Back in the day
This page is all about my saved game editors that I created on the Atari ST. This was something I was well known for back in the day, along with music ripping and creating the Professional Virus Killer for Floppyshop.
Slowly but surely I will be revisiting them all (some of the first are now, in 2019, 30 years old!) and recompiling them using the latest version of GFA BASIC. The original editors were coded using either GFA v2 or GFA v3.
In the old days, it got to a point where it would only take me an evening to take the code ‘shell’ from the last saved game editor that I had made and turn it around to work for another game.
I wouldn’t need to change much, especially for editors that were only looking at a few bytes in the saved game’s file(s).
I’d change the GFA code to: check the file size of the saved game, on-screen text, what PEEKs and POKEs were needed and then, before the full program was issued, insert a new tune that I had hacked from a recent game / demo.
It would be nice to get back to that kind of productivity, but rearranged for my older (and occasionally wiser) self; maybe one a month, or more than likely, a few every year.
New GFA
Lonny Pursell, has been upgrading the original v3 code and improving it / bug-fixing it and there’s a new beta version available (v3.7) from his site (http://gfabasic.net/) and that’s the version I will be using.
This enhanced version includes lots of extra commands for the “modern day” Atari ST / Falcon coder that uses GFA BASIC.
Current status
My first new saved game editor in a loooong time (2018) was for ‘Legend Of The Sword’. It is near enough complete but I just never got around to releasing it. The full source code is available on this page.
It was a project to see that I could update the main GFA code to use SNDH music replay instead of the older (more direct), non-Falcon compatible methods that I used to use. It works well and will serve as the basis for my other saved game editors that need a revamp.
Once the above one has been sorted out and released, then I can start back-tracking through all of my older editors and bring them up to date. Maybe, I can pull my finger out and get them all released in their new variants on a few special disks as a 30th Anniversary set.
List of saved game hack utils:
| Game | What it altered | Download |
|---|---|---|
| Battletech (Activision) | Credits | |
| Caesar (Impressions) | Money | |
| Conflict - The Middle East Political Simulator (Virgin) | Money | |
| Demons Winter (SSI) | Various Stats | |
| Elvira: Mistress Of The Dark (Accolade) | Various Stats | |
| Grandad and the Quest For The Holey Vest (PD game) | Top up the battery charge in your wheelchair (honestly!) | |
| Imperium (Electronic Arts) | Money | |
| Ishar 1 - Legend Of The Fortress (Silmarils) | Various Stats | |
| Ishar 2 - Messengers of Doom (Silmarils) | Various Stats | |
| Motor Massacre (Gremlin Graphics) | Various Stats | |
| Oil Imperium (Reline) | Money | |
| Phantasie 2 (SSI) | Various Stats | |
| Roadwar Europa (SSI) | Various Stats | |
| Sim City (Maxis) | Money | |
| Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (Renegade) | Money | |
| Star Command (SSI) | ||
| Legend Of The Sword (Rainbird) | Position in game |
Note: There could be others that were part developed and never released too, so they will be revisited and released as well as, where possible, extra hacks added in to them.