Talk:Hocus Pocus Map Format

Hidden map editor?

While playing around with the old Wombat 0.4a, I noticed a sequence of some strings in HOCUS.EXE that contain appropriate names for the values 0x0000 to 0x0010 (and maybe more) in the info layer of the maps. As those names would only be required in an editor and not in the actual game per se, this makes me believe that there might be a map editor hidden somewhere in the main executable. --K1n9 Duk3 15:51, 22 December 2011 (GMT)

I think this would be pretty unlikely, it's very uncommon. If there was a map editor there would almost certainly be other related strings too (like the prompts given to the user.) I think it is more likely that at some point the program uses these names to refer to objects in the course of the game - maybe in the form of error messages (like Commander Keen's "GoPlat" error message.) You could test it by changing the names with a hex editor and then running the game. If it runs normally, then the values aren't used by the game - but causing an error to check that part could be tricky! -- Malvineous 00:44, 23 December 2011 (GMT)