Lost City of Atlantis

[Ohne Mitleid]

I translated the intro screens for The Lost City of Atlantis. I saw a little bit about on the Donations page about the need for an English version of the game (German version already available on your site). I could not find one, not even a reference.

I did the best I could to translate the intro and turned that into screen shots which match the game, both the original German text in full length and the English translation. File size zipped is about 250kb and I know I would have downloaded it to check it out if it were available, probably in part because it would be a >blip< for download time.

So basically, some screen shots translated for the intro story screens. I would like to do more but I don't really have the time to play the whole game right now. Let me know what you think.

Oh yeah...a couple of days ago I submitted my answer to the quiz as "The Lost City of Atlantis". It seems the correct answer was "Lost City of Atlantis, The". Silly rabbit! Syntax for kids!

[marko river]

Very interesting proposition. I like your idea, let's see what others have to say.

btw, about shot quiz, why don't you use auto search feature, then you can select the exact name :)

[Ohne Mitleid]

I have the graphics up if you want to take a look at what I am talking about.


Thanks!

[TotalAnarchy]

It would be nice to somehow modify the game files and make some sort of "fan" translation. :mhh:

[Ohne Mitleid]

Good luck with that. I tried looking at the files to see if it could be done but it is all hexadecimal gibberish to me. If it were a Win32 game I could probably use a resource hacking utility. But then again, if it were a Win32 game, odds are it probably wouldn't be here.

[Dave]

Usually it's possible with Hex Editors, but it's a hell of a job!

[MrDeadly]

The original English intro can be found on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5WYjPx_oxA

There's also some game-footage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIFBFz4MpG8&feature=related

[Ohne Mitleid]

Mr Deadly, Thank you for that! At least I had the chance to practice my graphics abilities. Obviously, my ability to translate is somewhat lacking, although I could have tried to put the translation into rhyming poetic form. I wonder if the English shareware version would provide any better source for editing the full version into a translated English format...

I also wonder why my searches never revealed YouTube as a source...hmmm.

[The Fifth Horseman]

It looks like the full version can take in data files from the demo. Executable too, but I'm not 100% sure the game will play normally.

Check the attachment - that's the game with the executable and intro swapped out for ones from the demo.

[Ohne Mitleid]

Thanks! I am a bit rusty (more like crusty) at DOS stuff, but I'll take a ...ugh... crack at it. No pun intended but it pinged my brain with a nice icy spike when I thought/typed it out.

[MrDeadly]

Hey Fifth Horseman! I tried playing the first level a while, where everything seemed to work fine, except the "shop"-screen. There the colors get all messy and the language is still German. But even if this worked fine, we'd still lack English text for the intros to episode 2 and 3 (if there are any), plus the ending (if there is one). Can somebody who's played through episode 1 please confirm if there are any more "cut-scenes" or not?

[Ohne Mitleid]

I fully understand I could be corrected on any of this. Just my take on it.

FILE LISTING INFO
Right off, COMPLEX.$$$, no idea what it is for now.

LIESMICH.BAT and LIESMICH.TXT = README.BAT and README.TXT.
INSTALL.BAT and CDSETUP.BAT...pfffft. Install.bat is looking to copy a file (atlger) that doesn't exist. CDSetup.bat assumes you want to play the game from C:\atlantis. All both of them are trying to do is create a directory called 'atlantis' within your root directory and copy CONFIG.CNF to it. Config.cnf is the catalog listing for your Save files and I'm guessing, High Score record keeping (don't know for sure, I don't even have a score, per se).

The ATLANTIS.EXE file is responsible for the Menu Navigation screens (New/Save/Load, etc.), in game messages and world/level change messages. I have edited a copy of the EXE for all of this to be in English. It works perfectly with no known crashes, but then again I have not played the entire game.

There are two LBM files START and FINISH. START is for the Intro, whether it be the German or English translation. While they may be interchangeable to view the initial intro, they are not interchangeable with the EXE files for gameplay. START also contains the Noch Software screen, the Lost City of Atlantis Title screen and the graphic for the skill selection screen (Beginner/Master). There is a different type of LBM file titled COMMON.LBM. It seems to be responsible for the Status bar displayed at the bottom of the screen while playing and is an embedded graphic. This would explain why the English Shareware version says Beginner or Master while, and I quote, the German version has "one insignificant word is displayed during each level (see pictures)".

The other LBM files 1, 2 and 3 apparently are for the level tiles. The MNU files 1, 2 and 3 are for the "shop" and the changing of the weapons and deities.
LPN files seem to be level files. The file syntax for these files is WLS.LPN where W= World , L= Level within that World, S=Skill Level and LPN is the file extension. I think LPN must stand for something related to a personal extension used for development purposes because it is unknown and unassigned in the world of extensions.

World - Three Worlds: Greece, Egypt and of course, Atlantis.
Level within the World - According to the file listing, there are 6 levels per World for a total of 18 levels! Yikes! I can't swim or shoot that well...
Skill Level - 0 for Beginner, 1 for Master as per player selection at the beginning of the game. The defenders (I can't call them enemies since I was not invited to their Land) seem much more frenetic and aggressive. There also doesn't seem to be as much loot to be had, especially the precious pearls needed for ammo purchases. Someone else can verify I am not being paranoid when it seems as a Master I can't hold my breath underwater quite as long.

Speaking of purchasing things, the "shops" change per World. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if you wish to avoid the **SPOLIER ALERT** that is about to follow. World one (Greece) contains Zeus, Poseidon and Mars. World two (Egypt) contains Isidac, Osiris and Horus. Isidac looks similar to depictions I have seen of Isis adorning the headdress of Hathor. World three introduces us to Armadrill, Hydromag and Execute. I can't tell what they look like exactly because I still haven't tweaked the graphics palettes, but they don't look hospitable, or even semi-human for that matter.

I'll keep looking into this when I have the time which I unfortunately have already invested too much of today. I used to do this quite a bit back in the DOS days. Now I remember why...I think it's fun!XD

[MrDeadly]

Wow! Great detective-work Ohne Mitleid! Amazing stuff. With all this info available there has to be someone here who'd be able to create an English fan-version??

[Ohne Mitleid]

Thank you Mr. Deadly!

I have been, in the backrooms of my mind while I am not on duty, getting about to fixing this. I blabbed too much about this already, but I have thought/found/messed with more than that since.

GAK!

[marko river]

All the spiritual support, mates! Keep up the good work, this is very exciting :D

[Ohne Mitleid]

Game over; I finished playing 'Lost City'. The game is difficult! I needed to see it through to the end to make sure the EXE file I modified didn't cause any problems, which it did not. There is a special ending, it is in German but entirely not what I had expected.

I don't know where to post the English version of the executable. I also don't know how to proceed about posting any additional information I have discovered which should be able to help anyone who wants a head start on looking into this. I won't get into too much detail, but the fix seems simple in theory to me, I just am not fully aware of the method (possibly yet, but I might never "get it".)

If you want to have an English "fan" version for Abandonia, there are really only 4 things that need to happen.

Help is needed with the following items:
- A copy of the English Shareware version of the game would be very helpful. It might be possible to use the LBM file to clarify the difference between the English "shop" and the German "shop" currently in the game. If this were possible, all of the "shops" for the German version could be converted to English.
- The palette for the Status bar in common.lib needs to be altered within the file to match the German version of the game. The common.lib in the Shareware version is in English, the colors are just skewed. I have yet to figure this out, but know it is the solution.
- The graphic for the disk displayed during the opening of the game and the skill level selection graphic need to be swapped out.
- A finish.lbm needs to be translated and substituted for the German version. Once again, if the "shop" files were able to be swapped, all else should easily fall into place.

I also have some of the file structure mapped for the Save files. This allowed me to "cheat" in order to verify (mostly for MrDeadly) that there are no movies in between Worlds or Levels.

I am hoping to post more detailed information on a Website and not fill up the forum.

If you want to somewhat see how easy it would be, download the German version from Abandonia, download the modified version provided by The Fifth Horseman in this thread then swap the following file. Then all you need to do is copy the start.lbm from the shareware version over the start.lbm in the German version. The intro will be in English and a couple of other quirky things, but the game will function normally and everything will appear with "normal" colors, some of it still being in German.

More later. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

[The Fifth Horseman]

One English shareware version, coming right up. :)

[Ohne Mitleid]

I would be negligent if I didn't thank the 5th Horseman for the leg up on this. Thanks!:OK:

Here is what I have come up with so far.



Time for some more exploring. I already know what I don't already know :wacko:

[The Fifth Horseman]

In regards to DOSBox screen capture, setting it to PNG will save the screencaps as 8-bit indexed PNG.

If we work with the assumption that all 256 colors are stored somewhere in the LBM as a single palette (which may be or not be the case), then we're looking for a contiguous 768 byte sequence where each color in the palette exists exactly at least once as a three byte RGB value. Having the RGB values of several colors from the palette, I could code a program that seeks out its' possible locations in the file.

Further, far as the sprites go - and this is just theory - we're most likely looking for an x, y pair of 16-bit integers, which do not exceed the screen's pixel size in either dimension (note: this is conjecture), followed by an x*y array of bytes representing the respective color indexes, and most likely followed by more than one such data set. This is, of course, if the data has not been compressed.

[MrDeadly]

This is so awesome! I've been hoping for something like this to happen for a long time. I want to say thank you very much for putting so much effort into this Ohne Mitleid! Much appreciated :) I just wish that I could have helped out in some way but all this inner-workings stuff is totally Greek to me... Hopefully more members like The Fifth Horseman can lend you a hand.

Anyways, great work guys! Happy holidays.

[Ohne Mitleid]

Thanks for the offer Fifth Horseman. The real problem lies in the fact that DOSBox does not seem to capture the screen in 256 color indexed mode. I even attempted to set the machine to vgaonly and even EGA. VGAonly resulted in the same 16 million color mess and EGA was quite a disaster. I did find 512 bytes of the 768 in START.LBM, but if I had the indexes or the correct RGB values instead of searching by process of elimination, it would really help.

The other problem is with the graphics themselves. The MNU files for the "shop" for example. The only two I have to compare are the shareware and German version of World one. It doesn't matter though. The graphics themselves have been modified to show the correct colors for the correct palette, but the real problem is that they switched the indexes! So byte AB in one file = byte ?? in the other file coupled with some really strong evidence of some type of compression, and things start getting more complex.

I think I would be able to work things out though, if I could only find some way to capture the screen without a full 15,999,744 to try and eliminate and then attempt to assign proper indexes to the other 256.

Other than that? I am still in over my head but learning a lot as I go along. I learned not to fix something that isn't broken, for example. I did some more cosmetics on the EXE file just to feel as though I accomplished something and instead made it so the game trapped you underwater where you suffocate and die. Not good!

Back to it!:smile2:

[The Fifth Horseman]

I think I would be able to work things out though, if I could only find some way to capture the screen without a full 15,999,744 to try and eliminate and then attempt to assign proper indexes to the other 256.
Captures straight from my copy of DOSBox 0.74.
http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/7728/atlantis001.png
http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/1738/atlantis003.png
Custom builds should also have PNG support if compiled with libpng.

The compression you've encountered might possibly be some variant of RLE. It's fast, cheap and was somewhat popular back in the day.

[Ohne Mitleid]

Awesome, thanks once again Fifth Horseman! In the mean time, I had found out how to screen capture in 256 color indexed by accident. It seems DOSBox will not do it for me, but launching from D-Box will. But that is not for this post.

Your pics provided me with further information, letting me know the colors don't match up with RGB values across systems, much less trying to translate what they mean into bytes or however. The indexes helped a lot though.

I now have a definitive set of goals to accomplish instead of just poking around. Hopefully, I will move forward faster. I get too distracted by "ooo...what does this do?" though.

New things:
- I found out by accidentally changing something, how to become an air-fish. I can "swim" through the air.
- I discovered the SW version does not allow you to "creep" swim, like you can tip-toe using ALT while you walk. Couple this with:
- I have meshed the palette from 1.LBM with level one text, a big step. Palettes within the LBM file are chopped up, shared by game elements AND scattered, meaning 1 comes before two when comparing palette 1 and 3, etc. :wacko: However, this leads to slow your swimming turning you into the Human Torch while performing the side crawl. Something Reed Richards probably would not approve of.
- I have pinpointed one of the sprites in START.LBM. It only proves I cannot use this info to find other sprites within the file based on the same information, I can adjust the horizontal location of the sprites appearance but have no idea where the vertical is determined and the compression is beyond my level. It appears to chunk out in segments horizontally...not even contiguously based on color sequencing
- Last point: I usually don't give up, I love learning new things and I post way too much info in this forum:whistling:

Man, I love this!

[EDIT: I forgot. The Lost City opening screen rock formation on the right bears a striking resemblance to Augustine Rodin's "Thinking Man" IMHO]

[Ohne Mitleid]

Update of completion to English: I have the Full working Executable. Opening intro movie plays, Skill level selection screen and the Beginner / Master status bar, all in English.

The only problem now is I cannot figure out the compression for the "shop" graphics. I have the English versions edited for display and ready to swap out but since I cannot figure out the compression, those graphics won't work with the current program. I would also have to have the FINISH to the game translated, but it does make any sense to me at this time since I wouldn't be able to swap out the graphics, even if it were to be translated then created.

I figured out the compression for the graphics which involved editing 4,624 bytes manually, but I really have no intent of doing this with the four - 320 x 200 byte screens that remain. One pixel out of place while editing and the whole thing becomes a real mess. All I need is some way to save it in whatever format it is in, swap out the body (the content in the game does not include dimensions, attributes or a stored palette).

Help?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Describe the compression. I'll see what can be done for an automated decompressor/compressor.

[Ohne Mitleid]

Thank you, that would be great!


Hopefully this will help. I've come a long way, I would hate to fail now:(

[The Fifth Horseman]

Can you show me the raw data for the master icon before and after the conversion process you applied?
I think I understand the procedure, but I'll need an example entry and output to test my program on.

The compression/decompression procedure itself will be fairly easy to code. :)

[Ohne Mitleid]

This should do it. The file is at the bottom of the same page. :OK:

[The Fifth Horseman]

This is a functional algorithm for the compression process. http://5thhorseman.pastebin.com/14cVLejD
There's two things I'm somewhat unclear on, though: how the original format handles repeat sequences spaced more than 127 pixels apart, and palette indexes above the 127th. If those situations never happen, we're good. Otherwise I'll be going back to the drawing board as soon as we find an example in the original data.

The interleaving is next on my list.

[arete]

Could we perhaps apply this process to Chrono Quest if you guys perfect it? ^_^ Frodo's been bugging me for ages.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Chrono Quest is practically guaranteed to use a completely different method of storing data - it would have to be reverse-engineered from scratch.
And then someone would have to translate the text portion of the game anyhow.

[Ohne Mitleid]

This is a functional algorithm for the compression process. http://5thhorseman.pastebin.com/14cVLejD
There's two things I'm somewhat unclear on, though: how the original format handles repeat sequences spaced more than 127 pixels apart, and palette indexes above the 127th. If those situations never happen, we're good. Otherwise I'll be going back to the drawing board as soon as we find an example in the original data.

The interleaving is next on my list.

I looked at your algorithm and while parts of it make sense to me, I cannot figure it out as a whole. :unsure:So this post would probably be more clear to understand if I could speak in C++, but since I cannot, I'll try my best to explain.
I was unable to find a sequence that was spaced more than 127 pixels apart, but that is a very good question. The full screen graphics for this program all have a 3 color rectangular border around the edge. If this were combined with the interleaving, odds are it would probably cause a break in any sequence larger than 127, so maybe the graphics were planned this way to avoid having to code around those situations. If that isn't the explanation, my theory would be that the byte indicating the next repeat sequence location would be FF and the byte at current location plus FF would be FF (or the next repeat sequence location number) until the sequence longer than 127 pixels apart was broken.
The original format handles all palette indexes over 127 as the correct palette index except for the first byte of the graphic. If the first byte is larger than 00, it is handled as the indicator for the number of pixels to be repeated. My logic fails when it comes to figuring out what happens to the second byte when the first byte is 00, but it does not matter, at least for this program, since all of the graphics that need to be converted have the first line of on screen pixels set to be a sequence of three or more.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Okay, I've changed it so that it should work within the limitations.
If the program processes 126 single pixels and encounters another one without finding a sequence, it sets the 127th as a one-length repeated sequence. This should work as a fail-safe.
The original format handles all palette indexes over 127 as the correct palette index except for the first byte of the graphic. If the first byte is larger than 00, it is handled as the indicator for the number of pixels to be repeated. My logic fails when it comes to figuring out what happens to the second byte when the first byte is 00, but it does not matter, at least for this program, since all of the graphics that need to be converted have the first line of on screen pixels set to be a sequence of three or more.
The thing is that from your previous explanation, everything above 7F is treated as a sequence start indicator. :unsure: So either it does the same thing as RLE - ie places a sequence with a length of one - or it uses a flag you haven't documented yet.

For the time being, I've added a failsafe that assumes it will mimic RLE's behavior. We'll see how that works out.

Will it be okay with you if the utility uses PCX images as input?

[Ohne Mitleid]

I was not clear enough, sorry. The repeat sequence consists of at least three bytes: a repeat sequence count, a palette index and a stop current sequence / next sequence start byte. Outside of these repeat sequences, and even inside with the palette index byte, the values can be anywhere from 00 to FF. Within the repeat sequence, between the palette index and the stop current sequence / next start byte can be another byte with a value in excess of 7F which would allow the current repeat sequence to keep repeating with the new information of repeat count and new palette index. I am not sure if that is any clearer or if it makes things more confusing.

PCX formatting would be great. In fact, when I was looking at the graphic files in hex and searching on the internet, I was almost sure the format used by the game was a PCX. I only have access to versions 0, 2 and 5 to convert the files to though, so the utility either needs to identify one of those versions, or I need to find another program, maybe.

[The Fifth Horseman]

This actually clears things up. :)
My logic fails when it comes to figuring out what happens to the second byte when the first byte is 00Offset to the beginning of first sequence, perhaps?

PCX formats 2 and 5 (v2.8 with palette and v3.0, respectively) will do just fine.

[Ohne Mitleid]

This actually clears things up. :)
Offset to the beginning of first sequence, perhaps?

I had checked the 00 start, and it is not an offset. It appears only on one full screen graphic in the German version, but not the English shareware version. While poking around, trying to figure things out, there are a lot of things that were manipulated throughout the two versions so that files / graphics were not easily exchanged between versions without some drawback. This may be one of them, who knows.

The graphic for the game ending I finished last night.

:woot:Thank you again for all of your help with this, otherwise it would be a long, long time before I could even attempt to complete it.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Ripping out raw palette indexes from the PCXes works now. All that's left is the interlacing and we're done.

[Ohne Mitleid]

Awesome! That is fantastic! Hopefully, I didn't overlook anything else...:mhh:

[The Fifth Horseman]

This should do the trick. Let me know if there are any problems.

[Ohne Mitleid]

This should do the trick. Let me know if there are any problems.
Okay, just letting you know there are problems. I get this error message "This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information." I thought it might be a DOSBox application....no. So I looked at the CPP file, downloaded cstdio.h and cstdlib.h which, of course did nothing. After looking at those two files, I get another reference to STLport which if I understand it, stands for "Standard Template Library". I am under the impression this is not a standalone executable file and I don't know what to do from here. I do not have any type of compiler, programming libraries or things of that nature. I am also running Windows 7, as if that matters.
Any suggestions?:mhh:

[The Fifth Horseman]

The executable is standalone - everything the program uses from those two headers is added to the executable during compilation.

I've added status reporting. See how far this one goes before it crashes, and we'll know where is the problem.

Please show me the PCX file you tried to run through it. There might be something about that file that I didn't account for in the code.

[Ohne Mitleid]

First off, my apologies. The program may be working in its first iteration (I haven't gone back to check). It seems when I chose to save in version 2, although the graphic does not change on the screen nor does the application give me any sort of warning, it changes the palette to 16 colors, which is obviously a problem.

After correcting this, the second version you sent me did the job in an eye blink. After loading it as a replacement into Atlantis, it displays on the screen correctly, sort of. It has some extra stuff displayed which usually indicates there is additional information which is crowding out what needs to be displayed for the torch animation. Bleh...look here

Anyway, great job! I am off to investigate and will report back with what I find. I am sure it is something minor and I am sure it is something I didn't communicate to you correctly!:headslap:

[The Fifth Horseman]

In which file is the sprite stored, and at what offset does it start?

[Ohne Mitleid]

The graphics work perfectly...well, I haven't checked out the last one yet but I'm 99% sure it isn't an issue. As I said, it was my communication (or lack of knowledge about the issue) at fault here.

Four graphics to convert - 1.MNU, 2.MNU and 3.MNU for the shops, then FINISH.LBM for the ending. <<EDIT: All are working fine now>>The MNU files all have 19 bytes appended to them that repeat 00 0C in sequence, if that means anything to you because it makes no sense to me.<<EDIT: It turns out those are the end sequences, not beginning, for the sprites>> 1MNU and 3MNU have the first byte as 00 and 52 respectively, which have nothing to do with the graphic content but seems to affect something(?)...it shifts screen position for 3MNU if it isn't there. Everything I checked now seems to work though.

To answer your question: The sprites for the weapons change and animated torch are contained within the MNU files at different offsets dependent on the size of the graphic for the shop screen. This just means a cut, paste and append to the the newly (Thanks to you:OK:) converted graphics just need to have those appended, and that is very easy.

I'm going back to the game now to see if I can finish this up. This is pretty cool! :yahoo:

[Ohne Mitleid]

If anyone made it this far into the post, some of the information I provided was either incorrect or conjecture that proved incorrect. I could ramble on about it, but I already do too much of that.

The game is now complete. Next steps? (These are all "Should I...? questions)
- Submit the pages I translated to grammar and / or translation forums?
- Submit a list of modifications I have made for approval
- Request someone's opinion on what they feel is better (a poll probably) ?
- Have the entire game play tested? I am too close to it and have seen it too many times to try new things that might "break" it.
- The doc provided in the Extras for this download does not accurately reflect and omits some of the information about the game controls. What should I do about that?

And then:
What now? How do I submit it? I don't think this is really a "hot" game, but I am hoping a few fans will want to try it out.

I also have a full screen shot map of Level one, World one that I would love to share but don't know how to go about that.

I would also like to edit out all links in previous posts I have provided so no one thinks I am spamming, advertising or trolling (even though I don't know what that last one means).

Final question: What's next that I can do with Abandonia? I don't have $$$ but I can do some things to contribute / donate.

And where is MrDeadly anyway?

[dosraider]

Seems to me it would be a real nice one to add as 'extra'.

Also: congrats, well done.

[DarthHelmet86]

If you want us to check your translations (I mean check the English version of what you have written not if its a correct translation) I would be happy for it to go into Grammar.

For the game I think it would be nice as an extra on the game page.

On the note of the Doc, write a new one with the correct info and we can see about uploading it.

[MrDeadly]

Congrats guys! This is the best retro-game-related news I've had in a long time! You've made my weekend Ohne! Thanks so much for putting so much time and effort into bringing us (me!) an English version :-) Count me in for play testing, please PM me as soon as possible.

I can't say what the next step should be, but some play testing done by other gamers, and grammar/spell checking, can't hurt. Just to weed out possible annoyances. And a modifications-list would be nice just so that one can see what's actually changed from the original version. If the controls are inaccurately described in the original doc then the description should get a re-write in my opinion. At least as an updated doc that comes with this fan-version?

Oh, and I think the full screen shot maps you speak of would make an excellent "extras" download. I know I've often wanted a level-map while playing...

[Ohne Mitleid]

@dosraider: Thanks!
@DarthHelmet86: I will go about submitting for grammar
@MrDeadly: I will PM you as soon as I finish this post

The doc doesn't need to be rewritten in its entirety. I forgot when I posted that it refers to the shareware version of the game, and not the full game. The only things that really need to be changed are the number of levels per world and left / right commands for paddling (swimming slowly, unless someone has a better term).

This is the revision text content that will be included in the zip as ENGREV.TXT. The zip file contains all of the exact same files except for the files listed below, which were replaced.

January 14th, 2011
Changes have been made to the following files:

ATLANTIS.EXE
- All onscreen German text translated to English

START.LBM
- Corrected palette color so NOCH Software logo no longer has a lighter background
- Added revision notation to the bottom of the Production Team screen
- Removed Shareware from Lost City title screen
- Stylized the scrolling text for the intro movie to be more in theme with the game ending (and not broken at the end of sentences)

COMMON.LBM
- Changed 3rd sprite of Skill Level screen to read BEGINNER / MASTER instead of ANFÄNGER / MEISTER
- Performed the same change as above for on screen status bar skill level

1, 2 and 3.MNU
- Altered graphics to display in English

FINISH.LBM
- Translated to English and replaced graphics

[MrDeadly]

I know this post will probably do nothing else then show how totally green I am about coding etc, but I just had an idea and I'm throwing it out here anyway. It is about the possibility of adding ingame-music to The Lost City of Atlantis. If it is possible to identify which "coding" enables music to play during the main menu, is it then possible to copy that coding and add it to a level, but then substitute that menu-music-track with something new? If not, are there any other ways we might be able to get ingame-music?

[The Fifth Horseman]

Yes and no.
What we've done here is just hacking up the game resources and finding ways to replace them.
What you're asking for would require someone with at least passing level of familiarity with Assembly and skillset (and software) required to disassemble the game executable - essentially, reverse-engineer the code from the executable - then modify it and put it back together.
Beyond what I can do at this time.

[MrDeadly]

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying Fifth :OK:

[MrDeadly]

I'm having fun playing the new version of the game this afternoon! I use the newest version of Dosbox, running at about 8000 cycles. I've gotten to level 4 by now. Everything seems to work fine except for one thing I noticed during level 3. At times Raghim loses oxygen although his head is above water. It seem that some places the game allows you to float around like that without losing anything, which makes sense, but then suddenly changes the rules. In some zones, the oxygen-level also drops much quicker then it's suppose to.

Are these original errors found in the original game or is it just some hex editing mistake in this version? Anyway, that's what I've found so far - must get back to playing!

[marko river]

Congrats guys, all the praises. You really kick ass!!! :2thumbs:

[Ohne Mitleid]

At the beginning of investigating this, I had posted:
... Someone else can verify I am not being paranoid when it seems as a Master I can't hold my breath underwater quite as long ...
When you archived this, you also included the Shareware Read Me file. It seems we both didn't pay too much attention to this bit in the text:

"... blast the monsters but remember that some of them are not easily
exterminated. And a few (like Jelly Fish) only need to be avoided if you want
to keep yourself in good shape ..."

Master or Beginner, it doesn't matter. Hang out with a jelly fish (or two if you really want to) on top of you, and watch them suck the oxygen right out of your lungs.

I already went through this too. I thought the same initially as you had: Was it something I had done while editing? Nope, evil subtle treachery to make a difficult game even more challenging.

I am glad you are having fun!

[Ohne Mitleid]

Congrats guys, all the praises. You really kick ass!!! :2thumbs:
Thanks marko! I had initially embarked on this with the goal in mind of trying to help out where I could. I didn't know it would evolve (mutate? :transient:) into this.

Big credit goes to The Fifth H:horseman:rseman though. Otherwise, the game would still be quasi-translated with all of the remaining translation graphics being available from screenshots I would have to post (no good at all).

[MrDeadly]

Thanks for telling me about the jellyfish. Those sneaky game-designers.. they could at least have bothered to add some small white bobbles going into the fishes mouths or something else that showed them sucking the air in better.

In other news, I've played through all the Greece levels now, and have nothing weird to report :OK:

Egypt seems like a tough place though.. How do one get past the traps with the falling flames? No matter how I try I can't seem to get past them without losing some health. Is this another jellyfish-concept maybe?

[Ohne Mitleid]

.. How do one get past the traps with the falling flames?

Look at the flame trap. It should be centered exactly above a tile. You need to be one tile away from the center of that tile, then jump. This involves a lot of tip-toeing and the tiles in the area sometimes give you a little help because they are cut into half, leaving you a line to step up to. But when they line up two traps next to each other and while approaching the next jump point you overstep? Good luck...probably no way to maneuver without taking some damage.

This is both my facial expression and experience during that part ****:flame:

I would like to tell you it gets better / easier after this. I would like to, but...:omg: