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Plumb Crazy

G

gumpy

Moderator
Staff member
Loadstar OG
I'm currently trying to finish Plumb Crazy. (Dave's Pipe Dream clone from LS #154).

The difficulty spikes to INSANE during the last four levels - even with constant SAVE / LOAD savestates and running it at half speed in VICE - I haven't been able to beat it yet. I recall talking to Dave about it on the phone years ago - and he mentioned that either Lee Novak or Johnny Harris (I don't recall which one) was the only person that he knew of to be able to complete the game.

I'm now trying to "Captain Kirk" it, by modifying the code to give me more time.
🙂

EDIT -
I modified this line:
1190 ifer<4then1198
er=number of errors
I changed it to 20 and then let the ending levels fail, it only shows a black screen after that - and victory music plays but no message!

It should show this:
5852 POKE214,8: PRINT : PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}we do not know how"
5854 PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}you did it -- but"
5856 PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}you beat": PRINTTAB(14)"{white}plumb crazy!"
5858 PRINTTAB(15)"{blue}{reverse on}press key": POKE198,0

(Unless it is showing it, but the screen is turned off / blacked out)
Did I just discover a bug?

EDIT - I just tried it again and pressed run / stop and typed POKE 53265,27: blindly to turn the screen back on. It did - showing the victory message. Looks like I discovered a glitch! (Now I need to patch it!)
 
Last edited:
I can't remember if I beat this game or not, but I know it was enjoyable. It was very similar to Pipe Dream on the NES. I don't recall there ever being a bug so maybe I never got that far? Then again, this was 27 years ago or whatever.

Saw this recently again in the "New Releases" section of the Lemon forums. I could have sworn the title screen used a toilet seat for the letter C and showed the crack of a plumber's butt on the cover as well.

I had envisioned making a (mouse controlled) sequel to it and still have the old graph-paper mock layouts of the game and maybe did some work on the initial font. Of course, that is as far as work ever progressed.
 
1765558996672.png1765559011164.png
There was an official version of Pipe Dream released for the C64. Docs mention that you had just released Mr. Mouse and possibility of mouse version. I realize that would have taken a lot of effort.

Also I was unaware of this version until yesterday (from 2013) which also fixes the bug and adds a trainer too. https://csdb.dk/release/?id=118176
1765559290380.png
 
gumpy said:
I'm currently trying to finish Plumb Crazy. (Dave's Pipe Dream clone from LS #154).

The difficulty spikes to INSANE during the last four levels - even with constant SAVE / LOAD savestates and running it at half speed in VICE - I haven't been able to beat it yet. I recall talking to Dave about it on the phone years ago - and he mentioned that either Lee Novak or Johnny Harris (I don't recall which one) was the only person that he knew of to be able to complete the game.

I'm now trying to "Captain Kirk" it, by modifying the code to give me more time.
🙂

EDIT -
I modified this line:
1190 ifer<4then1198
er=number of errors
I changed it to 20 and then let the ending levels fail, it only shows a black screen after that - and victory music plays but no message!

It should show this:
5852 POKE214,8: PRINT : PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}we do not know how"
5854 PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}you did it -- but"
5856 PRINTTAB(11)"{reverse on}you beat": PRINTTAB(14)"{white}plumb crazy!"
5858 PRINTTAB(15)"{blue}{reverse on}press key": POKE198,0

(Unless it is showing it, but the screen is turned off / blacked out)
Did I just discover a bug?

EDIT - I just tried it again and pressed run / stop and typed POKE 53265,27: blindly to turn the screen back on. It did - showing the victory message. Looks like I discovered a glitch! (Now I need to patch it!)
Click to expand...
I don't remember how I ended that program. I am sure I never legally (playing the game) got to the end myself. I think it was Johnny Harris who told me he SAW all 64 screens, but on screen 64, he had his fourth failure. That was the real gimmick of the game - you didn't lose. Mess up four screens, and it took you back four screens.

Thanks for patching the final screen!
 
The secret to winning is hoping that you can get lucky on screen 61 when it's still possible to control (hope that you get lots of - speed down pipes as well) and then you can fail the last three levels and still complete the game.

By the way, I love the music in Plumb Crazy. The music files end with .DMC (For Deluxe Music Construction - a popular tracker program), Interesting that you put that much effort into making the music sound that good! (Most Loadstar programs would have used SongSmith sound).

1765575103897.png
 
I found the .DMC files and how to make them work - I had a text/music presentation using them. So this is not my music. But you are right, when it comes to SID music, few of us are Elite Dudez.
 
Rev. Dave said:
I found the .DMC files and how to make them work - I had a text/music presentation using them. So this is not my music. But you are right, when it comes to SID music, few of us are Elite Dudez.
Click to expand...
This must have been the program - Euro-Juke from LS #150.
1765669549726.png
 
Very similar to the Presto-Juke program on Loadstar #146 - in which Knees crashes your wedding anniversary. (Basically, one plays Presto songs and the other plays DMC songs)




1765859407916.png
 
I really liked doing these text/music entertainments. It was one way a modest C64 coder could push the envelope - and share some fun writing.
 
I absolutely, completely, and unconditionally FORGOT about this offering. Bravo, A.R. Edlund.

PRESTO was not a bad music processor - but everything we did back in the good ol' days has been so completely overshadowed by the monster machines we now use. What we did was a bit like a dancing bear. It's not about how wonderfully the bear dances, but rather that it dances at all.

But we all were looking around, trying everything to get this new technology to actually do something useful. On that same issue is a program that produces recipes - one of the great marketing hopes for early computers. Also on the issue was an editorial from Jeff Jones bemoaning how clumsy Loadstarites were at transferring files over the internet. Microsoft types just use the easy default thingies. But I think that this flaw was the same pioneering nature that got us into computers before big boys with bloated code figured out how to make it "one-button" easy for everyone. We <expect> such esoteric actions like sending photos all the way around the world to be HARD and require all the cleverness we can muster.

Now, it's just a tool. A dang fine tool, but a tool nonetheless. Sigh.

And one more micro-rant: That $699 original price of our beloved C64s would be over $2,500 dollars today. No wonder some of us had to whine and beg to get our hands on this wonderful contraption!
 
Looking at all the productivity software that Loadstar had published over the years is like a museum piece... Many programs looking so primitive compared to even the most basic of smart phone apps - Programs to file your taxes, database programs, etc. Some outdated because the concept itself has become outdated Programs to balance your checkbook... (The average person doesn't even use checks anymore) Or terminal programs for dial up modems.
 
Fender pointed out in one Diskovery that the days of C64 practicality were fading. The really good, useful programs were already available for the C64. And what was coming with the huge, fast machines that were blowing anything we could accomplish.

We watched the computer age grow up right in front of our eyes. We even had the opportunity to pretend to make these very things happen. We could do or model anything computational. I even tried 3D ray casting. I didn't succeed, but the exploration was fun!
 
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