Decrypt Logic Game

Another lockdown production :-)

This is more of a brain teaser than arcade.

Find the hidden code.

Press the i icon for instructions but I suspect all of us have played this game at one point.

Download from :-

www.mbelect.co.uk/RISCOS

Running in a 180DPI screen mode (EX0 EY0) the Decrypt window displays like this,

Ok that gives me something to think about :-)

Chris
I have uploaded a new version of the program please give it a go I have tried EX0 EY0 EX1 EY1 EX2 EY2 and combinations and all colour modes I can think of.

The operation of the program has not changed so unless you want to use these modes there is no need to download.

For the curious the original program converted all graphics to the current mode, to add the EX0 type modes much more memory would have been needed to store the converted graphics. So I have changed the program so that the OS does the graphic conversion on the fly slower but copes with various graphic modes.

Download :-
www.mbelect.co.uk/RISCOS

The initial window now displays OK. It seems like the mouse only has an effect in the top left quarter of the window. Also if the input focus for the window is lost, clicking in the window again doesn’t regain it.

Chris
Hopefully this is 3rd time lucky.

Out of curiosity what machine are you using the EX0 EY0 modes on?
is it a laptop?

Download :-
www.mbelect.co.uk/RISCOS

Hopefully this is 3rd time lucky.

That’s done the trick. All working OK now. Thanks.

Out of curiosity what machine are you using the EX0 EY0 modes on?
is it a laptop?

Main machine is a RPi 400 using a 4K screen so the effective resolution is 1920 × 1080 with EX0 EY0.

Also an 8GB RPi4B plugged into a CrowPi2. The screen is 1920 × 1080 but only 11in so everything is quite small without EX0 EY0.

I also just tried Munchy. That has the same problem as Decrypt had.

Good to hear it works.

Yes as you have seen Munchy uses the same technique so
Will suffer from the same error, the problem is Munchy needs
To be fast to run in the desktop so I’m not sure how much effect
The slower spriteop routine will have, if I’m feeling brave I might have a
Look at adapting Munchy at some point.

Chris

I could not resist trying to update Munchy while the changes were fresh in my mind.

If you go to the website you will see a new version of Munchy V1.03 this is under the original download this version uses the same technique as Decrypt so should! work in EX0 EY0 modes.

Can you give it a go and let me know how it works on your systems. TIA

www.mbelect.co.uk/RISCOS

To run Decrypt I need to download BASIC version 1.48 (26 bit) for VRPC Adjust which runs RISC OS 4.39. Not sure what is the recommended upgrade route.

If you go to the website you will see a new version of Munchy V1.03 this is under the original download this version uses the same technique as Decrypt so should! work in EX0 EY0 modes.

The display is now scaled OK. A few things I noticed.

The score is displayed in the middle left of the screen instead of the top.
The animation when Munchy is caught by a ghost is shifted slightly to the left and down.
At the start the ‘Ready!’ overlaps Munchy.
Speed seems OK on a Rpi 400 and Pi 4B.

Also when Munchy or Decrypt are quit the System beep doesn’t get reset back to the default.

Also when Munchy or Decrypt are quit the System beep doesn’t get reset back to the default.

Now there’s a retro feature for you

The system beep it taken over by the use of RDSP I’m not sure other than quitting RDSP how to get it back. Also I am reluctant to quit it in case other programs are using it to produce sound in the desktop environment.

@Steve
Sure is :-)

@chris hall

I chose BASIC 1.48 as a minimum requirement because that’s what’s used on my Iyonix and it supports LOCAL DIM

I have no knowledge of how to upgrade your system to a newer version of BASIC but Martin Avison in the original Munchy thread gave some details.

@Chris Gransden
I think I know why the animation Is moved not sure about the score yet? At least it runs at a reasonable speed so its worth looking at the bugs.

Much fun :-D (Until I run out of patience and put in random colours)

One niggle – I ran it from the archive initially and when I won it said “Not open for update” and closed.

I love how the look, sound and controls fit together.

Thanks for the comments, the look and feel of the game came out quite well I thought, there is a bit of a learning curve going on here as believe it or not I don’t really play games much so I am just looking at some retro stuff I can do to distract me from real work. :-)

I assume that the archive was not happy about the game saving the score?

You right sometimes you can get really lost or distracted and then just go random, depending on chance sometimes it can be quite difficult to solve.

I have solved the BASIC version issue. All it needs is the following line added to !Run:

RMEnsure BASIC 1.48 RMLoad <Obey$Dir>.BASIC

The necessary BASIC module can be found on the micellaneous downloads page and should run on any system that is using an older version of BASIC.

It is good practice to supply up to date modules that an application needs and not hope that the user knows what to do.

I would strongly advise that later BASIC module are NOT put into an application directory, which is what I think you are implying. It should

• go in the standard place – ie !System.310.Modules and loaded from System:Modules.BASIC

• be loaded at boot time and NOT in an application (unless you want to cause all running BASIC apps to abort nastily!)

See my post

I would strongly advise that later BASIC module are NOT put into an application directory

This is an absolute no-no and not a matter of advice.

I think this might be an opportunity to rehearse the reasons for this, for newer users who will not have read the all the much earlier discussions.

Unlike modules that only supply SWIs and Commands, the BASIC module is not designed to be replaced while it is in use, but neither does it have any protections to prevent this.

The code invoked by *Basic is the application and it needs to be fixed and unaltered.

A BASIC program that starts up using the ROM module will always have that fixed code, even after that module itself has been removed from the module chain on being replaced by a soft-loaded version.

A BASIC program that starts up using the soft-loaded version will use the soft code. Even after this has been replaced by another soft-loaded version this code will remain in memory ¹ and will probably work, but only until some critical part of it is re-allocated by OS_Module. Then what happens is unpredictable and could be disastrous.

Do what Martin says. Do not play around with soft-loaded versions of BASIC.

On the other hand, if you can assemble your own “BASIC” module with a different name this can co-exist with the official one. ;-)

Edit 22 Feb: ¹ … if it has not been overwitten by a new module of the same, or smaller, size.

@Chris Gransden
You can download munchy V1.04 from the website hopefully :-) that cures the problems you had with text.

I have left the original on the website as this might be a bit faster on older machines although I was quite happy to see the speed it works at even though it is using the slower OS_SpriteOp 56, saying that I have managed to only use it once all the graphics are drawn to a background canvas using OS_SpriteOp 34 and then the whole canvas is converted to the screen using 56.

@Steve Drain
Thanks for the information regarding BASIC I assumed it would not be a good idea to load BASIC after the machine was up and running which is why I did not include the module with my program I expect that 90% of people are running a newer version of BASIC now anyhow . I thought Martin Avison gave quite a good description of how to load BASIC at Boot time in the original Munchy thread.

You can download munchy V1.04 from the website hopefully :-) that cures the problems you had with text.

The initial screen with the high score is now very, very slow. The whole desktop slows to a crawl. Once the game has started speed is back to normal
Also no issues with text positioning or animation.

That is strange I did not make any changes to the score screen or so I thought?

I can start the game here on a PI400 in 1920 1080 EX0 EY0 with no problems?.

Strange?
I cant seem to see the problem here?

I cant seem to see the problem here?

It’s OK now. Just needed a reboot.

Thanks for letting me know.
Had me confused for a while there :-)

Thanks for your patience and time testing Munchy