The Mysterious Island - full version, anyone?

[necronom]

Does anyone have a full version of this game? It was by Jim Sheehan/Mr.Micro from 1982 for 16k expanded Vics. I owned it at the time, but now I don't have the tape and all the versions I've found online are either a D64 with two files (a loader and the main program), or just the two files as separate prg files. Once you get so far you load the second part of the game where you escape, but I can't play that part as I can't find it anywhere.

I put up a video on You Tube, but it would be nice to be able to show the ending, and just to be able to play it, as I don't remember ever getting that far, though I can do it now quite easily by cheating...

[Vic20-Ian]

The Game Base V0.3 also only has loader and one file.

I have the tape.

Give me a day or 2 and I will find a way to extract both files.

I am just waiting for a new drive belt for my tape deck.

[Mayhem]

That would be good. I became aware that the file in GB20 was not complete some time ago, and while I have an original of the game myself, I was unable to transfer it successfully to work in VICE. So if you are able to do it, cheers!

[necronom]

Thanks again Ian. I only saw your PMs, so did't see this till now.

It sounds like side 1 might be the loader, part 1, then part 2 (the main bit I need), then side 2 is the trainers, as it mentions the "practice tape" in the instructions, so that's probably all of side 2.

[Vic20-Ian]

I managed to get the tape file recorded to WAV and converted to TAP but am having trouble getting it to load.

I used a tape deck plugged into a Bosss Micro BR digital recorder then saved the track to WAV.

I tried wavprg and audiotap to convert it and it throws issues but I could get broken programs with Loader, Part1 and Part2 visible but not loading.

Does anyone have any tips for recording better for more reliable results?

I am awaiting a new belt for my Commodore tape deck and will then try again with a Vic20 and my Manosoft Infinity V2.0

[necronom]

Is there any known effect that could be done with Audacity to clean up the WAV file? I'l guessing the recording it just a load of low/high volumes or pitches that are essentially a 1 or a 0.

I noticed this morning that the film Mysterious Island was on TV (based on Jules Verne's novel, like the game). I missed it, but it's on the Horror Channel next Thursday at 13:00 I'll have to record it

[Vic20-Ian]

I found one of my other C2N decks and am hooked up to my Infinity right now to transfer it.

More news in a bit.

Any tips to get it to load part 2 or is is a normal load with some kind of password?

[necronom]

To quickly get to part 2 you could add line 2 to do a goto 337 and remove everything before the THEN part so it just loads part 2, though I don't know if it will need things to be in place for it to work properly. It might be better to do something like this:
Run the D64 and press N on the Part Adventure question, then die in the balloon and press run/stop
Add line 2 to say en=50:si=25:cl=4
delete line 16
rem the IF on line 33, or delete everything after the gosub
Run it.
Move to below one of the triangles (caves) and press fire.
pass the mosaic screen by finding the clue in 5 goes or less.
Work out the clue: 1=A, Z=26, re-order to make a word. e.g. 1, 5, 11, 12 = a, e, k, l, so LAKE is the password.
When I press return I got an out of memory error followed by a "press play on tape", so I don't know if it will work after that. I usually play on a real Vic, but I can't remember if I got the out of memory when I got to that point using the real thing. I just tried it in VICE just now.

[Vic20-Ian]

Apologies, I misremembered the Infinity and ITS capabilities. This was the precursor to the Manosoft Princess series.

It can re master tapes from tap files and load tap files directly from SD card.

Sadly it does not have the ability to capture tapes.

I don't know whether the firmware can be upgraded to add the capture ability but I will try and find out.

Otherwise it is back to trying to create a tap via a PC and WAV file which was struggling to load.

The good news is that the tape still loads perfectly on the Vic20 so if I can tweak the capturing correctly we will get there.

[necronom]

Thanks for all your efforts.

Fingers crossed that we can get this archived for the future. It would be a shame if one of the 16k commercial releases was lost to time.

[Vic20-Ian]

Nearly there. I ordered a USB 1530 converter from the guy I bought my USB to Commodore device from.

Might take another week but it should be fine after that.

[Vic20-Ian]

Thanks to Simon Rowe for taking my currently very ropey tap file and cleaning it up enough to get part 2.

After some trial and error and protection removal and testing, Simon also got it to work on a D64.

I will also redo a TAP for posterity and gamebase when I have my new 1530 to USB.

[necronom]

This is great news. Thanks Ian and Simon.
I've just seen the PMs. I'll email you after work.

[Vic20-Ian]

Simon Rowe has done a great job recovering the part 2.prg from my tape and building a disk with part 1, part 2 and the Practice Program. Thank you Simon. This was a great project to recover a partly archived game for Vic20 History.

It is quite an interesting set of small but difficult basic games linked into a challenging structure with various levels of protection to protect the hidden surfacing location that could be sent to Mr Micro software for a reward if you were first.

Protection includes disable Run/Stop, Disable part two unless you finished part 1, or you had previously finished part 1 and learned the secret key code to enter part 2. There is another possible protection in the code that prevented disk drive access that Simon overcame.

As for the game, well it is punishing. You would need a lot of patience.

In part 1 there are multiple stages to navigate without dying and starting over. Bees must be passed while collecting energy, Chests had to be found, chests opened with combination code, Giant Crabs avoided, Beehives escaped, Puzzles solved without running low on energy. There was an ability to save progress.

In part 2 there was the entry code, Nautilus Defence (mines and lasers), a difficult quiz about Captain Nemo and the Nautilus and the Sub Escape game. Getting anything wrong resets the game and you have to load it again.

It is obvious the book or the film had a great impression on Jim Sheehan, the author.

Here are Necronom's playthrough videos.

Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D2n1FtA4ak

Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3_kJW5zTCQ


The theatrical trailer for the great 1961 Filmed in Dynamation film featuring the Balloon, Giant Crab, Giant Bee, The Nautilus
https://youtu.be/5RYQA34XSN4



The last remaining part of the puzzle is probably to find out if anyone claimed the prize from Mr. Micro and what it was. Jim Sheehan, if you are out there, let us know.

Thanks for a great game for the 16k Vic20 showing what can be accomplished in Basic with the stimulus of some great ideas by Jules Verne.

[necronom]

Yeah, I'm glad I asked about this, as it's been fun to get it back and messing with the program to be able to finish it. Thanks again Ian and Simon.

Here are some cheats people might want to use (die, then break at the RIP screen to change these, otherwise the characters will not be letters, or do a run/stop restore):
Line 4 - Change EN (energy), SI (Silver; you need 20 for each cave where you get a clue), CL (the next clue you will find;1-4), LF (Lamp found; set to 1 to make the Hive fully visible).
Line 19 - Delete the line to skip the balloon game.
Line 36 - REM out (or delete) the rest of the line after the GOSUB to stop the crab attack game. You could also reduce the chance of getting it, or delete the whole line to speed up movement around the island.
Line 76 - Change EN=EN+O to EN=EN+O*10 to give you 10 energy for each honey drop caught in the cup.
Line 97 - Mosaic room snake test. Delete line to remove snakes, or make it more sensible by changing EN=1 to be EN=EN-5
Line 98 - Mosaic room time bomb. Delete line to get rid of bombs.
Line 115 - The chance of getting an empty chest, or delete the line.
Lines 135 and 137 - The formulas for the chest (one or the other), if you wanted to make them easier.
Line 231 - Change EN=EN+1 to be EN=EN+5 to make the Beesting game give a better amount of energy.
Line 296 - The for next to 25 is the number of modules in the balloon screen.
Line 310 - Change EN=EN+1 to be +10 for a much more fair amount on the balloon game for each collected module.
Line 316 - J=1 to 12 is the number of moves the bees have in the balloon game. I think 8 would be better.
You could also modify the hive game. The energy for the three Bee types are in be() right at the top, and around line 200 is the hive game where you could change the cost of the bomb, etc.

Recommended cheats
I'd say starting with EN=10, changing lines 76 (*10),97 (-5), 98 (delete), 231 (+5), 310 (+10), 316 (8) would make it a much better game.
I haven't really looked into the program for part 2 to improve that. The Sub Escape game seems okay, but the first one with the lasers is almost totally random, so I don't know what I'd do to fix that.