount of trainers (no double trainers)
- Minus points if you introduce bugs and need multiple versions
- The more devices besides 1541 (or compatible) you support, the better
- Optional REU support is also nice

*) We explicitly do not want to discourage the use of large intros, hence
the introless version requirement.

Most of all, have fun cracking this full price game!

The Organizers,

Peacemaker/Hitmen
Burglar/SCS*TRC
 
... 158 posts hidden. Click here to view all posts....
 
2015-04-05 14:33
Shine

Registered: Jul 2012
Posts: 354		 Quoting Burglar
Quoting Shine
Only 4 real cracks??? Where are the others "real" crackers? ;)

And who would that be ;)

Sorry ... i asked for "real" crackers ... so there is not enough place for others, it seems! ;)
2015-04-05 14:46
Bacchus

Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 156		 Shine,

The actual cracking was already done. A poke of some three bytes that eventually landed in the drive mem. This enabled the D64 to be playable and disk copyable, and hence cracked. The challenge was to make a file copyable version.

Digging through the actual protection was also done in a matter of a few hours or possibly days. This protections was SURELY a beast on the native hardware but much less so now in an emulator (where you can do fully transparent freezing).

The big chunk of work for us was to adapt the tool chain to Exomizer - including the IFFL. Picking the files from the disk, making a working solution for the games own block loader solution. Plus adapting the loader to also handle the blocks of text.
2015-04-05 20:31
chatGPZ

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11378		 ... which makes it even more amusing :o)
2015-04-15 17:39
Fungus

Registered: Sep 2002
Posts: 681		 Nice work all! Good to see there is still some talent around and not just big mouths and wannabes. I did expect more versions though? Oh well.

As Sailor mentioned there is a pirate picture in the "junk" data of the loader. It is a character set picture. In order to get the display routine iirc, it is decoded at some point in the EOR/Timer decryption loops, but I don't recall at which point. It's just as easy to copy it out and reconstruct it yourself, it might be a sprite too... memory is a little foggy on it.

Burglar: I believe I shared my own notes and disk with stuff on it with you, go ahead and share that with anyone who wishes to look at it. I already released the decryption tool and source code, and yes I cracked pirate slayer on the real thing without the use of VICE or any other emulator using nothing but AR monitor... it was a real PITA hand tracing out how the booter even started.

As for the saves in the IFFL, I would prefer this myself. Sailor is perfectly capable to make an import/export save tool if that is your only complaint, I encourage him to do so.

Shine: Perhaps I will take part in the next compo, if someone would be kind enough to inform me and I feel like doing some c64 again...

I'll check through the versions and cast a vote if it is not closed yet.
2015-04-30 22:36
Count Zero

Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1931		 Results? Who won? Some link? Is it over yet?
2015-05-15 15:50
taper

Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 119		 I second Count Zero... Any updates on the compo status?
2015-05-15 16:02
Burglar

Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1090		 terribly sorry guys, lack of time/motivation, so please cast your votes now here on csdb!

voting deadline is 12:00 CEST sunday the 17th.

At that time I will snapshot all votes, calculate results in combination with the jury report and publish the final results.
2015-05-17 10:05
Burglar

Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1090		 voting is closed, stay tuned for results :)
2015-05-17 12:18
Burglar

Registered: Dec 2004
Posts: 1090		 C64 Cracking Compo 2015: Jury Report

The Compo has come to an end and what a ride it was. Return of Heracles proved to be a quite hard game to tackle. Not only did you have to beat EA's wellknown Pirateslayer protection, but also figure out the weird loader system, the game's scoring setup, internal protections, its huge savegames and tens of kilobytes of text.
Only 3+1 entries might seem low, but considering the amount of hard labour required to finish this one, I'm actually really happy with 4 cracks. Or quoting "<Bacchus> HOLY FUCK it was a LOT of work! :-P"

Congrats to all participants, you're all winners in my book for not only beating the protection, but also delivering a high quality crack of what actually is a nice complex game.

Crack Size

Size was calculated without intro and without savegames. Which could be somewhat debatable as the Breeze release requires savegames on disk if you want to use any, Triad decided to include them in their iffl and FLT didn't have support for savegames yet, but I assume they would be on par with SCS*TRC, standard filebased and copieable.
For the Triad version, I had to subtract the savegames (9*37 blocks) plus an additional subtraction of $100 bytes per savegame for the last sector gap of those savegames. Just to make sure we are comparing apples and apples.

Introless Size Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze              221 blocks      10 points
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker          237 blocks      --
 #2 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight     244 blocks       8 points
 #3 Sailor/Triad                255 blocks       6 points

Massive win by BigFoot! His dictionary approach turned out to be not only shortest in size but also very quick in loading times.

Trainers

With regular trainers, it's easy to compare, but not with RoH! All crackers decided to go for an ingame trainermenu (well, except me :/), which is actually the best way to train this game. I'm very impressed by all 3 in this regard and it's hard to favor one over the other, so this is a bit subjective.

Trainer Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze                              10 points
 #2 Sailor/Triad                                 8 points
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight                      6 points
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker                          --

BigFoot wins here by a small margin, Sailor's trainermenu looks best, but does not cover the same amount of trainers as BigFoot's. Bacchus trainermenu is nice, but it's not finished and will lock up in some cases, if it was completely finished, it could have competed for first spot here.
The compo organizers version has a high amount of trainers, but it's just nowhere near the quality of an ingame trainermenu, and the strength trainer is somewhat broken too :/

Loading Speed

I measured the time it takes to load the crack with a fastloader until you can select a player.
Here's where Triad's choice to include savegames in the iffl doesn't work out that well, scanning 560 blocks just takes more time.
The FLT crack was hard to measure, as pressing F7 in the main menu just causes the game to crash.

Loading Speed Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze              0 min 45 sec    10 points
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker          0 min 48 sec    --
 #2 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight     0 min 52 sec     8 points
 #3 Sailor/Triad                1 min  0 sec     6 points

Packaging

For the packaging category, we're looking at all the extras like docs, maps, drive support, reu support, etc.

Packaging Result

 #1 Sailor/Triad                                10 points
 #2 BigFoot/Breeze                               8 points
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker                          --
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight                      6 points

Clean win by Triad with docs and a map included, kernal version, reu support, you name it, it's all there.
Breeze comes in second by adding docs. FLT and myself have to improve ;)

Ingame Bugfixes

Were any bugs fixed? Were any bugs added?

Ingame Bugfix Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze                              10 points
 #2 Sailor/Triad                                 8 points
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker                          --
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight                      6 points

Another win by BigFoot with proper gamespeed fixes and an ingame bug fixed.
FLT is dead last here as their crack just isn't stable and doesn't work with cartridge enabled, it also lacks savegame support while all the others do.
My version seems to be the only one with an IRQ fix, so that music doesn't occasionally slow down while loading.

Overall

And now to add up all points for all entries, so we have 50% of the final result.

Overall Jury Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze                              48 points -> 9.60
 #2 Sailor/Triad                                38 points -> 7.60
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker                          --
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight                     34 points -> 6.80

Public Voting

Votes were taken from CSDB many weeks after the compo ended.

Public Voting Result

 #1 Sailor/Triad                9.70    9.7 (23 votes) 19*10, 2*9, 1*8, 1*7
 #2 BigFoot/Breeze              9.23    9.4 (13 votes)  6*10, 4*9, 3*8
 OC Burglar+Peacemaker          8.50    --- ( 4 votes)  1*10, 1*9, 1*8, 1*7
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight     8.47    8.5 (15 votes)  5*10, 3*9, 3*8. 2*7, 2*6

Final Combined Result

 #1 BigFoot/Breeze              9.415
 #2 Sailor/Triad                8.650
 #3 Bacchus+Rowdy/Fairlight     7.635

Congrats to BigFoot/Breeze for winning the C64 Cracking Competition 2015!
Breeze totally deserves the win by winning almost all categories, especially in size you totally owned all others.

Hope you guys had fun cracking RoH, I know I did :) Even though it was a lot more work than I originally anticipated. Triad said it right "May the best groups be still standing".

An honourable mention must go to eLK/Avatar as he cracked the protection and had a somewhat working version ready as well. Sadly he didn't finish his crack.

Learnings for next cracking compos:

- Check the original a bit better, so we don't give you an already patched original. Thanks again to Zer0x for providing a proper original shortly after the compo started.
- Get the voting system finished before the deadline, so there are no huge delays.
- Maybe find a bit easier game to crack, as 3 entries is still not much.
- Think of how to get all the other crackers to enter, it's too bad there is no entry from G*P, Onslaught, Laxity, Hokuto Force, F4CG+A, etc. I'm up for suggestions :)

Until next time!

Burglar
2015-05-17 13:23
Count Zero

Registered: Jan 2003
Posts: 1931		 Also interesting nobody came up with this recent addition before: Return of Heracles
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