Building a map based on a ROM image: hidden message from the gods in Maze of Galious

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Par Bas Wijnen

Resident (34)

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28-06-2021, 14:49

About 10 years ago, a friend and I looked into the broken symmetry in the castle of the Maze of Galious: the hidden room with the cross does not seem to have a counterpart. We used a disassembler and openmsx-debugger to find out where the room data was stored and built a map from the definitions in the ROM. That way, we were able to find another even more hidden room, which is obviously located in the mirror position of the "cross room". The catch: it's filled with wall and cannot be reached from the game (without cheating).

Recently we felt like continuing this project. While we were originally only interested in the room tiles, we now spent some (or should I say: way too much) time getting the rest of the map details from the ROM. And we've come a long way.

One thing in particular is worth mentioning: all the messages from the gods are of course in there. And there is a message that is not used in the game. Like several others, it also includes a type. Smile Here it is (both in Engrish and in Japanese):

Finally: Is anyone interested in a live stream or recorded video where I explain how I made the map? If so, I'd like to do that. Please let me know if that is something that would interest you.

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Par Bas Wijnen

Resident (34)

Portrait de Bas Wijnen

28-06-2021, 14:53

Oh, and about the god message: my hypothesis is that originally the developers planned on giving the player a "bread and water" item after every world boss. That would probably increase max HP and restore all HP. This mechanism is still in the game, but instead you get it from picking up the next world key, which appears there. Perhaps they originally planned to place all world keys scattered throughout the castle, which would mean that you could complete the worlds in any order.

Par Grauw

Ascended (10821)

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28-06-2021, 16:20

Bas Wijnen wrote:

Finally: Is anyone interested in a live stream or recorded video where I explain how I made the map? If so, I'd like to do that. Please let me know if that is something that would interest you.

I think any video on such topics I would gladly watch! A few Youtubers like Displaced Gamers, Retro Game Mechanics Explained and GameHut make similar content (usually non-MSX related) and I really like watching their videos. On that note, a Youtube video would suit my watching preferences better than a Twitch livestream.

Par santiontanon

Paragon (1832)

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28-06-2021, 18:12

I would also be interested on it! But similarly to what Grauw said, for me, streams do not really play well with our adult life schedules unfortunately (specially when living in a non European time zone). So, a Youtube video would also be more interesting to me (which could totally just be a recording of the stream)

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

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28-06-2021, 18:24

@Bas Wijnen; yeah also found those two messages when making a retranslation of the MoG texts back in the day. I also had the same hypothesis about the bread and water item. But I actually have some more proof because of the European manual. The European manual of MoG has a screenshot of the item screen of an earlier development stage. You can actually see the water and bread item was a world item. And earlier the rod was not a rod but a bow (which makes more sense with infinite arrows at the boss). There seem to have been six world items judging from the picture (also a key). And Pamperse was displayed in the middle of the item screen. So probably in one stage of development the game was not instantly over after getting him. Perhaps the supposed 11th world (the one that was scrapped according to developers at the time) made that you also needed to leave the castle at one point or something?

Par Manuel

Ascended (19685)

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28-06-2021, 23:45

What, I don't remember hearing about a world 11??! Where can I read more?

Par Bas Wijnen

Resident (34)

Portrait de Bas Wijnen

29-06-2021, 17:02

I was also completely unaware of world 11. I didn't see any trace of it in the code either. Is there more information about that somewhere?

Par Randam

Paragon (1431)

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29-06-2021, 19:37

It was in an interview in Japanese with developers back in 1987... I am hard pressed to tell where I read it. Might have been in a magazine... Don't know without looking. Remember it had a green layout and was in a Q and A type section/ interview. I read a lot of things like that with weird info.

Par Manuel

Ascended (19685)

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29-06-2021, 21:20

@Bas did you find out if there's any code left that would set the vertical stuts in the EXP bars (similar as to those in the VIT bars)? I remember I saw them appearing when entering 'weird' passwords. (a.k.a. MAX EXP?) See also a bit on https://dopheide.home.fmf.nl/msx/mog/passwords.html

Par Bas Wijnen

Resident (34)

Portrait de Bas Wijnen

29-06-2021, 22:03

Yes, I know they can appear with passwords. But that makes sense, because those are just memory dumps, so entering a password is similar to poking into memory. I haven't looked at that yet, but I can. I'm pretty familiar with the code now anyway. Smile

Par Manuel

Ascended (19685)

Portrait de Manuel

29-06-2021, 22:20

I wonder what kind of mechanism they had in mind for this. E.g. getting items to make that stut appear to make it easier to get full VIT?

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