ZX Spectrum game disassemblies

The Hobbit (1982, Beam Software / Melbourne House)

The v1.2 tape, every routine and table named and described: the parser and its sentence patterns, the message compressor, the picture interpreter, the characters' scripts, the timers and the end of every turn. With a page on how the game works and deep dives on how a sentence is understood, how the characters live, how a fight is decided, how the text is stored and told and how a picture is drawn, each following the game's own code; a map of the whole game with layers for scoring places, dark places, the hidden roads and where everything starts; and pages for its locations (each with its picture), objects, characters and actions; animations from real games, including the characters roaming the map; its sound (it has none), and its bugs, tested pokes and trivia.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: hobbit.asm.

Atic Atac (1983, Ultimate Play the Game)

All 30208 bytes, with 631 named entries. With a map of the castle, floor by floor, with layers for the A.C.G. key's pieces, the keys, the food, the big five and the trapdoors; pages on how the tape protects itself, how the game is put together and deep dives on how a room is drawn, how the player moves, the monsters, doors, keys and trapdoors and food, health and the A.C.G. key, each following the game's own code; where its data goes, the room types, the sprites, the graphics, animations from real games, and the sounds (each one recorded to play), and its bugs, trivia and tested pokes.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: aticatac.asm.

Ant Attack (1983, Sandy White / Quicksilva)

All 41984 bytes the tape loads, from the system variables and the game's own BASIC up, every routine named and commented and every instruction but three seen to run. With pages on how the game works — the soft solid 3D, the ants that are part of the map, the loader that loads over itself — and deep dives on how a scene is drawn, how people move, how the ants hunt, how a grenade flies and finding and rescuing, each following the game's own code through real frames; the city of Antescher, with layers for the gate, the ants' nest and every place someone waits, and drawn whole in the game's own projection; the ten levels, the sprites, animations, every sound, recorded from the game's own routines and every message; and its bugs, tested pokes and trivia.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: antattack.asm.

Knight Lore (1984, Ultimate Play the Game)

The first Filmation game, all 40696 bytes: every routine and table titled and described, from the object records and the depth sort that draws the isometric scene back to front, to the sprites that are flipped in place, the rooms, day and night, and the wizard's cauldron. With pages on how it works -- how a moving object is drawn, the depth sort, collision, day, night and the werewolf and the charms and the cauldron -- on how the castle is built, with a map of all 128 rooms, each drawn by the game's own code, and layers for where a game starts, the charms and the dangers; its animations and every sound and tune, recorded from its own routines; its scenery, the templates rooms are furnished from, every object type and every sprite; and on how the game is put together, its bugs, tested pokes and trivia, and where the code map comes from -- tcdev's disassembly, as converted by Michael R. Cook, whose names and boundaries are used with credit.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: knightlore.asm.

And a room editor: open a snapshot of your own copy of the game, rearrange its rooms, the templates they are built from, where the collectables lie and where a game starts, and download the game again with your castle in it. It all happens in the page; nothing is uploaded.

Pentagram (1986, Ultimate Play the Game)

Sabreman's fourth adventure, on Knight Lore's engine: all 41472 bytes from $5E00, every routine and table titled and described, disassembled from the tape and mapped by playing it. With pages on how it works -- how the game is put together, how a moving object is drawn, how things move and collide (lifts, conveyors, crumbling blocks), rooms and doorways (each arch carries the room it leads to), the well, the bucket and the pentagram and bolts, things from the sky and the monsters -- on the world, every one of its 139 rooms drawn by the game's own code and put together into one map with layers for the start, the wells, the quest and the dangers; its scenery, templates, every graphic and sprite; animations and every sound and tune, recorded from its own routines; and its bugs (too much in one room crashes it), tested pokes and trivia.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: pentagram.asm.

And a room editor: open a snapshot of your own copy of the game, rearrange its rooms, the templates they are built from, their doorways and where a game starts, and download the game again with your world in it. It all happens in the page; nothing is uploaded.

Alien 8 (1985, Ultimate Play the Game)

The Filmation game between Knight Lore and Pentagram: all 42240 bytes from $5B00, every routine and table titled and described, disassembled from the tape and mapped by playing it. With pages on how it works -- how the game is put together, how a moving object is drawn, how the robot moves and turns (and the turn that forgets he was walking), rooms and doorways, valves, sockets and the cryogenic chambers and the clock, the remote robots and the dangers -- on the station, every one of its 128 rooms drawn by the game's own code on Knight Lore's grid, with layers for the start, the chambers by valve kind, the valves, the robots and the dangers; its backgrounds, templates, every graphic and sprite; animations and every sound and tune, recorded from its own routines; and its bugs, tested pokes and trivia -- among them Knight Lore's werewolf sound, left in with nothing to play it.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: alien8.asm.

And a room editor: open a snapshot of your own copy of the game, rearrange its rooms, the templates they are built from, where the valves lie and where a game starts, and download the game again with your ship in it. It all happens in the page; nothing is uploaded.

Nightshade (1985, Ultimate Play the Game)

The first Filmation II game, a scrolling town in place of rooms: all 42240 bytes from $5B00, every routine and table titled and described, disassembled from the protected tape and mapped by playing it. With pages on how it works -- how the game is put together (and the four ways it guards itself), how the town is drawn (walls that claim screen columns, outlines in front), how things move, the monsters, antibodies and the creature and the quest -- on the whole town, every building drawn by the game's own code, with layers for the cell types, the cells that count, where finds come from, where a game starts and where the villains and objects go; its buildings, cell types, tiles, graphic table and sprites; animations and every sound and tune, recorded from its own routines; and its bugs, tested pokes and trivia -- among them villains that hum the ROM, a hundred per cent printed in the wrong font, and a stack that crashes the 157th game.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: nightshade.asm.

Fairlight (1985, Bo Jangeborg / The Edge)

All 42240 bytes from $5B00, every routine and table titled and described, disassembled from the tape -- its Alkatraz loader undone by the build -- and mapped by playing it, with the author's own names wherever the source text he left in memory gives them, and read beside Ville Krumlinde's disassembly, credited. With pages on how it works -- how the game is put together, how a room is drawn from its little program of points, lines and fills, how a moving object is drawn through four compositing pages, movement and collision and things and creatures -- on the castle, every room drawn by the game's own code, with layers for the doors and their keys, the quest, the things and the creatures, and every room; its textures, parts, object types, sprites and font; animations and the loading tune, its only sound, recorded from its own routine; and its bugs, tested pokes and trivia -- among them two things in room 19 that wreck a door two rooms away.

The whole disassembly as one commented source file: fairlight.asm.