The Quick Way to Enlightenment

Well, nice to see you here, young Druid from the lands of Commodore. You wish Enlightenment? It is a difficult quest. One must fight undead, elementals, Demon Princes, and other abominations.

What's that? You want the quick way to Enlightenment? Tsk, tsk. You young ones never want to work for it like we did.

Did I work for it? Well, no. I didn't fight the undead, but I spent about six hours staring at the output of PC64's 'Record' option until I figured these cheats out. Slightly easier than this game, but still a lot of work. I only do it because I love it. I only love it because I'm deranged and obsessive.

(That was humor. If you don't see it as such, ignore it. Be prepared to ignore more.)

I have two cheats. I'll explain them out, beat them to death, then shorten them to a small truckload of simple POKEs (which are untested - I use the hex-editor method). Note the the POKEs won't work on a version that decompresses itself before play starts, unless you have a fancy cartridge that lets you POKE around (heh) while the game is running.

Ghost mode: The first is a 'no-clipping' kind of cheat. It makes the Druid a ghost of sorts - all the monsters pass through him and (as a side effect) can't damage him. However, the environment is still very real - water, lava, and the Demon Princes will kill you in no time.

After much staring at the code, I found the one routine that controls movement:

Addr Hex     Assembly                 Ac Xr Yr Flags

656E B9A903  LDA 03A9,Y   03AE:23     23 05 05 nv1BdizC
6571 2901    AND #01                  01 05 05 nv1BdizC
(Snip)
6616 3003    BMI 661B                 01 05 04 nv1BdizC
6618 4C6E65  JMP 656E     ->          01 05 04 nv1BdizC

There's more of this. Terribly exciting, isn't it?

What you need to do is replace the LDA 03A9,Y (which grabs location info, it seems) with JMP 656E, which signals the end of the routine.

So, if you have an emulator that can state-save, all you need to do is save a state and perform the following global search and replace with a hex editor: Replace B9A903 with 4C1566.

This replaces two different locations in the code. While I think the first is all that should matter, the second is part of the same code and it won't hurt anything to change it. POKEs:

POKE 25966, 76: POKE 25967, 21: POKE 25968, 102

If this doesn't work, then the second LDA 03A9,Y was important. Use these:

POKE 26058, 76: POKE 26059, 21: POKE 26060, 102

If these don't work, I screwed up. E-mail me and let me know. Go on, make me feel bad, make me cry, you heartless cur.

God mode: This one is a god-mode cheat. It makes the Druid unkillable. It too has an odd side effect: You don't need the Coin of Charon. Normally, if you try to get Charon to ferry you without the coin, he drives his scythe into your head and you die. But with god mode, you don't die. So he hacks at your head constantly and, oddly enough, takes you across at the same time! (I can almost see the code working there. He's not dead, so we go across.)

After much more staring at the code and heading down some blind alleys, I found this in the initialize code;

Addr Hex     Assembly                 Ac Xr Yr Flags

5517 A9FF    LDA #FF                  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc
5519 8D9E03  STA 039E     039E   =FF  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc
551C 8D6603  STA 0366     0366   =FF  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc
551F 8D6E03  STA 036E     036E   =FF  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc
5522 8D9D03  STA 039D     039D   =FF  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc
5525 8D2504  STA 0425     0425   =FF  FF FF FF Nv1Bdizc

The line 551C is the important one, as experimentation taught me. It's your hitpoints, which start at 255 (not that they tell you this...) and creep downward as various creepies take a bite out of you.

So the easiest thing to do is just replace all the associated LDA 0366's with LDA #FF's (plus a NOP, since LDA #FF is only two bytes while LDA 0366 is three), and you'll always have 255 hitpoints! Simple? Not really. There's 14 occurences of LDA 0366 in the code. I just used my hex editor to do it: Replace AD6603 with A9FFEA.

Of course, the POKEs get a bit psychotic. (And half aren't likely needed.)

POKE 22798, 169: POKE 22799, 255: POKE 22800, 234
POKE 23886, 169: POKE 23887, 255: POKE 23888, 234
POKE 24013, 169: POKE 24014, 255: POKE 24015, 234
POKE 24719, 169: POKE 24720, 255: POKE 24721, 234
POKE 24740, 169: POKE 24741, 255: POKE 24742, 234
POKE 24769, 169: POKE 24770, 255: POKE 24771, 234
POKE 24782, 169: POKE 24783, 255: POKE 24784, 234
POKE 25298, 169: POKE 25299, 255: POKE 25300, 234
POKE 25332, 169: POKE 25333, 255: POKE 25334, 234
POKE 27618, 169: POKE 27619, 255: POKE 27620, 234
POKE 28542, 169: POKE 28543, 255: POKE 28544, 234
POKE 29742, 169: POKE 29743, 255: POKE 29744, 234
POKE 30268, 169: POKE 30269, 255: POKE 30270, 234
POKE 33478, 169: POKE 33479, 255: POKE 33480, 234

I don't know what sane person would type that into their computer. In case you're wondering, I didn't. I had a QBasic program - a modification of the one I whipped up that fixes the copyright date at the bottom of these pages every year - check a memory image for all the locations. I did the first one manually to make sure it was right, then let the program go.

So there you go, young druid. Thine destiny awaits!

Download: A zip of the two Druid Games (PRG files, 95K) Nicked from different places. Druid 1 is trained (by SCI 666, I believe), Druid 2 can be victimized by these cheats.


Go back! Back I say!
Run along home.
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