Boulder Dash Forum

I noticed that Arno's Games apparently have different effect Caves than virtually all the other effect games. This is no big deal, but I noticed that those caves have a different signature. Also this is no problem since Arno never actually used Diego Effects in them.

Though since it has a different signature, current tools other than the patched No One Packer 5.3 will not recognize them es effect caves.
I checked Martijn's version of the Effect Kit and it matches Arno's caves.
I wonder where this one appeared from, since nobody seem to ever used this one in the past. I will do a deeper check between both Effect Kits 3.1.

Also I will add that alternate signature to my new Deluxepacker 1.5. Until then, don't expect it to work properly with the Effect Kit 3.1 from Martijn.

While tons of games have $20 $90 $46 at the cave offset $01e5, the Effect Kit from Martijn writes $a9 $1c $85 there. This will be added to the FAQ.

After looking at the code, it seems the version from Martijn which Arno used is a bugfixed release. I have no clue when this one appeared, but probably rather late as I didn't encountered any games which used it before. Either it was an anonymous fix, or Lord Diego forgot to increase the version number.

If you wonder, the other and more common version in the past has some useless (but harmless) code which was replaced by NOP's and also fixes JMP $0000 conditions. I never found any condition where those are actually triggered, though.

Actually Martijn has got the Effect Kit from me, which explains the similarity.

Now I'm wondering where did I get it from.................... ??

Interestingly enough, Lord Diego himself used the old "20 90 46" version up to the last Diego Dash 23. Thus it is likely, that the fix is done by another person. Another difference is the BASIC line (bold=C64's invers letters):
Old, commonly used version: 1988 SYS(20(C)1989 BY LORD DIEGO
New bug fixed version: 1988 GSP-CRUNCHER V2
This proves nothing, though, as Load Diego might well have altered the cruncher's line in one version but didn't in the other.

I noticed another difference. You can use the line tool on the border in the newer version, but not in the other.