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Trivia |
In demo mode, ERIC bases his every move on where little boy no. 10 is and what he's doing (see the routine at 62483). One corollary of this important role is that little boy no. 10 is in all of ERIC's classes (if he weren't, ERIC would be guilty of truancy in demo mode). In fact, little boy no. 10 is the only character besides EINSTEIN who joins ERIC for every class.
There are two POKEs in the BASIC saver program that saves the fast code block to tape:
POKE 29387,80: POKE 29391,45
These POKEs set the instruction at 29130 to 'LD L,80' and the instruction at 29135 to 'DEC L'. (The contents of addresses 24832-32767 are shifted down by 256 bytes to 24576 by the startup routine at 33204 before the game starts.) One wonders what these instructions were before they were POKEd. Perhaps:
29124 | IN A,(31) | |
29126 | AND 31 | Any input from the joystick? |
29128 | JR Z,29154 | Jump if not |
29130 | LD L,79 | 79='O' (LEFT) |
29132 | RRCA | |
29133 | JR C,29151 | Jump if the joystick was moved right |
29135 | INC L | L=80='P' (RIGHT) |
29136 | RRCA | |
29137 | JR C,29151 | Jump if the joystick was moved left |
Which would suggest that David Reidy liked moving the joystick right to move ERIC left, and vice versa. Who knows?
Lesson 43 (MR WITHIT - YELLOW ROOM) does not appear anywhere in the main timetable. But it is a perfectly good lesson. If you want to try it out:
POKE 46544,43
This removes the first PLAYTIME that normally takes place when starting the game for the first time and replaces it with lesson 43.
MR WITHIT is the only teacher who teaches ERIC in all three classrooms. See his personal timetable.
MR ROCKITT never teaches in the Blue Room, and never teaches ERIC anywhere except in the Science Lab. See his personal timetable.
MR CREAK never teaches in the Science Lab. See his personal timetable.
The only time MR ROCKITT, MR CREAK and MISS TAKE will leave their respective skools is when they are chasing ERIC; if ERIC never gave them reason to chase, they would be permanently skoolbound. So do your bit to give these teachers some exercise and fresh air by playing truant once in a while.
Though the left study door is never used in a normal game, there is support built in for opening and closing it (see 56893, for example). To bring the door into service, try these POKEs.
Depending on which part of the play area is currently on-screen, the character-moving routine at 25296 will skip certain minor characters, thus giving a performance boost to the other characters. Don't let the fact that there are immobilised kids off-screen to the left or right distract ERIC from his mission, though.
As if being immobilised while off-screen were not enough, those same minor characters are occasionally teleported to their destinations too. After scrolling the screen right (as ERIC approaches or goes deeper into the boys' skool), the routine at 25080 considers teleporting little girls 1-7; after scrolling the screen left (as ERIC leaves the boys' skool or approaches the girls' skool), the routine at 25026 considers teleporting little boys 1-8. And just before the bell rings for a new lesson, the routine at 63309 considers teleporting little girls 1-7 and little boys 1-8.
If EINSTEIN or ANGELFACE is hit by a conker, he is knocked out, you get 100 points, and a unique sound effect is played. See the section of code at 29943.
During some playtimes, ANGELFACE specifically hunts down HAYLEY for the sole purpose of hitting her (see command list 44). Which is bad, because ERIC loses a potential kiss every time HAYLEY hits the floor (see below).
Every time HAYLEY is knocked down (by ANGELFACE's or ERIC's fist, or by BOY WANDER's catapult pellet, or by the conker), the number of kisses she is prepared to engage in with ERIC is decreased by one (see the section of code at 30155). The lesson here is to look after your girlfriend!
If HAYLEY is given lines - for being the nearest main kid to a downed teacher - they are added to ERIC's total. See 29716.
In lesson 45 (MR WITHIT - SCIENCE LAB), HAYLEY is on her own in the dinner hall. Is she hungry, or waiting for a tryst with ERIC?
Recall Skool Daze, where you could sit on the stairs and be given lines for it. Seems so long ago, eh? Well, even though you can't sit on the stairs in Back to Skool (or be given lines for it), you may find consolation in evidence that suggests it was possible at some point while the game was being developed: the lost lines message at 60480. Unused, but never purged. Feel any better now?
RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool. For example, ERIC's catapult pellet is forced to share its character buffer with plants, desk lids, and water/sherry fired from the pistol. One consequence of this is that ERIC cannot open a desk lid immediately after firing his catapult. Another is that ERIC cannot fire his catapult while standing on a plant that's just been watered. Yet another is that he cannot fire his water pistol while his catapult pellet is still airborne.
As already mentioned, RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool. So much so that BOY WANDER's pellet is forced to share its character buffer with the stinkbomb cloud. However, unlike ERIC's pellet, which is allowed to complete its flight before giving up its buffer to some other object, BOY WANDER's pellet can be terminated immediately by dropping a stinkbomb. Try it and see: find the stinkbombs, then hang around BOY WANDER. When he lets rip with the catapult, drop a stinkbomb and watch the pellet die young. See 57910.
Did I mention that RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool? So much so that when ERIC releases a mouse, instead of using a character buffer of its own, it hijacks the character buffer of one of the boys: little boy no. 9, little boy no. 10, BOY WANDER, ANGELFACE or EINSTEIN. See 31502.
The hijacking will only happen if the boy is far enough away from the girls' skool at the time of release, though, which is safe because mice can only be released in or near the girls' skool. See 31462.
How do the boys get their buffers back? Unlike the 'main' mouse in the game - which shares its buffer with the frog, again owing to RAM limitations - mice released by ERIC eventually die (either from old age, or by ERIC leaving the vicinity of the girls' skool). When a released mouse expires, the character whose buffer it hijacked will rematerialise at x-coordinate 32 on whichever floor the mouse was on when it passed away. That is deep enough into the boys skool that you will never notice it happening. No matter how fast you run from the girls' skool after releasing a bunch of mice, they'll all be dead before you reach the far left end of the boys' skool. See 31254.
One more thing: mice released by ERIC cannot be re-caught. Only the 'main' mouse (using buffer 212) can ever be caught. See 31573.
Ever stood at the top-floor window of the boys' skool (as ERIC, naturally), getting more and more frustrated because time is running out for you to knock ALBERT out with a conker and get the sherry before the bell rings? Then you may find some relief in the knowledge that you will have plenty of time to visit the girls' skool and fill up the pistol with the contents of MISS TAKE's wine stash, no matter how long it took you to give ALBERT a concussion. Why? Because when you do manage to land the fateful nut on ALBERT's bonce, the skool clock is magically wound back, thus delaying the onset of the next lesson. See the section of code at 30145.
When assembly finishes (that is, when MR WACKER has finished speaking), the skool clock's MSB is set to 1, which means the bell will ring soon after, no matter how early MR WACKER arrived at the stage to deliver his detention speech. See 62032.
The catapult in Back to Skool is not quite so handy as the one in Skool Daze. In both games, the catapult's range is the same (13 spaces), but in Back to Skool, its 'hit zone' is shorter (the last 4 spaces of the range instead of the last 7). So in Back to Skool, ERIC has to be further away from his target in order to hit it.
To adjust the hit zone (and the range) of the catapult, see these POKEs.