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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
Who did Killer Games?
This 2001 release - Killer Games - has puzzled me ever since it's release. Obviously it's made by someone who knows his way around a C-64, that's for sure. Just check out the "fire" in the intro, the spritestretchers, the bordercode and the spriteball-effect in the namechoosing screen. He is credited as Beerlord, but that doesn't ring a bell to me.
I'm quite sure that its origin is swedish, to judge from the names found in the intro and the highscore (Umm... Thomas Q, Carl Bildt, Fredrik, Niklas, Kukdavid, etc.) and the greeting to Talon (old member of Paragon).
Some suspicions goes towards old members of Paragon, DCS or Rizing, Quan (who released games under fake-handles before) or just any old swedish scener who got himself a X-1541 cable from STA during the summer of 2001.
The reason why i'm really is interested in this production is because the music really is awesome. Can anybody identify the player? Can anybody give me a lead on this strange production? Swedes? |
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Tch
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2004
Posts: 512 |
Hahaha,what a sick game! ROTFLMAO!! 8D
Does feel Swedish indeed.
Can´t be Bacchus though,he only drinks wine. ;) |
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Twoflower
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 434 |
Things are moving along here. My prime suspect IS by fact a CLC LDA ADC coder! At first I was let down when I just dived into his code in a freezing, until I discovered that I was in a music-routine, and that the LDA CLC ADC derived from an outer source. After checking out the main code it was clear that my prime suspect is a CLC LDA ADC coder.
Doesn't the mystery deepen, ladies and gentlemen! |
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enthusi
Registered: May 2004
Posts: 677 |
the plot thickens and as I write this I do indeed switch the linewidth in the xfig-plot from 1 to 2. |
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j0x
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 215 |
Decided to do some more detective work and extract a bit more circumstantial evidence:
Beerlord uses clc lda adc, not lda clc adc
Uses inc $d019 to acknowledge raster irq, but also asl $d019.
Uses "lda $dd00 and #$ ora #$ sta $dd00", not just "lda #$97 sta $dd00". He also sets port direction: "lda $dd02 ora #$03 sta $dd02".
Uses "bit $02" to wait.
Uses lda #$c8 sta $d016, not lda #$08 sta $d016
Uses lda #$15 sta $d018, not lda #$14 sta $d018 (lsb has no effect)
Uses clc cmp ($18 $c9) quite often. This is pointless, and may be used to point out the coder (WVL saw this first). Funny thing is, he doesn't use "clc, cmp abs" ($18 $cd), nor "clc, cpx", nor "clc, cpy". The "clc cmp" code is in the game code and the player code, indicating that Beerlord wrote both. Also, he doesn't seem to clear carry every time he uses the $c9 opcode. It's not in the intro code, for example (except in the music player).
Uses lda #$ff sta $dc0d when restoring interrupts (and not lda #$81)
The assembler used seems to use "BYT" for, e.g., text. (not byte). See $0c00
The assembler uses an exclamation mark as a comment indicator, like so:
jsr $fce2 ! reset
There's a bug in the notetable lo-bytes, but no other HVSC entry has that bug. Ignoring that bug, about 9000 tunes in the HVSC use the same note table -- probably the one from the Programmer's reference guide.
Writes "humour" and "harbour", not "humor" and "harbor": Uses British spelling.
[edit: explicit suspicions removed to make it all the more exciting. Or something.]
/j0x |
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Style
Registered: Jun 2004
Posts: 498 |
Quote: the plot thickens and as I write this I do indeed switch the linewidth in the xfig-plot from 1 to 2.
lol |
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iopop
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 317 |
Cool observations j0x, some of mine.
Uses jsr $ffe4 and $ffd2 as often as possible.
Clears $c6 and sets $40 in $c5 (non char.)
Uses $0314/$0315 irq, with jmp $ea31 / jmp $ea81 exits.
The assembler used only makes text as petscii so he subtracts $40 from every char >$40.
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
It's official: c64 sceners have way too much free time.
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iopop
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 317 |
TDJ: what is free time? I find myself always working (on something c64 related.) |
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Frantic
Registered: Mar 2003
Posts: 1647 |
Someone should make an automatic coder detection tool. Learning patterns from the (unpacked) binaries + CSDb-information about credits. ;) Oh yes..
Anyway.. the question is how to proceed from observations of coding style to suspects? After all there are quite a lot of coders. :)
A list of suspects would help making it possible to validate observations against other creations from the same coder. So.. perhaps time to spell that out? |
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TDJ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1879 |
Quote: TDJ: what is free time? I find myself always working (on something c64 related.)
I don't know man, I just like to use difficult sounding words in the hope that it will make me look intelligent. |
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