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.
List of saved game hack utils:
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.
My first new saved game editor in a long 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.
New editors planned (orginally planned around 2017 or so)
Lonny Pursell, has been upgrading the original v3 code and improving it / bug-fixing it and there’s a new beta version available (v3.72) 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 but it will only run under a multi-tasking environment. No usage under plain old TOS.
Current status in 2022
After installing EasyAraMint in May 2022, and some tweaking of code, I’ve started converting my really old routines into simple GEM-based programs. No music or anything any more, just good old .RSC tweaks. My code “engine” makes it fairly easy to convert an older cheat editor, into the new style. Then recompile it using GBE.
The original plan was to release them at the Silly Venture in August 2022, but that plan went slightly awry due to my showing off my Atari 50th-related tattoo. See this post for more info.
I also added two brand new ones that I never wrote an editor for back in the day for: Air Bucks and Hillsfar
The “30 Years Later” disk contains:
Battletech, Caesar, Conflict, Crime City, Elvira, Grandad & The Quest For The Holey Vest, Imperium, Motor Massacre, Roadwar 2000, Roadwar Europa, Sim City and Star Command.
I added two brand new ones that I never wrote an editor for back in the day for: Air Bucks and Hillsfar. As per the article above, the disk also contained an updated version of my GFA Linker v2.5.
What the new cheat editors look like:
Unfortunately I ran out of time so I couldn’t finish the editors for Big Game Fishing, Ishar 1, 2 & 3, Temple of Apshai and Oil Imperium. So they will have to go onto “30 Years Later (Volume 2)” and, all being well, I will release that at SillyVenture Winter Edition later on this year in December.
(The above table is way out of date now, but I’ve not yet got around to fixing it!)