Where are the Gigglers?

[Paul Stevens]

I have been asked how many Gigglers there are, what they are
carrying, and where they go. The following is condensed from
the ASCIIDUMP.TXT file that you can produce by clicking on
'ASCII DUMP' instead of 'PLAY GAME' after resuming a game.

02(07,09) Giggler HP=0061
02(08,08) Giggler HP=0061
02(08,09) Giggler HP=0061
02(08,10) Giggler HP=0061
02(09,09) Giggler HP=0062
03(20,28) Giggler HP=0127
06(22,30) Giggler HP=0042
07(30,18) Giggler Monster Generator Disable=4224

Randomly placed items
07(05,16) Giggler HP=0001 <DIAMOND EDGE><WATER><PLATE OF RA>
07(05,18) Giggler HP=0001 <DRAGON HELM><DRAGON POLEYN><DRAGON GREAVE>
07(05,19) Giggler HP=0001 <GOLD KEY><FLAMITT><STORM>
07(06,16) Giggler HP=0001 <KU POTION><DRAGON PLATE><TOPAZ KEY>
07(06,17) Giggler HP=0001 <SIDE SPLITTER><POLEYN OF RA><GREAVE OF RA>
07(06,19) Giggler HP=0001 <WAND><MAGICAL BOX><RA BLADE>
Random destinations =
00(23,17)00
02(31,23)00
01(09,21)00
03(16,30)00
04(22,25)00
04(17,27)00
02(31,23)00
06(16,26)00
There are 8 destinations and only 6 gigglers. So two of
the detinations will receive nothing. Notice that
destination 02(31,23) is listed twice and can receive
two groups of items.

Randomly placed Gigglers
07(05,26) Giggler HP=0256 <EYE OF TIME>
07(05,27) Giggler HP=0256 <LOCK PICKS>
07(05,28) Giggler HP=0128 <SKELETON KEY>
07(05,29) Giggler HP=0128 <STORMRING><ONYX KEY>
07(05,30) Giggler HP=0128 <MAGICAL BOX><KEY OF B>
07(05,31) Giggler HP=0064 <SAPPHIRE KEY><RABBIT'S FOOT>
07(05,32) Giggler HP=0064 <GOLD KEY><VEN POTION><WATER>
07(05,33) Giggler HP=0032 <MAGICAL BOX><FUL BOMB>
Random destinations =
00(33,33)
00(38,31)
05(03,16)
09(14,32)
08(20,31)
07(09,07)
07(21,33)
06(19,04)


All the random destinations are chosen by the Giggler's
random motion. They eventually wander into squares
with 'once-only' pressure pads and teleporters. They
do not begin wandering around until the party enters
level 7, usually as a result of entering the 'Junction
of the Ways".

[Lunever]

Is it possible to get all items from all gigglers?

[Paul Stevens]

Yes, indeed. Version 8.0 of CSB for Windows comes with
a 'movie' in which I collect EVERYTHING in the dungeon.

PAul
prsteven@facstaff.wisc.edu

[Antman]

I've got a question regarding the shooter at 07 (14, 34). Looking at CSBuild it looks like when a giggler steps on 07 (14, 30) it can shoot items through the teleporter at 07 (14, 30), but this just seems to go to 07 (09, 30) and then would keep flying north to 07 (09, 26), which is inaccessible. But you can always retrieve all the items from the shooter right? So I must be missing something here...

[Paul Stevens]

when a giggler steps on 07 (14, 30)

Just to make sure I understand.....did you mean 7(12,30)?

[Paul Stevens]

I was wrong. An object can arrive at that location and be inaccessible.
I think it is exactly as you say. The source code ignores items at many locations:

9,31,36,ANY,
7, 9,26,ANY,
7,14,34,ANY,
5,14,25,KEY,
5,15,25,KEY,
5,15,26,KEY,
5,15,27,KEY,
5,15,28,KEY,
5,16,24,KEY,
5,16,25,KEY,
5,16,26,KEY,
5,16,27,KEY,
5,16,28,KEY,
5,16,29,KEY,
5,17,24,KEY,
5,17,25,KEY,
5,17,26,KEY,
5,17,28,KEY,
5,17,29,KEY,
5,18,24,KEY,
5,18,25,KEY,
5,18,26,KEY,
5,18,27,KEY,
5,18,28,KEY,
5,19,24,KEY,
5,19,27,KEY,
5,20,24,KEY,
5,20,25,KEY,
6,21,30,ANY,
6,22,29,ANY,
6,22,30,ANY,
6,22,31,ANY,
6,23,30,ANY,
0,17,18,ANY,
0,17,19,ANY,
0,17,20,ANY,
0,17,21,ANY,
0,17,40,ANY,

[Antman]

Yes sorry I did mean 7(12,30) for the giggler pressure pad location.

That's very odd, it really seems like a bug that an item gets teleported to 7(9,26). Imagine scouring the dungeon for the fourth pair of speed boots, helm of RA or dragon shield only for them to be stuck there. Does anyone know if the same behavior is in the Amiga version of the game? I don't recall that ever happening and I know a lot of items were moved/changed/added. I'm not aware of a way to view the Amiga CSB dungeon with DMute, CSBuild etc.

A related question, I looked at a save game where I completed the CSB Challenge. As well as an item being at 7(9,26) there was still the last item (EE potion) in the shooter at 7(14,34). But all 8 of the giggler pressure pads which trigger the shooter had been activated so I couldn't see how this was possible, do you know what I am missing here? I note that 7(14,34) is also excluded from the challenge I guess for this reason.

[Paul Stevens]

How many years (decades) have we thought we knew everything
about Chaos Strikes Back?

I promise to study your latest question. See you in a few days if I give up.

Imagine scouring the dungeon for the fourth pair of speed boots,
helm of RA or dragon shield only for them to be stuck there.

I consider that a feature. The mechanism was designed to make the dungeon
appear random and add replay value. It succeeds even to today.

[Paul Stevens]

there was still the last item (EE potion) in the shooter at 7(14,34)

One possibility. The original Atari code deleted duplicate timer entries.
The CSBuild designer can override this with :

Menu/Edit/Global Info/Edit Database/Delete Duplicate Timer Messages

If two Gigglers activated the shooter on the same sixth of a second and
the option had not been set to "Retain duplicate Timers" then one of them
would be ignored. A feature or a bug; depends on your viewpoint.
I doubt that your copy of Chaos Strikes Back has an entry for this option
and therefore the default would apply.

If you have the recording of the game then we could actually look at the
timer traces and determine exactly how this came to pass.
************************************************************************
As to the teleporter at 7(14,30)------If this was intended as a feature
then it is curious that 7(9,30) was selected as the destination. I would
think that the designer would have selected a "More Plain" cell
to deposit a hidden object; 7(11,30), for example. Maybe the level
was incorrectly entered----9(9,30) would be a good place for a
random object. Such an error would not likely make itself known
during playtesting.

Speaking of which, do we know what sort of tools the designers of
Chaos Strikes Back had to accomplish this design? If they had to
type numbers into a keyboard then such an error is easy to understand.

[Sphenx]

Paul, what do you mean by "The source code ignores items at many locations" ?

About the possible location of the teleporter, if it is a mistake -- the destination is in relative coordinates, meaning it is targeting (7, 09, 25) -- on the basement (level 9) it would then target a plain wall. On level 8, it would be on the Vexirks room, which could be a possible place.
But considering the places generally selected for random items destinations, I would rather think that is it intentional to make 1 of 8 random items packs not available during a gameplay, and accentuate the Chaos feeling (adding the replay value). Also you're right that such behaviour would probably have had a specific closed cell for it; then perhaps, this teleporter has been changed at the last moment ?

[Paul Stevens]

what do you mean by "The source code ignores items at many locations"

Sorry. I should have explained more clearly.

CSBwin allows you to play to an alternate goal. You need to kill every monster
and return every item to the area around 5(14,25). To do this, you obviously
need to visit almost every area of the dungeon; you cannot cheat and skip the
ROS area, for example. It really is a bit of challenge. Having accomplished this,
you can say that you have seen all of the Chaos Strikes Back dungeon.

But, as this thread discusses, items can be located at inaccessible locations.
So the source code that checks to see if every item has been collected ignores
items at certain locations. The list of these locations is contained in the
source code and is displayed a few replies above in this thread.

[Sphenx]

Thank you, I understand, I thought it was something about the original code.

The teleporter does the same in the Amiga version.

About the tools ... I remembered some interview screenshot with the map editor
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/890
http://dmweb.free.fr/files/Magazine_Pow ... 2_Scan.jpg

[Antman]

How many years (decades) have we thought we knew everything
about Chaos Strikes Back?

I'm not sure I've ever thought this (and probably never will). Aside from this, I found a couple of other interesting things I didn't realize just this week, one I mentioned in the 'how many keys' thread and another about the junction of the ways timers.

Re the teleporter: Interesting, I guess we'll never know but it still feels to me like a bug. CSB has randomness and replayability, but I think this would be the only instance in the entire dungeon where something is purposely inaccessible, and doesn't feel in "the spirit of CSB" if there is such a thing. And yes the destination the item gets sent to is quite strange. I played around in the Amiga version earlier and the Vexirk and Knights area was one of the places I checked.

Re 'EE potion still in shooter': I generated a timer trace of the first part of game but I wasn't sure how to understand the output and couldn't find a reference to the shooter itself. I put the recording here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ldIDCO ... sp=sharing if you want to take a look.

[Paul Stevens]

screenshot with the map editor

That screenshot obviously shows a very different level 1.
I recognized it before I saw the z-offset but it is quite different in detail.
At any rate, the dungeon appears to have evolved very much over
time and it would not be hard to believe that some small, inconsequential
detail was overlooked during that evolution (Like my appendix).

Antman: I have your recording. The rest of my day is shot.

[Sphenx]

Maybe because it is DM1 level 1 and not CSB

[Paul Stevens]

Re 'EE potion still in shooter': I generated a timer trace

That is quite a recording of the "Collect All Items" challenge. Eleven and
one-half hours of wall-clock time. 2,762,832 timers were set during play.
But only two are of interest!

Code: Select all

Object 0586 stepped On pressure pad 05d9 07(07,19)
00002909 timer create         07e 07 DLY=0000 06 00 09 1d 00 00 9b64 8ac445b8 Set     0x01 in DB at 07(09,1d)00


Object 0595 stepped On pressure pad 05d2 07(07,18)
00002909 timer Byte9          07e 07 DLY=0000 06 00 09 1d 00 00 9b64 91239163 Set     0x01 in DB at 07(09,1d)00

Notice that both gigglers (0586 and 0595) stepped on pressure pads at
the same instant (00002909). And that only a single timer entry was
created (07e). The trace indicates that a new timer was NOT created
("Create") but rather reused ("Byte9").

So the shooter at 07(09,1d) was only activated once.
As I said before, this is the default action. I do not know what this
default action is intended to prevent. CSBuild can override it and so
far I have seen no ill effects of doing so.

I doubt very much that the designers intended this result for the
Giggler randomizing.

Of possible interest: This discarding of duplicate timers occurred 8609 times
in your game. That is about 0.3 percent of all timer entries. I did not look
to see what might have caused the bulk of these duplicates.

[Sphenx]

I do not know what this
default action is intended to prevent. CSBuild can override it and so
far I have seen no ill effects of doing so.

Having worked on an engine compatible with DM/CSB, timers/triggers give me a hard time where double activation of the same trigger can lead to an uncontrollable exponential overflow of timers, specially in puzzles that do some loop between actuators. Eventually, this leads to massive slowdown or crash because the system can't handle it anymore (if no limitation applied).
I guess this is why the second activation does not create the timer.

It would be interesting to know how Sophia implemented this in DSB.

[Antman]

Interesting, thanks for investigating! It seems quite unlikely at least.

If I play another "collect all items" game I might edit the dungeon to try and prevent that and make that teleporter go somewhere non inaccessible.