Monster Bash

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Monster Bash is a game where you shoot horror-themed enemies with a slingshot and rescue household pets. What more could you ask for?

It uses a newly developed engine called F.A.S.T., which was later reused for Realms of Chaos; not to be confused with the (unrelated) FAST engine used in The Monuments of Mars.

Unused Enemies#

In the final boss level in the shareware episode, there is a swamp goblin in the level from episode 3. However, as the sprites are not included in the shareware episode, the creature does not appear. It can still be seen by opening the level in a level editor.

Debugging and Cheat Keys#

During the game, pressing Z + F10 will give you five extra lives. This is an official cheat code, and only works in the registered version. You can also use the undocumented M + F10 to see some information about memory use, and P + F10 to pause the game without displaying a "game paused" popup window.

The game also includes code for invincibility and level warp cheats; however, the key codes to activate these have been removed. By altering the game executable, it is possible to change one of the existing activation keys (e.g. memory use) to run this unused code instead, making these functions accessible again.

Unused Graphics#

The game includes an unused episode selection menu. This was used in at least one version of the shareware release, where selecting anything other than Episode 1 would naturally prompt you to buy the full version.

In the final game, the episode was chosen by launching a different executable file (bash1.exe for episode 1, bash2.exe for episode 2, etc.)

These graphics would ultimately end up being used (albeit in a tweaked and updated form) in Monster Bash HD, some 28 years later.

References#