Back in the day, I used to be a quite prolific contributor to EUG. I had a column called "Elk Entertainment" which was kept going almost entirely by a few musings on the games available - both new and old! - and a swathe of cheats given to me by the Impact Games Club. I think people mistakenly got the idea from this that I was some sort of hacking and cracking God. The reality however was that the arduous task of compiling the cheats was never down to me. When Impact was closing its doors, I simply had the foresight to write to them. I asked if they would mind sending me any spare helpsheets, maps or cheats they might have lying around and have no further use for. A few weeks later, a huge A4 folder in a padded envelope dropped through my letterbox containing almost everything that ever went on to appear in the column.
My last article before this one appeared in EUG #62. At the time that seemed destined to be the very last magazine produced and any new games for the Electron seemed unlikely. Of course, it didn't work out that way. EUG turned into Acorn Electron World and the magazine kept on being produced, albeit with huge changes. Whereas "Elk Entertainment" used to be the only real injection of demos and games in the magazine, under Dave E's editorship, every issue has become a foray into Electron entertainment of some kind. I like it a lot more now than back then too. I've watched the whole community retrieve and release long-forgotten projects (Repton The Lost Realms being the biggest example), write new games (Hard Hat Harry, Mixed Grill March, Hyper Viper, etc.) convert Spectrum releases (Egghead In Space), write new utilities (the Arcade Adventure Design Kit)... I could go on.
Anyway, this brings me to some Big News. Firstly, I was amazed by the resurgence of the Your Computer games which are every bit the quality products that AEW suggests. Many of these were written by one Brian Lewis (King Burger, Locomotion and a whole raft of other Your Computer games) so on a whim, I had a go at tracking him down on the Internet to see if he had written any other games. As it turned out, he had - a big Space Invaders style game called Pheenix that he never released. He told me that he sent the final version to Alternative Software to see if they wanted to market it as a budget game but never heard anything back as the BBC/Electron market was becoming depressed by 1989. However, he also recalled that he also sent himself a copy recorded on a C15 cassette in case they did publish it but try to diddle him out of any royalties. An anxious wait for him to go back to his parents in Ireland followed but finally he retrieved this copy of the game and was able to rescue it. Result: An unknown title rescued from obscurity for the next EUG.
Basically, Pheenix is a swooping Space Invaders clone with the twist of being able to roll your laser base up into a ball for a short time. Alright, it's not the best game that there ever was - but it's worth seeing all the same. Anyway, finding this - and a selection of missing cheats and passwords! - gave me enough material to bash out another instalment of my "Elk Entertainment" series.
Ballistix, Superior/Acornsoft
Clogger, Impact
OK, the passwords first then. These are for the Electron version of the game. The BBC version has different
passwords.
Now I'll explain the bug which actually allows you to find out all the passwords for all the levelsets. Firstly, you have to have completed one levelset and gained all the passwords for it. So, for example, if you've played through the "BRUSHES" levelset, you can now access levels 2, 3, 4 and 5 of BRUSHES by typing in the correct password. So far, so good, right?
However, it seems that the number of the level you are playing on is stored independently of the levelset and the password. So all you have to do to switch from level 2 of BRUSHES to level 2 of PAINT, for example, is:
It's not really a bug that is very useful once you've got a full list of passwords of course, but I thought it was worth mentioning. ;-)
Level 2 (Techlev): ENIGMATIC
Weenies, Cronosoft
CHEATS
Level
Player 1 Password
Player 2 Password
1
ACPS
BZXL
2
LGCL
GAGB
3
RRRG
GRBA
4
BAGG
FCAA
5
BLGY
CLFC
6
GBTX
PYAL
7
PGCL
GJLP
8
PTLR
CLGJ
9
RRGE
LAGA
10
PTLG
GGJP
11
EGBA
AAPG
12
KGBL
SPAA
13
GYGB
EAEZ
14
AEGG
GJGS
15
LPLG
PYLG
16
BAGA
YLPK
17
ATKP
LPXA
18
LPAG
JPLA
19
BACA
CGYG
20
GAEA
BLPK
21
RGFG
LAJP
22
YAJL
FACG
23
TKPG
BAAG
24
FLPE
RGBA
25
GYAP
CALL
26
LLPJ
LGTG
27
GYAB
YGXL
28
LLGL
RRGZ
29
LRRR
GCPY
30
-
ASPS
Thanks to Acorn Electron World recently making Clogger available on disc, I dug out the list of the passwords I'd already found then hunted around the Internet to see if any more were out there. And I found out something very curious - not just all the passwords but an actual bug in the password system.
Puzzle
Level Set
1
SLIPPER
ARTIST
BRUSHES
PAINT
2
BALLET
HARRIET
TIPTOP
ODDJOB
3
OXFORD
MOTTLEY
IMPALA
ARTHUR
4
POLISH
RHUBARB
BRITISH
HORNEY
5
HORN
ATOMIC
HILLMAN
HUSKY
Ricochet, Superior/Acornsoft
Here's the full set of passwords to Superior's Ricochet:
Level 3 (Derelict): SPIRITUAL
Level 4 (UFO): SUPERNOVA
Level 5 (Ancient): CIRCUITRY
Here's the full set of passwords to Cronosoft's Weenies:
Zone 00-02
THEIRRISES
Zone 00-03
REDHEATHER
Zone 00-04
NEWBURYAYR
Zone 00-05
THEDECADES
Zone 00-06
TONYSCRONY
Zone 00-07
BEHOPINGTO
Zone 00-08
ROLIEPOLIE
Zone 00-09
EARLYYEARS
Zone 00-10
WHOBELIEVE
Zone 00-11
KENTPOTATO
Zone 00-12
LADYOFBATH
Zone 01-02
HOWTOMAKEA
Zone 01-03
AUCTIONMAN
Zone 01-04
NEWWEATHER
Zone 01-05
WHYCANTIDO
Zone 01-06
JOBINABUSY
Zone 01-07
AHEADOFALL
Zone 01-08
BOILSANEGG
Zone 01-09
HOUSEDREAM
Zone 01-10
TOPTHEHOUR
Zone 01-11
ALOUSYLIAR
Zone 01-12
ATTENDSTHE
Christian Weber, EUG #74