Vectrex Arcade System

MINE STORM

· At least 3 versions exist!  The first 2 versions have some bugs in them (described below).  These were fixed in the 3rd version, called “Mine Storm II”.  The test cart checksum will give a different value for different ROM versions so this is a way for you to check. 

· To see invisible mines, turn the brightness up.  Level 2 in Mine Storm II (which was included in later MB models) features magnetic mines; the GCE version doesn’t.

· BUG: The first version has a bug which may cause the game to reset back to the title screen. Once a level is cleared, the program jumps to some code which looks to see if any buttons are pressed - if they are, then it assumes the user wants to start a new game.  This routine should have only been executed when a game was over.  According to the Vectrex help line is that after level 13, if you had more than 1 shot on the screen when the last mine was destroyed, the system would reset. 

· BUG: The first 2 versions have the “level 13” bug.  Each level of Mine Storm is described by an entry in an array of structures; which determines such details as the types of mines at a given level, etc.  Unfortunately, the array was only defined to contain 13 entries!  That's why the first 13 levels work as expected; however, once you got past level 13, the game ran out of array entries.  Since the game doesn’t check for this, it simply uses the next block of code after the array for level details.  The code was smart enough to skip levels if there were no valid mines, which is why that sometimes happens.


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