Secret of Evermore

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Notes

Unused Alchemy Formula#

Hidden with the game's other alchemy formulas is Laser, one that didn't quite make the cut. It can be used through hacking, but is very obviously unfinished. First, its icon is the same as the one used by Levitate. Second, its animation is the same as Acid Rain; not at all laser-like. And finally, despite its description stating it halves enemies' HP, it doesn't. It's just a very weak single/multiple enemy attack spell.

Unused NPC#

Modronius#

This alchemist, internally named Modronius, features an otherwise unused palette. He was presumably intended to be used for Horace's colleague Madronius, who instead just uses the generic purple-sashed "Alchemist" shared by all the other Nobilian alchemists.

Unused NPC data#

Data for the game's NPCs is stored in the same table which holds the enemy data. This means that every NPC has every property that an enemy can have, most notably including a name. Since NPCs normally cannot be targeted, their name is not visible to the player, but modifying NPCs to be targetable will allow their names to be displayed. Doing so reveals a few rather strange names, particularly for Blimp, whose internal name is apparently Harry. The complete list of names used by NPCs is as follows:

Boy
Girl
Man
Woman
Old man
Old woman
Child's Pet
Alchemist
Harry
Fire Eyes
Evil Fire Eyes
Advisor
Horace
Legendary boy
Legendary girl

Legendary Grandma
Legendary King
Legendary Man
Legendary Viking
Strongheart
Modronius
Horace's Twin
Carltron
Gomi
Tinker Tinderbox
Professor Ruffleberg
Camellia Bluegarden
White Queen
Barker
Tiny

Most of these are assigned just as one would expect. The Legendary NPCs are the folks in Gothica. The "Barker" is also a Gothica man, probably so-called because one such NPC is the host of the Exhibition of Oddities.

There are also two names in the NPC/enemy name list which are not referenced by any entry, making them even more unused:

Person

Metalliclaw

There is indeed a metallic-looking palette swap of the Skullclaw enemy which was almost surely supposed to be assigned the name Metalliclaw, but it wasn't.

Stats#

For their other properties, most NPCs have the same placeholder stats, including 1 HP and 0 for all other combat-relevant stats. However, many of the important characters from the second half of the game, such as Gomi and Professor Ruffleberg, have more battle-ready stats, including 30 HP and yielding 15 experience points if defeated. The most robust stats for a non-enemy belong to Tiny - suggesting that he may have at some point been intended to be fought directly in the Pyramid encounter - and weirdly also to the Barker, who yields 915 experience and 10 gold if defeated.

Finally, while most of these unused NPC properties can only be seen if at all by modifying the NPCs to be targetable, Carltron, who shuffles the player away in the opening cutscene, is protected only by being offscreen. If the player uses cheats to walk through walls back out of the Guard Bot room at the start of the game, they'll find Carltron still standing right beside Professor Ruffleburg, where he can be targeted, attacked, and destroyed.

He has no attacks, doesn't move, and cannot interact with the player in any meaningful way, other than turning to face the player when struck. He has 30 HP and awards the player with 15 Experience Points and 10 of the local currency when beaten. (All monetary rewards and prices are determined by the current location, but the game location is initialized to Prehistoria, so Carltron drops Talons rather than Omnitopian Credits.)

Debug Flag#

The Pro Action Replay (PAR) code 7e22eb08 enables debug mode; different parts of the game change behaviour with this flag enabled.

Examples:

• The Podunk intro when creating a new game will loop indefinitely when pressing Start.
• Entering Fire Eyes' village will trigger the ending sequence.
• Screen wrap counters will appear in the Desert of Doom.

Carltron in Crustacia Easter Egg#

If the player kills the robots in the initial Omnitopia sequence by using all of the bazooka's ammo, then Carltron will appear in Crustacia when the boy shipwrecks there at the beginning of Act 2.

Debug Menu#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

To do: GuyInSummers researches the debug functions here: http://acmlm.kafuka.org/archive2/thread.php?id=16881

A debug menu ring was present in a prototype shown at E3 1995, but now needs work to reconstruct it in the final game. It had a total of 11 options: the 10 listed below and Alchemist.

Use the Pro Action Replay (PAR) code 7E0814XX to change one of the items in your ring menu into one of the "Debug:..." items (open the menu a couple of times and try the "Status" icon to get the code working). XX must be replaced with:

• 00 - Debug: Create a monster
• 02 - Debug: Heel
• 04 - Debug: Show thud balls on path
• 06 - Debug: Turn off both backgrounds
• 08 - Debug: Show background 1 only
• 0A - Debug: Show background 2 only
• 0C - Debug: Show both backgrounds
• 0E - Debug: Select map
• 10 - Debug: Mode 7 Flight
• 14 - ROM Creation Date

However, this Pro Action Replay (PAR) code does not really do anything of note - it will just change one item in the ring menu, and that's all. The debug items do not work. Pointers to the programming for each need to be added manually.

Debug: Select map#

This would bring up a menu to warp to any map in the game. The list of maps text is still present in the ROM, but no signs of any programming that loads it.

Plain Text in ROM#

There are lots of plain text found in the ROM. Although a good part of it seems actually used by the game (it is even translated for the different versions), some interesting stuff can be found.

Magic: Thud Ball Missile 
Magic: Orb2Missile
Magic: Orb3Missile
Magic: Shak'em to DEATH!
Magic: Beam me up Scotty
Magic: Thud Vortex
Magic: High Voltage

Possibly debug spells, or the remnants of some magic testing menu. It is unknown if they can still be accessed.

Pixel Units

V-Blank Interrupts

Some diverse tidbits...

ftemp1 = i;
//      slant = ((max_tilt-ftemp1)-ftemp1)/(max_tilt-1);
        if(i<15)
        {
            slant=(15.0-ftemp1)/15.0;

mp1)/(max_tilt-1);
        if(i<15)
        {
            slant=(15.0-ftemp1)/15.0;
        }
        else if(i>15)
        {
            slant=(ftemp1-16.0)/-16.0;
        }
        else

This seems to be some fragments of code.

I can only talk about one life at a time!

It is not clear what is referred by this string, but the fact it was left untranslated indicates it was unused...

error: null life ptr used in script cmd 

No spells in library

Error: too many monster generators!

Finally, some error messages.

In addition, there is what might be some placeholder text for a bazooka description ("No special abilities, yet.") and a list of spells names and descriptions, including laser and a few more unused.
They are "Haul" (described as "Lift and move objects", seems similar to Levitate), "Mud Ball" (described as "Target gets splatted", possibly related to Hard ball or Crush), "Spell Wall" (described as "Protects hero from spells", only bosses use spells so that's probably why this didn't make the cut), and "Split" (described as "Target fights its double", that would have been nice). Unfortunately, these spells cannot be put in the game the same way as laser. "Fortify" is apparently the name of an unused Call Bead spell.

Brian's Test Ground#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page.

Map index $15 is a debugging map with the corresponding name Brian's Test Ground in the maps list. The name likely refers to Brian Fehdrau who was the lead programmer for the game. It shows a background of stars made into a smile.

Attempting to load the map normally crashes the game. It's currently unknown what causes the crash and if this map has any valid data associated with it (e.g., events, NPCs, collision, exits, background music, etc.)

Name Entry Check#

While not unused, most players will never trigger the naughty name filter. On the name entry screen, a subroutine checks if the string FUCK (upper or lower case, or any combination) is present anywhere in the name and, if true, bit $20 is set in memory address $7E22E9. The skeleton in the desert will call you a potty mouth then demand 3 Amulets of Annihilation to board the ship:

If you talk a second time:

Regional Differences#

In the American version when you fire Particle Bombs or Cryo-Blasts from the Bazooka, the ammunition is never actually consumed. Hence an infinite supply. That shouldn't happen. Thunder Ball works fine. The cause is that a routine which sets up attacks will only check and decrement the ammunition count if the attack type is Thunder Ball. The European versions of SoE fixed things by expanding that test to also include Particle Bomb and Cryo-Blast.

References#