A plan to finish CSB

[Optis]

Is there any way, any plan i can follow to finish the game.
I would like to know where exactly i have to go (to the start until the end) and what to do?

I hope i explain good....

Thank u

[Paul Stevens]

http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/Gam ... PC_CSB.zip


This (rather old) release contains a movie
of a complete game. A very slow game
compared to the competition movies.
It skips over a lot of the dungeon but
it will get you started.

[Lunever]

Honestly, the fun about CSB is, that it is nonlinear and asymetric, and there are several ways to complete it. It's just not a singular path from start to end. Figuring out how the dungeon is structured is what makes CSB so challenging.

I'd recommend not to read to much, lest it'll spoil the game for you. So proceed reading at your own discretion.

You start somewhere in the middle and have 4 pathes going all down and all up. Each path has 3 beginnings.

Near the start you can gather a bit of equipment, that is if you're quick and don't fall into a pit (hence "Supplies for the Quick".

You'll get to the "Junction of the Ways" eventually. That is a very central teleporter, from which you can go into one of four directions. Each direction leads you to the start of one of the four ways, which focus somewhat on one of the four character classes each, hence their names "Ku - way of the Fighter", "Ros - Way of the Ninja" and so on.

What path you begin with is a matter of taste. Some prefer to do Fighter first to get heavy arms & armour right at the beginning, I prefer doing Wizard first, then Priest, then Ninja, then Fighter, so I can do most of the game with only a little load, plus you can still enjoy new armour found during the game instead of skipping over most arms & armour because you have packed your party already with more heavy ones.

Once starting upon a path you will be transported by invisible teleporters after a couple of steps to one of three random starting locations for each path. Those locations are largely interconnected via one or another stairs.

On each path you can go down, or up. On the bottom-most level there is a hidden teleporter behind some illusionary wall that will lead you back to the Junction of the Ways.

On each path you have need to obtain 1 special key you'll need later if you go up to the "Diabolical Demon Director", where all of the pathes finally meet again.

The pathes are very asymmetric, and have much vertical movement, via stairs, pits and teleporters, occassionally these even get you to a different path. There is a vertical row of two pits all throughout the levels, which can result in a very deep fall.

You'll get into the DDD four times, but each time you have to use a different key and solve different puzzles.

Above the DDD the 4 items you need to beat Chaos are gathered, but you will need to proceed there through different entries to get all of them.

Above the Corbums there is the "Ful Ya Pit", where Lord Chaos resides. It has several entries, the entries from the 4 pathways each also allow to collect some major item there.

You need to slip past LC and throw all Corbums into the Ful-Ya-Pi-Flame to finish the game. There are many constantly respawning monsters up there, and a couple of respawn points that can be deactivated by solving some special puzzle.

There is the "Wrath of God" up there, a mighty fireball launcher that can be directed by a series of locks and switches to counter the respawning of demons somewhat.

There are several hidden rooms (you can never get there), from which some special treasure bearing gigglers randomly spread out through a series of teleporters into the dungeon, which makes several major treasures (like the lockpicks or the skeleton key) be randomly spread over the dungeon. So no game will be like the last one.

That was the easy part, I'll skip the complicated issues for now.

[Optis]

wouao !!

Thank u very much, dank

You are right i should not use maps and plan....
i know dungeon master like my pocket but chaos strike back is really more difficult.
I've played it about severals hours but it still hard to memory every things and sometimes i turn "around and around (i don't know english expression)"

Do you know a link where i can find differents videos about chaos strike back because when i try to play "CSBwinCE2002" it says it's an invalid application win 32 ...

[Optis]

I found this link : http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/856
"Clone-CSBwin-Movies.rar"

are they real movies? what is this? because when i try to open one of them it's a .exe not a movie ... ??

I think that you have understood that i'm a real neophyte...

[Gambit37]

CSBWin can record a "movie" of someone playing the game. The movie is just a list of actions that the player made during the game, but this list can be used to "replay" a game, so that you can see what different people did in the game.

The archive you downloaded contains lots of versions of CSBWin. each in a separate folder.

Go to any folder, and run CSBWin. Select the "Dungeon" option from the first menu. Then, when you see the doors to the Dungeon, go to the Windows menu "Misc" and select "Playback".

CSBWin will now play the recorded game.

I hope that helps. Welcome to the forums by the way!

[Optis]

Thank you
That was exactly what i wanted
I should have read every thing but i get some difficulty to translate every english words...

That's fine i begin to watch "CSBMovie1 - Paul Stevens (Toadrot) - 11h49m20s" (thank you again paul...)


Whatever thank you for this welcoming

If one day one of you come to france, call me, i will make you discover french dungeons's castles

[Adamo]

That's fine i begin to watch "CSBMovie1 - Paul Stevens (Toadrot) - 11h49m20s" (thank you again paul...)

This movie lasts 11 hours! I`m sure there are much shorter one!
Oh, btw, you can play it slower, faster or ultrafast.

[Optis]

You answered to my question before i asked it...
Yes 11h game are quite long ...RrrrrRRrr

Where is ultra fast? i found quickplay--> faster but ultrafast?
And is there a pause mode or something similar?

[Gambit37]

Ultrafast is not available in the some of the versions you downloaded. If it's available, there will be an extra menu item: "Speed".

There's no pause, you have to watch it in one sitting! That's why the shorter movies are better....

[Paul Stevens]

There's no pause, you have to watch it in one sitting

CSBwin100_PC_CSB.zip

I just tried it; an 'Escape' paused it just fine.

'Misc' menu 'Quickplay' worked too.


By the way - sorry about that extra 'P' in
my previous post. That would be the
Pocket PC version.

[Gambit37]

Oh, I thought any keypress mucked up the play queue. OK, my bad.

[Lunever]

There's some record by Antman solving CSB in 10 minutes 37 seconds.

[Trantor]

I think rain´'s record is somewhere around 9 minutes... But there is little to be learned from that replay, as you would need to know the dungeon inside out to understand what is going on there.

[Paul Stevens]

http://www.dianneandpaul.net/CSBwin/Gam ... tedCSB.zip

I created an annotated game of CSB that shows
how to win the game. At crucial points in the
game a text dialog opens and tells you about
the dungeon layout and the solutions to
puzzles. The entire game can be played in
less than 10 minutes plus whatever time you
spend reading the annotations.

I would really like to have someone play a
game of Conflux with this version of CSBwin
and create annotations for it. The annotations
are very easy to create once you have a
completed recording. Simply play the recording,
press pause (Escape) at interesting points, and
use a text editor to create the annotation file.

[zoom]

if this isn't cool !!!

[Jan]

Absolutely brilliant! I'm stunned.

[Optis]

(...)

Thank you again !!

Merci beaucoup

(and it allows to have a pause in the movie, very good)

[Antman]

Wow, that's cool, I can use this to annotate that Maleficent guild game I said I would write about ages ago. Will have a little play with it.

[Paul Stevens]

annotate that Maleficent guild game

That will only be possible if the latest
version of CSBwin will play your game.
Better try it before you do a lot of work.

[Optis]

Cool
I've finished CSB with the annotated movie.

Thank you very much all of you

[Antman]

The game plays through fine in the latest version. Annotating the game is taking far longer than I first thought. I'm guessing it would be impossible to make an implementation that allows you to to select any point in the replay to resume from? Or even a button that you can press that brings up a screen in to which you can enter the annotation while you are watching the replay, like when you press pause.

[Optis]

the game is taking far longer than I first thought
while you are watching the replay, like when you press pause.

Thank you
Nevermind, right now i'm quite ok withe CSB. I used paul'files for my owner game and i've annoted many levels. So no problems at all.

[Paul Stevens]

Good morning, Antman.

Second point.....the button to pause and
enter annotation. That would be possible
in a way. But the pause button almost
does that. Having a text editor open at
the same time. Press pause, click on text
editor, and enter annotation. Did you
think something would be a lot easier?

First point.....I can make a DVD of your
game. Perhaps an option to show the
time on top of each frame. Then you can
do a quick search with PowerDVD (you can
click on any point in the game) or even
your hardware DVD player in fast forward/
reverse, next/previous chapter mode.

I'd like people to be comfortable making
these annotated movies. I'm willing to
put a bit of effort into it. Annotating,
like documentation, is tedious and relatively
unrewarding.

[Antman]

I thought about somehow turning a recording into an actual movie as well. But it would probably by quite large and annoying to work with. I will just try and do it one or two big sessions. Is it possible to insert a save similar to the way you removed them from my game? Or does the clock keep ticking making it impossible, so you wouldn't be to insert a save half way through the game I could resume the recording from?

The second point, I think it would make it a lot easier and faster not having to deal with notepad and manually enter the actual points in the movie where you wish to annotate, no copying out the numbers. It would be much simpler to just pause, annotate and then continue. I guess it doesn't really seem like much difference but when you're doing it over and over it builds up a bit.

[Paul Stevens]

To do the annotation within CSBwin
seems to be a major undertaking.
CSBwin would have to incorporate
a text editor.

It would have to read
the existing annotation file and insert
new annotations in the proper place.

We cannot insert saves because saves
alter the game. Some things get cleared
when you do a save/restore.

Would it be helpful if you could start
the movie and more quickly get to the
point of interest?

What if I could 'Copy' the time when
you pressed pause so that you could insert
it into your text editor with 'Control-V'?

[ian_scho]

These annotations are fantastic, and watched up to the junction of the ways. I can second the request for an option for fast-forward to point 7870 (for example). Thanks!

I got a timer sync error for a movie the other Paul sent me (warcrying at the first screamer).

[Jan]

I got a timer sync error for a movie the other Paul sent me (warcrying at the first screamer).

I had the same problem. Then PaulH sent me all the files (graphics, dungeon, exe) and it works fine now. But you must turn "DM rules" ON in the Misc menu!

And I agree that the annonated movie is fantastic - and also that we need some tool to move fast forward and backward in the movies.