Freezing bug in Montana John?

* tries to summon the coder...

For I don't know... I do know there's a bug with a specific heart in the Red Temple which you could pick up while your HP was full. But other than that, back then I did play and finish the game and didn't seen anything serious back then. Now, be adviced that I've only played it in openMSX.

As for the music: it's been my own favorite project. Apart from the melodies, it's mainly the scale of the music that I'm fond of; upon analysis its architecture is much bigger than it may appear to be.

Nice! The composer himself makes an appearance! This soundtrack has been such a highlight of the game for me. Really, really fantastic work, man!

-Tom

Well, like I said, four out of five times it froze on me, it froze on that one particular screen in level 11, and that screen is pretty near the beginning. The password I used to access level 11 for three of those freezes (I hadn't gotten my password yet for one of them, so had to replay level 10) is:

AI0IFJ7RW5DS

Third character there is a zero.

The screen in question is just... three screens, I think? down from the start of the stage. The only thing I can think of that sets it apart from other screens in the game is the sheer number of interactable objects/monsters on that one screen, since there are two skeletons, two ghosts, a bat (two bats?), a water droplet, a ceiling spike, two treasure chests, AND a locked door.

Each time I froze there, I had gotten the door key already from the chest in the starting room, though I don't think that necessarily matters.

I also seemed to freeze while taking damage, often from multiple sources at once (e.g. I got knocked off a ladder by the bat and fell into a skeleton).

And it never took me long to freeze there -- it happened each time within 30 seconds of getting to that screen (or in one case, almost immediately).

Once again, too, just for technical specs, I was playing the game via a Megaflashrom SCC+ cartridge on a Panasonic FS-A1WX MSX2+ system with 64 kB RAM and 128 kB VRAM. And since it's a Japanese system and I'm based out of the U.S., I'm playing in 60 Hz mode by holding Select on bootup.

MP83, who also posts on here fairly regularly, is going to test this as well later today, since he has the same model MSX2+ I do -- though his has been upgraded to 512 kB RAM, and he's using a Carnivore2 cartridge instead of a Megaflashrom SCC+, so those factors might affect things. But he said he'll post in this topic with the results of his test, so we'll see if he meets with a similar fate or if the differences between our systems make him less crash-prone than I am.

Thanks for responding, and great job on the game -- it really was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, even with the freezing!

-Tom

Okay, after playing around with the game on my Panasonic FS-A1WX MSX2+, as well as openMSX emulator using MSX2+ and MSX2 (Japanese) MSX types, I've come to this conclusion:

- The game only freezes when played in 60Hz mode (activated by booting the game with the Select key pressed down).
- You only need to perform a couple of jump-kicks in a busy screen and the game will always freeze eventually.

My guess is that there's just too much stuff for the poor MSX to handle in 60Hz mode. So many enemies (of different types) and the jump-kick SFX played repeatedly.

The music was made for 50 Hz btw, that should be the correct speed.