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[Rogerwilco]

Modifying a Savedgame for Dummies

Ever wanted to know how to Modify/Cheat a game?
If, for nothing else, then the satisfaction of knowing how to do it?

Well, I'll lead you through on how.

This will be different: nothing on Hex, Binary, octal, 2 bit, 4 bit, Single value, Kitchen sink, etc. etc. Only thing you'll need is a readily available abandonware interpreter.

It'll be explained in a simple, common sense way. Simple programming.
All you'll need to do at first is change a path, file name and a value or two. I'll write the rest. Just cut and past to your program.

(Programming!?! Interpreter!?! I've never programmed in my life!)

The Interpreter is simple: I'll cover that in a bit . . ..

Programming? How's this for easy.

A& = 10000
OPEN "c:\Xeen\dark01.sav" FOR BINARY AS #1
PUT #1, 14848, A&
CLOSE

You just gave yourself 10,000 Widgits, Money, Gems, or whatever. Or 50,000 or 5 Million.

You'll follow along with me as I delve into the World of Xeen, though what I'll show you will work with any saved game.

So, if you're interested, this is what you do.

Google qb45.zip. It's out there, for free, in multiple sites.

Unzip it in its own folder, make a shortcut to qb45.exe, set it to full screen.
(If you don't know how to do that, let me know)

Next message, we'll start with an easy one: finding and modifying a single value(Item) like Gold, Gems, etc. I'll write the code.

[SlowCoder]

Sounds like an interesting offer. We'll see if you get any hits. I doubt you'd get too many though, due to the fact that the abandonware population is relatively small, and most of those are interested in completing the game on their own terms.

Comments:
* Many savegames are binary, not in plain text that is easily readable. So, just saying PUT #1,12345,"10000" won't be sufficient.
* The location of specific data in a savefile can, depending on the game, be different on a save-by-save basis. You'd likely need to search the file dynamically to identify the proper location of the data to be changed. That source would also need to be provided to the user who requests it.
* To anyone who wants to try this: Make sure you make a backup of your savegames before modifying them, otherwise you might lose your hard worked game progress.

On a side note: I believe QB45 is still licensed by MS, and is not legally free to download.

[Rogerwilco]

Hey, slowcoder, thanks for the reply....

Yup, you're right on the first one, that's why I did this:

Whatever&=10000

Put #1, 8858, Whatever&

QuickBasic will return an error code if you try and number instead of a variable

I know that the savegame files change, later on, if anyone's interested, I've written a little routine to work around that.

Also a simple file compare for more advanced stuff...

But I agree, Wait and see the response....

Rogerwilco and out

[Rogerwilco]

oops....missed one....

Microsoft did release all DOS Basics, along with Visual Basic for Dos...which never took off...I wonder why...

[SlowCoder]

Originally Posted by Rogerwilco

I know that the savegame files change, later on, if anyone's interested, I've written a little routine to work around that.

Hope you don't mind me asking, but exactly how does your routine go about this? Each game may have a totally different savegame format. And each savegame file for any particular game may appear completely random, unless you get into it in binary or hex mode. I am genuinely interested here. Not being smart or critical.

Originally Posted by Rogerwilco

Microsoft did release all DOS Basics, along with Visual Basic for Dos...which never took off...I wonder why...

I've not been able to find any official documentation that MS has released any of these as abandonware. I find it even less likely, as it is Microsoft, who, to my knowledge, have never released anything for free. Heck, you still can't even install any version of MSDOS legally without a license.

If I'm incorrect, please show me.

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by SlowCoder

I've not been able to find any official documentation that MS has released any of these as abandonware. I find it even less likely, as it is Microsoft, who, to my knowledge, have never released anything for free. Heck, you still can't even install any version of MSDOS legally without a license.

If I'm incorrect, please show me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBasic
Scroll down to 'external links' and you can download it directly from microsoft.ftp.
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...-us/olddos.exe

So yes, and it's old news, you seem to missed that one.


And VBasic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic
All you need@MSDN
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vbrun/default.aspx