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| Castles of Dr. Creep | |
|---|---|
| File:Castlesofdrcreepwii.jpg | |
| General | |
| Author | segra |
| Type | Platform |
| Version | V1.1 |
| License | GPL-3.0 |
| Last Updated | 2014/12/15 |
| Links | |
| Download | |
| Website | |
| Source | |
Castles of Dr. Creep is a classic Commodore 64 game released in 1984 and developed by Ed Hobbs and published by Broderbund Software. This open source reimagining allows you to play the game by using an image (D64) of the original disk. Moreover, a Castle Builder feature has been added, allowing players to customize existing castles or construct new ones from scratch.
Game Development
Ed Hobbs, the programmer of the game, sheds light on the difficulties he faced while reverse-engineering the 6502 object code to C++. In the early days of the C-64 assembler, it was limited and could not handle programs larger than 16kb, so Hobbs had to write and assemble the source code on an Apple II and then transfer the binary to the C-64 through the joystick ports of the respective computers, marking his first experience with a "computer network". Despite the game not being able to run on the Apple II, it still played a crucial role in the creation of "Dr. Creep".
One of the major challenges was to fit the entire source code onto a single 144 kb floppy disk that was compatible with the Apple 6502 assembler. To do so, Hobbs had to remove all comments from the code, leaving no room for them. He maintained a notebook with hundreds of pages of flowcharts and data-layout diagrams to keep track of the code and understand what was happening in the code.
Furthermore, there was no C-64 debugger available, adding an extra layer of complexity to the programming process. Hobbs also lacked a level editor, and had to draw out the levels on custom graph paper and then hand-code the level data.
Requirements to Play
To play "Castles of Dr. Creep", you will need the following:
A Commodore 64 Disk Image (D64) of "The Castles of Dr. Creep" which should be placed in the game's 'data' folder.
An SD Card with a folder '/apps/drcreep/data' containing your Dr. Creep D64 and CHAR.ROM. This file can have any name, but the 'D64' extension must remain unchanged.
Controls
Hold WiiMote on its side.
In-Game
- DPAD = Movement
- Button 2 = Fire Button
- Button A = Self Kill
Intro
- Button Plus = Option Menu
- Button 1 = HighScores
Screenshots
Media
The Castles of Dr. Creep r270 - (Cid2Mizard)
Known Issues
- Sound is not perfect.
Changelog
V1.1 (11/12/2012)
- Fix three bugs (Sprite collisions, picking up of key issue, X coordinate issue if overflowed from a byte)
- Fix the channel banner
V1.0 (11/12/2012)
- Fix the last known graphic bug
- Heard from the original game author - Ed Hobbs
SVN-351 (11/07/2010)
- Fix sprite collision bug, Fix another object collision issue
- Fix the game speed, making it run at the original PAL speed.
- Adds the ability to edit text in Builder
SVN-345 (11/05/2010)
- All objects can now be placed and linked.
- The map screen can be edited with the door positions being adjustable.
SVN-338 (11/04/2010)
- A Castle Builder is now included, with the hotkey information available in the readme. While this feature exists in the Wii version, at present it is unusable due to a lack of controls.
SVN-270 (07/15/2010)
- Wii WAD/Dol Version now available! (sound is buggy)
- Options Menu is now implemented
SVN-219 (05/12/2010)
- Sound and performance have also been improved, along with some minor bug fixes.
SVN-168 (05/05/2010)
- Highscores
- Game Play Timer
- Save Game/Load Game (uses D64s, supports original savegames)
- Sound Effects/Introduction Music
SVN-125 (02/11/2010)
- This is the first public release, the game is completable with minor issues occasionally causing lockups.
Thanks
- Ed Hobbs, for the original game
- Christian Bauer, for his extremely detailed 'VIC-II' documentation (https://sh.scs-trc.net/vic/)
- Dag Lem, for 'reSid' the MOS6581 SID emulation library (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReSID)
- Peter Schepers and the authors of the documents contained in his collection (http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/formats.html), for the detailed disk format information
- Thomas Bätzler, for his website 'Castles of Dr.Creep Revisited' (http://www.baetzler.de/c64/games/creep/)
External links
- Official Website - http://creep.sourceforge.net/
- Wiibrew - https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Castles_of_Dr._Creep
- Github - https://github.com/segrax/DrCreep