Unpublished Italian game: SATURN CAVES arcade adventure

[orion70]

Full translation of the Italian article which came with the listing HERE (link also published in the relative VIC-20 Software Releases of 2021 thread). I translated it quickly, please forgive the bad English - partly because the Italian original text is quite convolute. I am available: should some concept result obscure, I can try to explain it starting from the Italian text.

[necronom]

I just tried the Google Translate app and pointed the camera at the screen and saw that the text was the same as I'd read in that document that you kindly translated. The extra bits about the line numbers didn't give any extra info.

[orion70]

Ah ok, didn't realize it was about the extra bits I did not translate. Sorry

[Vic20-Ian]

Orion - your translation was great, Necronom said it was the same / better than google and that the program breakdown description lines added no further insight.

The bit about finishing the game is vague in the instructions so I tried exiting the cave and returning to the start screen and nothing happens.

My earlier conclusion about the deliberate strange ending stands.

I think the only thing left to fix is the graphic for the item in the last room and possibly the top line of the X block to round the corners on the top face.

[Vic20-Ian]

This is my final version with some fixes.

saturn caves.zip

(18.66 KiB) Downloaded 64 times

The game is supposed to have 11 rings to retrieve.

Line 101 sets up the flags to 1 in location 828-837 and then sets 834 to 2. Making 11 rings in total before all flags are set to zero.

P for ring count is increased by 1 for each flag set to zero which is done when a ring is collected in line 415 with Poke 827+V, Peek(827+V)-1 where V is the room location:

Start is -2, 5 is added or subtracted when moving vertically and 1 is added or subtracted when moving left or right

....-2
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
....13

The gate in room 8 was opened when SC=10, I have modified it to be SC>=10 in line 3499 as it closed again if you collected all 11 rings.

This allows the score and bonus to be correct when you collect all the rings in the 10 rooms and removed the silly penalty.

I don't know if this penalty for collecting 11 rings was the author's intent.

Thanks to Vicist for the help with the graphics. The numbers look correct and the number 5 is the correct object in room 13 but the graphics are very odd compared with all the others that are quite well done.

Please review and one file if desired.


Overall a fun game with hidden penalties and ways to save yourself if you go steady.

Things that remain to be fixed or figured out:

1. Snakes popping out of the walls? - mentioned in the description

2. Stunning and capturing a creature - mentioned in the description

3. What the 5 character is supposed to be in the last room