King's Valley Plus Edit mode has some annoying bugs

Prophet (3675)

02-10-2021, 23:12

I'm trying to make some levels for the King's Valley Treasured edition (aka King's Valley Plus) to submit for the MSX Level and Editor contest, but it seems that the Editor feature of this game has some annoying bugs. Not to mention that it's feature crippled.

Has anyone experienced this, or has a version that has no bugs?

a) Annoying bugs:

When you load a stage on the editor, you have to re-set the enemies to their places again, otherwise they won't spawn when playing
Enemies tend to spawn at wrong places
Sometimes the door location isn't restored when you load a level.
F5 is used to replace a level in the game with your custom level. Sometimes it refuses to replace a level again, even if you clear it with F3 on that screen.

b) Feature crippled:

It's not possible to set the enemy type. It's always the white mummy. This makes it very boring.
You can only set the one exit door location. So, no way to go back on your custom levels.
Only one room is allowed. The normal game allows dual-rooms.

Для того, чтобы оставить комментарий, необходимо регистрация или !login

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

03-10-2021, 09:17

Very cool that you are looking at making some more levels for King's Valley 1.

I will check some of those bugs you mention.

With regards to the features:
- I am almost certain you can change mummy type. I remember seeing a blue one in the editor. Will check how it can be done because I know it is not the most user friendly of editors...
- The exit where you spawn from is determined from where you place Vick. So you only need to place one exit door. Indeed it is not possible from the editor to make a shortcut with multiple exits
- Yes this is an annoying missing feature. The levels on the disk are 1, 2 or even 3 rooms big (when there is a short cut). This is a sorely missed feature.

A few years back some people made an extended King's Valley 1 with new levels. It also allows for:
- Torches
- Put down items
- Using pickaxe sideways if you are in a between walls
- jumping with an item in hand (that just takes some of the challenge out of it)

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3675)

03-10-2021, 16:37

More bugs.

a) The game crashes with "Syntax error in 10" if you do the following steps:

Select the EDIT mode at the start screen
Immediately after entering the Editor, press Q to quit
Let the game go to the autoplay demo (aka "Attract Mode"). An empty level full of garbage will be shown. Press SPACE to quit the autoplay demo
Select either PLAY or EDIT now and the game will crash

b) The original game shows garbage on screen for MSX2 or higher. This is easy to fix:

Let the MSX boot to BASIC, without a disk on the drive
Insert the KV1plus game disk
LOAD the AUTOEXEC.BAS
Type the following BASIC commands:

RENUM 20
10 SCREEN2,2,0
SAVE"AUTOEXEC.BAS"

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

03-10-2021, 17:19

wow you seem to have a bad version... I know for a fact that mine doesn't show garbage on MSX 2 or higher. I have only played it on msx2 or higher and never seen this.

Will try your other bugs.

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3675)

03-10-2021, 17:40

Randam wrote:

wow you seem to have a bad version... I know for a fact that mine doesn't show garbage on MSX 2 or higher. I have only played it on msx2 or higher and never seen this.

To be sure I was using the right version, I got mine from the "Original Disks" folder of that known archive of MSX preservation. It's the disk2 of the Konami Game Collection 1.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

03-10-2021, 17:45

Ok your scenario A is slightly different on mine. Steps 1, 2, 3 are the same. So sadly the Q does give garbage on screen. BUT, when you play or edit after both will work. Will look at the other things you mentioned.

Oh and forgot about the biggest "bug" Konami forgot about; King's Valley 1 has no SCC rearrangements on a collection full of SCC rearrangements.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

03-10-2021, 19:45

Ok did some more testing. I found out that the trap wall and the two types of revolving door don't seem to be possible to place. So two more features missing. Mummies seem to be only 1 color indeed. The icon for it is blue but on screen it is just white.

With regards to this: "F5 is used to replace a level in the game with your custom level. Sometimes it refuses to replace a level again, even if you clear it with F3 on that screen."

Supposedly if it says already changed you can override this with pressing F2 and then F3.

By raulsantacruz

Hero (604)

07-10-2021, 18:12

The garbage on MSX2 appear if you have your set default screen 0 at width 80. The most of japanese machine start at screen 1. So if you want to see the error configure screen on this way.

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3675)

10-10-2021, 03:24

I found out that the crash with diskBIOS2 was indeed a bug in the game. The corrupted autoplay screen also corrupted an area of the system memory that causes the game to crash on diskBIOS2, but not on diskBIOS1.

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

10-10-2021, 19:37

Hopefully that and the other bugs can be fixed...