There is a new interview with Paul Norris in the current issue of Freeze64. Whilst the issue predominantly features the game Zoids (an earlier Commodore 64 game that he wrote), the interview does include a section devoted to Wicked. You can get the issue from https://freeze64.com/freeze64-issue-77/
Previously, I thought a way to uncover what was happening in the code in Wicked was to look at the sound effects and tie the sounds to when they were triggered. I was left looking at where the value of D0 was set, and this led me into discovering the event signalling mechanism in Wicked.... Continue Reading →
The way growth spreads in Wicked has always fascinated me. Ever since I read that the four types of growth have different ‘intelligences’ in the player's guides, I’ve wanted to figure out exactly how it works. Now, after digging into the game's code, I’ve tracked down the growth routine, and with some help from Aira... Continue Reading →
It's been a busy couple of weeks at work, and so I've not been able to spend much time with the disassembly. I decided to experiment with ChatGPT to see if that could give me a speed boost. Obviously, the dream would be to outsource all the effort to a tool that could quickly and... Continue Reading →
My next idea for identifying blocks of code comes from the idea that when an event happens in the game, a sound effect is usually played - for example, when shooting, there is a "shooting" sound effect. If I can figure out the addresses of the sound effects, it might be a clue as to... Continue Reading →
Back when I was analysing the screen, I was using the STeem Emulator and regularly dumping memory from 0x25500 and 0x260B8, analysing the data in a spreadsheet to learn how the gameboard was represented. Part of the game is to pick up new good spores and drop them on good growth to create a new good... Continue Reading →
I discovered Aira Force in late December 2024, and I've only been using it for the past 50 days (on and off, because January is a busy month) but it has really accelerated my efforts in understanding Wicked. I feel like I have made more progress in the past month than I have over the... Continue Reading →
The Eye Of Infinity 