Thunderjaws - little secret discovered
There is game called Thunderjaws, or maybe better to say a demo as full game was never released:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005252
This is yet another unsolved mystery as magazines claimed this game to be completed and made full reviews of it.
One day I decided to check the available demo and peek a bit into the code.
What did I expected? A full game buried in the code, locked with a single poke? Well, rather not ;)
Still from my experience such unfinished games may have some interesting stuff inside, unavailable to the player. It turned true this time too.
At the end of the demo you reach a boss which really isn't a boss because it doesn't fight back. You destroy it and it's the end of the demo. Look below:
However it appears there is some hidden part of the level which the demo player will never see.
Use pokes:
POKE 40888,0 - enable level scrolling when normally you can't do it more
POKE 39812,201 - invincibility from boss
and just walk through it:
Some terrible clash there. It looks like an early design, done for 8 pixel scroll while the actual game has 4 pixel scroll.
Unfortunately that's all. No more level data hidden in the demo :)
I just thought I'll share it with everybody.
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0005252
This is yet another unsolved mystery as magazines claimed this game to be completed and made full reviews of it.
One day I decided to check the available demo and peek a bit into the code.
What did I expected? A full game buried in the code, locked with a single poke? Well, rather not ;)
Still from my experience such unfinished games may have some interesting stuff inside, unavailable to the player. It turned true this time too.
At the end of the demo you reach a boss which really isn't a boss because it doesn't fight back. You destroy it and it's the end of the demo. Look below:
However it appears there is some hidden part of the level which the demo player will never see.
Use pokes:
POKE 40888,0 - enable level scrolling when normally you can't do it more
POKE 39812,201 - invincibility from boss
and just walk through it:
Some terrible clash there. It looks like an early design, done for 8 pixel scroll while the actual game has 4 pixel scroll.
Unfortunately that's all. No more level data hidden in the demo :)
I just thought I'll share it with everybody.
Post edited by Ralf on
Comments
Great find though. I wonder what other demos have hidden stuff?
is a pity it never was finished.. it looks good and moves smooth and fast with nice scroll and many sprites.
Screenshots from reviews show later levels and they aren't mockups, they have colour clash and seem to come from actual game.
It would be interesting to learn the story behind this game.
But, well discovered.
BTW it would be nice to try to contact the authors via Faceboook if possible to find out more about this unreleased game...
And yes, you read my mind too, Ralf, as I was planning to post a review of this game soon in my blog!
You know, I had this idea too :) There are 4 levels in the game so 25% is done already. As for later levels we could take some code and level map from CPC and mix it with Spectrum specific code from level 1. Just the graphics needs to be redrawn but again some of it is in review screenshots.
But no, I'm not doing it. Too many unfinished projects already.