THE SEUCK VAULT
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JON WELLS
SEUCK Enhancer
C64 SEUCK Unused Memory Map for Enhancements
© Jon Wells 2006
When your SEUCK creation has been completed and you have saved a stand-alone version of your game it is possible to remove the editor and start adding in your enhancements.
Any enhancements you make will require some knowledge of Assembly Language and a suitable hacking ROM cartridge, I suggest using the Action Replay.
Enhancements can be done either the original way with an actual 64 or by using the CCS64 emulator on a PC with the Action Replay ROM bolted into it. I used this method when enhancing Synetic.
The following areas of memory are held by the editor and not used in the final stand-alone SEUCK’ed game:
| $0340 - $0900 | unused area |
| $3204 - $340B | this area holds the games title screen text |
| $650C - $B6C0 | main editor code and data |
| $E000 - $E800 | gfx and font for editor |
| $F280 - $F500 | ? |
| $F5B0 - $F800 | ? |
Important!
1) You must fill the $F3F8 - $F3FF area with $C1 ‘s to ensure the borders remain blank.
2) You must also change the command LDA $8000,y in location $54EF to LDA $5000,y as this points to memory and holds a basic random number sequence for the enemies fire.
BREAKTHROUGH
BREAKTHROUGH was to have been a unique achievement - a SEUCK game that scrolled horizontally!
With amazing music by Paul 'Feekzoid' Hannay, all that is left is the preview that was published on the Commodore Format covertape. You can also read more about it at in an interview with Jon at:
Games That Weren't.
JON WELLS TALKS ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH
After getting in touch with Jon about the SEUCK Vault website, he agreed to answer a few questions about the development of Breakthrough, which you can read below. My thanks to Jon for taking the time to answer them.
Q. How did you turn the vertically scrolling SEUCK into a horizontal scroll?
A. I removed the original vertical scrolling code and squeezed a horizontal version into the same space. It was limited as there wasn't enough room to fit colour scrolling too, so it had to adopt an Armalyte style of 3 colours. The sprite movement engine was tweaked so they also moved in the horizontal direction as they still moved downwards beforehand.
Q. Did the limitations on colour affect how the graphics were drawn?
A. Yes, with the limitation of 3 colours, I added in an extra piece of code within the SEUCK engine to change these 3 colours anytime during the game.
Q. Were the attack waves written in SEUCK or using your own system?
A. They were all written in SEUCK.
Q. How far did the game get developed?
A. Probably around 50%. A few levels were created and the game's sprites/structure was in place. There was still a bit of work to do along with frontend enhancements.
Q. How long did you work on it?
A. Probably about 3 months in total, between other projects this made it span over a longer period.
Q. Commodore Format published a demo and several screenshots - how do they compare to the final version?
A. They are similar in style regarding the enemy attack patterns, I decided to add a couple of extra ideas and redrew the graphics.
Q. Would you ever consider finishing it?
A. The real killer was that at the time I couldn't easily modify the actual SEUCK map editor to work along with the horizontal scrolling. As a result all background level maps had to be hard coded into assembly language which took absolutely ages to get right. This was eventually one of the flaws that helped to waste a lot of time during the development. However, I think it is possible to tweak the map editor to work with the horizontal scroll, if this was achieved I just might be more inclined to finish it someday.
Q. What did you think of Feekzoid's (excellent) music?
A. It was just superb! It's a real shame that I didn't get the game finished.
Q. What lessons did you learn from trying to write Breakthrough?
A. Well to be honest Breakthrough was never really planned and the whole SEUCK sideways thing initially started as an experiment to see if it was possible. So probably the biggest lesson is that pretty much ANYTHING is possible by enhancing SEUCK. It's surprising what can actually be achieved by modifying the source. For example, there's no reason why you couldn't modify SEUCK to make it work as a platform construction kit!
The SEUCK Vault is pleased to announce that Jon Wells has created and released the SIDEWAYS SEUCK EDITOR in February 2008. Inspired by his work on BREAKTHROUGH, Jon has now modified the actual editor program so that the screen scrolls from left to right instead of vertically. You can read more about it on our new Sideways SEUCK page.