Carcharodon: White Sharks WHDLoad Pack

README
Short : HD-Installer for Carcharodon - White Sharks / Demonware
Type  : game/patch
Author: Galahad / Fairlight (GLDFLT@AOL.COM), StingRay

 
 THIS INSTALL WAS ON WWW.FAIRLIGHT.0CATCH.COM FIRST!
 
 This install applies to "Carcharodon - White Sharks" © 1989/1990 Demonware.
 Slave requires WHDLoad V17+.
 Game needs 0.5 MB Of Chipmem & 1.4MB of Fastmem (for preload option)

 Many thanks to Carlo Pirri for supplying the game. 

 SUPPORTED VERSIONS
 ------------------
 
 - 1 Disk original release 

 FEATURES
 --------

 - Full Loading from HD (REAL FILES) (compress with FImp/ProPack)
 - Protection removed (MFM/Encryption/Checksums)
 - Load/Save Hiscore to hard drive
 - Access fault removed
 - Fixed music DMA
 - Fixed diwstop ($dff090) to see hidden first screen message :)
 - Infinite lives trainer (find it!)
 - Quit Option (DEL key)

 FEATURES V1.1 (03.11.2018, StingRay)
 - RawDIC imager
 - Blitter waits added
 - Bplcon0 color bit fixes
 - Graphics bugs fixed ("GET READY", "GAME OVER" screens)
 - Out of bounds blit in equipment screen fixed
 - Trainer options added
 - Access fault in highscore screen fixed
 - Checksum disabled
 - All dataXX files can be removed, they are not needed anymore
 - High score load/save rewritten
 - High score file renamed to "Carcharodon.high"
 - Keyboard routines rewritten
 - 68000 quitkey support
 - Source code included

 FEATURES V1.1a (23.12.2018, StingRay)
 - one more keyboard routine patched, game doesn't freeze anymore
   in the highscore screen (Mantis issue #4015)
 - typo in imager slave fixed :)
 - minor code optimisations


 EXTRA NOTES
 -----------
 
 The copy protection system on this game is very very competent!  In fact, when I normally list the
 features of a game, I always sarcastically refer to the protection as 'lame-o-protect', fact is, this 
 protection wasn't lame in the slightest!
 
 I wouldn't say it was the hardest protection to crack, but it had some pretty clever ideas, all of which
 means making it RAWDic compatible is going to be a looooonnnnggg effort!
 
 This game has to rank as one of the BEST shoot-em-ups on the Amiga.... problem is, it's so damned hard
 that I doubt most people could reasonably expect to see the lovely graphics in the later levels.
 
 On an A5oo, this game is throwing loads of stuff around the screen, and it never ONCE drops a frame out of
 50Mhz!!
 
 Not even Factor 5 could manage it with X-Out and Z-Out!
 
 Discover the cheat, and you will agree that Silicon Warriors (what else did they do?) have done an
 amazing job throughout.
 
 NOTES ABOUT THE GAME
 --------------------
 
 On the titlescreen, if you press the 'E' key, will give you a screen to change your weapons setups for
 each level.
 
 On the titlescreen, if you press the 'L' key, will load your previous saved game (including Hiscore)
 
 On the titlescreen, if you press the 'S' ley, will save your game (including Hiscore)
 
 Whilst playing, if the border flashes red, you got onto the hiscore table.  If whilst you are still
 playing it flashes red again, then you just advanced another position on the hiscore table.
 

 Holding down the fire button whilst shooting will select a different weapon, but you will see a counter
 in the centre of the status bar telling you how much time you have that weapon left.
 
 This counter is also used for your enemy count.  It starts off at 99 and counts down for every alien or
 wave of aliens you destroy.  This counter MUST read 0 by the time you have destroyed the end of level
 boss, otherwise you have to play the whole level again!!
 
 SO IS IT HARD?
 --------------
 
 Put it this way, if Carcharodon White Sharks was a boxer and was put in the ring with R-TYPE, R-TYPE2,
 DRAGON BREED, SWIV, NEMESIS, PARADIUS, GUNSTAR HEROES, JIM POWER, XENON, XENON 2, ST.DRAGON, SUPER ALESTE..
 ........ it would kill them all..... its that bloody hard!!! (thats put them all in the ring at the same
 time!!).
 
 
Kindest Regards, Galahad of Fairlight


NOTES V1.1 (StingRay)
---------------------

I finally got around to updating this patch, one of the major problems was the imager which
didn't work properly. This has now been fixed as I have coded a RawDIC imager. You don't have
to reinstall as I kept the file names compatible with the old patch. Coding the RawDIC
imager was quite a bit of work as to do it I had to fully deprotect the game (which was
fun, coding the decrypter took about 1 hour) and also understand the disk format/decoding.
The game uses custom compressed data which is unpacked on the fly during loading, this
happens in the MFM decoding part. Encryption used was quite nice as well, it featured
some neat ideas. Same for the loader, the used SYNCs were also encrypted. In the game
code there were a few checksum checks and coder also made sure to encrypt all the
"important" stuff such as number of lives and the level number. There also was a buggy
blit routine in the equipment screen, I have fixed that one as well. Same for the
problem with the trashed "GAME OVER" and "GET READY" screens, these are now displayed
properly too. As usual I have also added some trainers, to see the available in-game
keys press "HELP" during the main game. High score saving is disabled if any trainers
are used.

StingRay in November 2018.


END.