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Community discussion

A Horseshoe Magnet and a Secret cave?

Started by Adam Markey on 19 May 2007 • 57,943 views

50 posts
#85625

Thanks, Rindex, you are truly an endless resource of Dizzy helping lists.

I have also been playing recently "Dizzy III: Fantasy World Dizzy" for IBM-PC Compatibles: MS-DOS in a DOSBox. There, one has to enter a high-score first and then to input his name as "IMMORTAL" in order to get infinite lives.

This type of cheats is great, but it does not help as much as saving the current state of the game. One has to use the hibernating feature of Windows in order to save the current state of the whole operating system.

I guess that they also had at CodeMasters a game engine such as the Dizzy Adventure Game Engine (DizzyAGE). They were continuously improving it, as they were releasing new Dizzy games. They were just changing the combination of keys used as a cheat. That is why apparently nothing works for Dizzy IV and Dizzy VII. Maybe they did not enable the cheat system for Dizzy IV and the key combination might be wrong for Dizzy VII.

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#85629
[quote data-userid="250" data-postid="85626"]

Answer on a question about a magnet.

[/quote]

"Wondering how to use the magnet?"

"I happen to know (on account of just being on the blower to Sally Ann at CodeMasters), that the magnet isn't used for anything at all. It's a magnetic RED HERRING!" (Phil South in "Your Sinclair" issue 33 , Page 41) 4397

In a certain dialect of the English language, the blower is the telephone.

In the same or in another dialect, the red herring is something, especially a clue, that is or that is intended to be misleading or distracting.

As for Adz.M's first post within this thread that he posted ten years without four days ago, we have to take into consideration the possibility that somebody might have played a prank on him.

Playing this game on the Spectrum today, I remembered long ago asking about The HorseShoe Magnet and the answer was: "It activates something that reveals a secret cave". I still don't know whether it's true or not. I'm trying almost everywhere that looks suspicious.

Therefore, that is all, Yolk Folks, as CodeMasters have officially confirmed that The HorseShoe Magnet is useless. Also, there are no other unknown secret caves. The highest possible score is 91,600 points. Game over. We can even lock this thread.

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#85758
Yeah, I'm not sure we're entirely remembering the point here. In Dizzy at the end of the game there are numerous things that will have been left unfinished including several enemies left unkilled because Dizzy is unable to reach them. We know this.

We also know, if we're reading the screen scrolls, there is an area on the map called the secret cave. We can go to the screen and we can see it, but the 'secret' area the term refers to is above Dizzy's head an utterly inaccessible from there. It contains an extra life that can't be collected and a bat that can't be killed all because there is no obvious access to the area. This is no surprise, the area is called the 'secret' cave so it would stand to reason that the way to get in would be a secret.

So far as I can tell no one has ever discovered the secret or shared the secret in all the years since the game was published. The theory in this thread appears to be that the horseshoe magnet has some role in revealing that secret, which may or may not be the case. But if it's a secret, there may even be more people that don't know it that do. Even people at Codemasters may not all be privy and may not all wish to share it if they are.

I can see three possibilities:

1. The secret cave is accessible by means current unknown, the 'secret' is currently undiscovered.
2. The secret cave is inaccessible because memory constraints prevented the secret being preserved in the game, the area was however as it was easier than unpicking the whole map.
3. The secret cave is inaccessible because the Oliver twins have a mean streak and deliberately put in to frustrate us. The seems unlikely to me as they don't tend to come across that way although since both the horseshoe magnet, if it really does nothing, and the hungry skeleton, which also does nothing obvious, both remain in the game taking up memory but serving no obvious purpose, gives some support to the possibility.

4. A fourth possibility, that I think is not very likely at this time is that the reason the horseshoe magnet doesn't work is a coding error and it was intended to have functions similar to those we speculate about.

Until we not for sure which of these possibilities is correct, we should keep in mind the possibility that the secret cave is accessible even if it turns out that the horseshoe magnet isn't the way to get in.
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#85759
Only the Twins will know the answer, if they can remember. Who knows what paper work they've got in the vaults that could shed some light on the biggest Dizzy mystery.
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#85760

Hi, everyone.

I am restating my confidence: this is just a problem of Self-Determination.

I do not see the Reverse Engineering of 48 KiloBytes or of 128 KiloBytes of Binary Data such a challenging task. I see that our Russian friends are still retro-programming on the Sinclair "Speccy" ZX-Spectrum microcomputer. It is just a matter of time until they will produce the Assembly Code Routines that will reveal all of the possible functionality hidden within the game.

Once that is done, there will be nobody left who would still be able to talk about any secret. Whatever is in those KiloBytes of Binary Data is finite and well-determined.

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#90975

My computer doesn't seem to like that link. Does it lead to anything constructive?

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#90979

Hi @dct 

Are you referring to the above link shared by Titus?

if so, the link goes to a Russian forum thread where Titus talks about glitches in the game, I'll paste it here....

Discussing dizzy topics on a specialized forum, we touched on some points that might be of interest to zxpk forum members.

Since childhood, many have been tormented by the question, why does the skeleton under the bridge move away in response to certain objects? Isn't this the Oliver's secret plan? Maybe an under-implemented secret move?
So I will reveal this secret...

The moving skeleton is... a bug! )

In fact, all active objects in the game, such as skeletons, platforms, bones, etc. - are objects of the same class called GeneralMovingObject. Those. universal moving object. The collapsing bridge is no exception. It's just a platform made from a green cloud that, upon reaching some invisible trigger, rapidly moves to the right and stops exactly XOR on the right side of the bridge, completely removing it from the screen.
Our skeleton lying in the lowland is also a platform. But, due to some programmer's misunderstanding, he had the imprudence to get an index in the list of objects number # 00.
And all active items that do not have a clear targeting (i.e. an object with a given number to which they must be applied) refer to an object with index #00. And this is our skeleton. Thus, each collision of the skeleton with such an object activates the platform displacement mechanism in it (and this mechanism is set to the right in it), and the skeleton rides safely. But it immediately stops, as it rests on the boundaries of movement specified in its settings, which do not allow it to move anywhere. In a word, a collision with the object, the activation of movement, and the stop of movement due to exceeding the boundaries. That's the whole secret of the skeleton...

And the magnet has no effect on anything. However, you can throw it at the skeleton and get 1000 points)

By the way, if you throw objects into any pits with bones, they will safely fall through them and fall on the screen below.

I note that the game is replete with cute bugs. Some are visible only to programmers, but some are visible to users as well.
For example, everyone noticed that the color of the names of objects is blue. Well, somehow it does not look very good. It's a bit dark. And on a b/w monitor it's even worse. Based on the palette of the game, I want to color it in purple or something. Let's look at the code. Namely, the purple color in her code is. Only printing the color is XORed, so the background color is red ($42) xor purple ($03) gives us blue ($41).

Well, all sorts of ROM interrupts with a system poll of the keyboard that work during the game are the little things in life. As well as pieces of unused code from Amstrad, as well as simply unnecessary fragments of code, data - all this is available in stock.

Yes, the game has never used graphics. The third type of branch, the bowl for the torch, and the thin flame for the torch. The thick flame was turned into a shark fin, in connection with which it swims very safely in a moat with water.

We go further. A very funny bug, which, obviously, those who love Sinclair Joystick 2 have encountered. Press 9 (up), the game starts. We play, we play, and then bam, for some reason the control switched to the Cursor Joystick. What a twist! And this is due to the fact that during the playback of any music (even the music of death and the music of the beginning of the game), there is a poll for the choice of control. This way, if you press 8 during a cute loss, the game will recognize that you have selected Cursor, and then you will have to play on it.

It is also very interesting that the artist (and according to some articles, it was the Olivers themselves) painted Dizzy. What is not a frame, then a different Dizzy) Well, the artist sees it this way)

[attach]442[/attach]

With the same variability, but with some polishing, Dizzy migrated to all subsequent parts, acquiring a mask at the same time.

Did you also know that the wood that burns under the boiler should actually look completely different from what we see in the game? They are printed by XOR over the ground, thus completely losing their original appearance, conceived by the artist:

[attach]443[/attach]

We continue to investigate the secret glitches of the game.
The physics of objects is arranged in such a way that they can both fall down to the screen below, and be forced upwards by solid surfaces. However, when pushed up, they cannot get to the screen above. In principle, such a situation is not provided for, because in the game should not meet at all. And we will get it for you.
We go to the screen with the amulet, take the amulet, jump onto the elevator and stand in the middle of one of the ropes. We lay out the object, and stand on the elevator exactly. As soon as the elevator reaches the top, the object will fall into the area of ​​​​action of a hard icicle and will be forced out onto the screen frame. Bingo!
However, the same situation will also pass with placing an object on a screen elevator thread with a key. To not go too far.

[attach]444[/attach]

 

About Zaks:

1. Do you know that the snowflakes that Zaks emits (two pieces) have different properties?

They are both destroyed if Dizzy is carrying the amulet.
However, if the amulet is laid out, then the upper snowflake simply freezes in place, bumping into the amulet.
And the lower snowflake is destroyed by the amulet with an explosion, as other spiders, icicles and apples do.

2. If, when killing Zax, you get too close to him, then when you apply the flask with the potion, you will be killed, because in place of Zax, a scrolling down rectangle is activated, and firstly, he always kills Dizzy (water in the game is made by this principle), and secondly, it has an area of ​​action somewhat wider than its own dimensions.

3. When Zaks is defeated, the game turns on a counter for 205 positions, assuming that during this time the entire running line with the final text will have time to run. However, if you leave the screen and run around other screens, this counter will still go on, and the game will end when it expires, and not at all when the final message ticker reaches the end.

More interesting stuff.
It seems to have been provided that when there is no fire under the cauldron, the flask on the cauldron does not jump. And when there is fire, accordingly, it jumps.

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#90981

Thanks! That, of course, is disheartening and I can't follow it in all particulars. But it is definitely instructive so, again, thanks!

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