"Extra Weight" Bug in SNES Version of Dungeon Master.

[jayrshaw]

Hi, everyone!

I have been playing the SNES version of Dungeon Master recently and have discovered a bug that I would like additional information about. For some reason, the game's load calculation for Halk, the character I have been using as my lead character (i.e., the one whose name is highlighted and who is the one actually picking up and/or throwing items when I use the hand icon), is not working correctly. For some reason, Halk's load is 19.5 KG heavier than it should be. Even if I remove every single item he is carrying and have an empty hand icon, the game still shows Halk's current load as 19.5 KG.

The "extra weight" caused by this bug was bad enough to make me start my game over from the beginning. I would like to know if anyone can provide me with information on what might have triggered this bug so I can avoid doing the same thing in my next playthrough of the game.

At the time I discovered this "extra weight" bug, I was in the enclosed screamer room of Floor 3 of the dungeon (i.e., the floor with all of the magenta worms). It may be relevant that I had performed a major reorganization of my characters' items shortly prior to encountering the bug. Specifically, I had removed various food items that I had been storing in treasure chests my characters were carrying and placed them on the floor of the dungeon in large stacks. After that, I was killing screamers in the screamer room and placing the screamer slices I obtained there into the treasure chests my characters were carrying (this is when I actually discovered the "extra weight" bug).

Any assistance or information about what might be causing this bug would be greatly appreciated!


--Jay

[ChristopheF]

This bug is present in all versions of DM and CSB:

If you save the game with an object in the leader hand then when you resume or restart the game the weight of the object in the leader hand is permanently added to the load of the leader. When the game is saved, the weight of the leader hand object is substracted from the load of the leader. But when the game is loaded, the weight of the leader hand object is added twice to the load of the leader.

How to reproduce:
Grab an object in the leader hand. Take note of the weight of this object.
Take note of the load of the leader.
Save the game.
Restart the game and resume the saved game.
The load of the leader has increased by the weight of the object in the leader hand.
If you remove all objects from the champion inventory, the load is not 0 but the weight of the object that was in the leader hand when the game was saved.

Workaround:
Never save the game while you have an object in the leader hand

[Prince of Elves]

Can it be "overwritten"? If so, you could at least not carry a phantom chest with you but reduce ut to something lightweight or even back to Zero once you find that Corbamite.

[terkio]

From Chritopher description there is no way to revert it.
It is even, cumulative; Doing more saves can only increase the trouble.
To revert it would require holding a negative weight object. There is no such thing, the lightest weight is 0 pound, Corbamites and ZoKathRa spells for instance.

[ChristopheF]

There is no way in the game to fix this issue. You would need to fix the saved game data.
On a real SNES, it would probably be possible to modify the Load value of each champion with the appropriate Game Genie / Pro Action Replay cheat codes.
If playing with a SNES emulator, you can also edit the saved game file directly with a hexadecimal editor.
For example in jayrshaw's case, remove all items from Halk, the load is 19.5 Kg. The actual value stored in the saved game is 195 in decimal = C3 in hexadecimal. Search for the champion name in the saved game file ('HALK'), add 271 (dec) = 10F (hex) to the offset of the first letter of the champion name, and you should find the byte containing the load value, C3 in our example. Replace the value with 0 and restart the game.

[Prince of Elves]

Ah OK thanks, Terkio, hadn't thought of cumulative effects.

And thanks to you as well, Christophe, as I always like to read about the tweaks you can do (though I myself never used one so far). I'm impressed at the depth of your knowledge when it comes to details like this. (Well, you don't carry your title for nothing, I guess. )

[jayrshaw]

Thanks, Christophe - this really helps me a lot! I was probably making a lot of saves right before I started engaging a group of enemies with an item in Halk's hand that I was preparing to throw at the enemies. I must just not have noticed the extra weight until Halk's current load started appearing in yellow; at that point, I realized that something had gone wrong since he was not carrying nearly enough stuff to be in an overloaded status. Thanks again for explaining this issue!


--Jay

[jayrshaw]

Oh, and I tried some weird stuff to see if I could reverse the bug like killing Halk with a fireball spell and reviving him at an Altar of Vi. Like Christophe said, I couldn't get anything to work.


--Jay