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SprPoP -- Prince of Persia for the Sprinter Sp2000
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A port of Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia (1989) to the Sprinter Sp2000.
The graphics are the VGA ones from the MS-DOS release, in 320x256 with a
256-colour palette; the music and the sound effects are the digitised
originals, played through the CBL channel. All fourteen levels, the title
sequence, the story screens, the intro with the Princess and Jaffar, the
ending and the hall of fame are in.
RUNNING IT
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From the DSS prompt, on the drive the game sits on:
sprpop
The game needs its data directories next to the program:
BG\ background tiles KID\ the prince
GUARD\ guards SKEL\ the skeleton
VIZIER\ Jaffar SHADOW\ the shadow
SND\ sound effects MUS\ music
FONT\ text font TITLE\ title screens
PV\ story and intro screens LEVELS\ the fourteen levels
If a directory is missing the game still starts, but whatever lived there
will be silent or invisible.
CONTROLS
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Running and climbing
Left / Right turn, or run
Up jump, or climb up
Down crouch, or climb down
Down + Left/Right hop
Shift pick things up
Shift + Left/Right careful step
Home or Up+Left jump to the left
PgUp or Up+Right jump to the right
Up while running running jump
Shift while falling grab onto a ledge
Sword fighting
Left / Right advance or retreat
Shift strike
Up block
Down put the sword away
(Shift draws it again)
While the game runs
Backspace or Esc pause and open the menu
Space how much time is left
T keep the timer on screen
F6 quicksave
F9 quickload
Ctrl+A restart the level
Ctrl+R back to the title screen
Ctrl+S sound on / off
Ctrl+M music on / off
Ctrl+V show the build version
Ctrl+Q or F10 quit
F10 works everywhere, including the title sequence. Any other key during
the titles or the story screens skips straight into the game.
CHEATS
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The cheats of the original, and they are on by default in this build. You
can turn them off on the Settings screen.
Shift+L go to the next level
+ / - one minute more / less
K kill the guard
Shift+I turn the screen upside down
Shift+W slow falling
Shift+S restore one hit point
Shift+T one more hit point (up to ten)
[ / ] nudge the prince one pixel
Two cheats of the original are NOT here yet: R (resurrect the prince) and
H / J / U / N with Ctrl+B (look at the neighbouring room).
Debug keys of this port, which the original has no equivalent for. They
all sit under Ctrl so that no plain letter is taken away from the layout
above.
Ctrl+I immortality: off / in combat / almost everything
Ctrl+P speed mode
Ctrl+F freeze the frame, and unfreeze it
Ctrl+D debug bar: level, room, speed, sound, timer
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+- jump to the next / previous room by number
FILES THE GAME WRITES
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POP.CFG settings
POP.SAV quicksave, and POP.BAK the one before it
POP.HOF hall of fame
All of them appear next to the program, and all of them can be deleted --
the game will simply start from its defaults again.
WHAT IS NOT FINISHED
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All fourteen levels have been played through. The port is still under
active development, so rough edges do turn up; the ones we know about are
tracked in the project's own bug list.
Missing against the original: the R cheat (resurrect the prince), the
H / J / U / N and Ctrl+B cheats for looking at neighbouring rooms, and the
screenshot key (F12).
CREDITS
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Prince of Persia was created by Jordan Mechner in 1989.
The mechanics of this port were checked against SDLPoP
(github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP), which is the authoritative reading of how the
original engine behaves. The graphics come from the MS-DOS release, the
sound effects from its DIGISND files, and the music from recordings of the
DOS soundtrack.
The port itself is built with sprinter-cc, our SDCC-based toolchain for the
Sprinter Sp2000.
snark13
6cc8611d03