I do need to provide a lot of context, but once given, it starts to make connections on what I have provided. Its amazing.
Posts by unorig
So I was able to figure out some objects show the name in the game. I then told Claude there is the text name 'PICK AXE' and found it. Claude was then able to understand that sequencing and find the other objects. From there, Claude could understand if the object was usable etc
Using @ricardoquesada.bsky.social Regenerator2000 to understand Dr Who and the Mines of Terror. Its a completely baffling game that I never solved. But now with the MCP integration and Claude, I am learning so much about the game.
I have been working on learning C64 Assembly and working various version of disassemblers for years however @ricardoquesada.bsky.social has just released Regenerator2000 which more than I could ever hope for.
github.com/ricardoquesa...
I now have a tile editor for the mine level of A View to a Kill for the Commodore 64. The level was always interesting to me but was terribly cramped and difficult to get around. Now I can give the level a lot of space.
I now have a map viewer built in for Paris and Mine levels of a View to a Kill for the Commodore 64. One is character based and the other is tile based which makes things more complicated. However, soon I will be able to modify the maps to make them a little less frustrating to play.
I always found the arrows on the roads of the Paris level of A View to a Kill for the Commodore 64 really confusing. So now I have a character and map editor where I can change the arrows to dashes straight into an uncompressed PRG.
Since there isn't Charpad for MacOS so I have been trying to build a character / map editor for MacOS. It's not pretty, but I can now see the Paris map for A View to a Kill.
One of the things that really frustrated me about A View to a Kill - Paris level for the Commodore 64 was the wall collision. Coding a solution would basically be a ground up rebuild so I have decided to shorten the car to greatly reduce this issue - way better. Now to make it multicolour.
Ive also now got the ability to view and edit the sprite. Not sure how useful it would be to make modifications to a sprite while reverse engineering yet, but it's there for my amusement.
Added the ability to define .word, .text, and also sprites. This makes the program use less rows and a bit more manageable to read.
Rockstar really did what they done when they might have not to. They had PS5 the game when the game was.
GitHub user pditincho has taken apart the C64 version of Maniac Mansion - perfect for anyone curious enough to PEEK into the game’s code. github.com/pditincho/mm...
Sometimes you need 'Cautious', then sometimes you need...
This is the weirdness of disassembling C64 Assembly. Someone leaves a random address or code somewhere that the program never gets to, but messes up disassembly.
Aggressive follows all JMP, JSR, branches etc. Cautious will stay within the subroutine. This allows me to disassemble small sections, compile and test.
Due to the randomness of C64 Assembly, I have had to make an option of 'Aggressive' or 'Cautious' disassembly. I found that sometimes you need to step through sections and find the buggy code before disassembling. Paris Chase in A View to a Kill was fine on Aggressive, but City Hall has some bugs.
There are some scaling issues but it looks like I have a build of my disassembler working on Windows now too.
Yeah I have it compiling for MacOS and also Ubuntu now. I am just working on a Windows binary. I still need to do some more testing on the compile+build functionality - basically it allows you to compile and run the reverse engineered code.
Much better on MacOS now.
Testing my disassembler in MacOS. It builds - but it's pretty ugly. I still prefer using Linux as an OS than MacOS.
I will soon. The changes are starting to settle down - not having any c64 compile issues. I’ll probably start trying a build for Mac and Windows soon.
Complete rewrite. The concepts are the same. c++ is much faster however.
I can now manage self-modifying code. Getting close to having all the program just use labels rather that direct memory addresses.
Love that intro screen
Added symbol management to my disassembler. I can now select a symbol, press F3 and go to the next usage of the symbol too.
I recall being quite frustrated with the game. Have not looked back at it since I was a kid.
Making some good progress on my disassembler. Its the most promising version of a disassembler I have ever made. I am 70% through mapping out A View to a Kill Paris level which is good. I think the last 15% will be bizarre junk.
My C64 disassembler is getting to a point where I am spending more time disassembling than updating the disassembler. It now has handy features like percentage categorised and the ability to copy sections to ASM so I can get AI to help understand sections.