Editor Module For Anvil Of Dawn
by David Melanson, Using Jack Hartman's UGE v 1.0
Anvil of Dawn, a 1st-person adventure game, claims a review on its
cover of "Better Than Stonekeep" from a gaming magazine. Well, I don't
really know about THAT...but it is pretty cool, if you can live with the
lousy lip-synching. I will say that the bad guys kick off in some TRULY
impressive manners. Unfortunately for many adventurers, you'll also
discover that YOU can kick off as well when facing some of the nastier
beasts or spells. So, how do you defend yourself against the forces of
darkness and the Warlord? Glad you asked.
For those of you unfamiliar with my previous UGE work, check out
my home page at http://www.ici.net/customers/overkill/overkill.htm, and
choose the "UGE Page" option. There, you'll find the other modules I've
developed for: Might and Magic IV & V, Star Trail (Realms Of Arkania II),
Menzoberranzen, Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession, Dark Legions, Shadowcaster,
Druid: Daemons Of The Mind, Front Page Sports Football, One Must Fall 2097,
and Castle Of The Winds. Oh yeah. And Stonekeep, too...
Anyway, enough advertising. Here, however, comes the spiel: I
develop these modules and make them available without any sort of
registration charge. However, I do ask that if you're going to use one of
my modules, PLEASE register UGE with Hartman Game Utilities. It's a very
nice program, and Jack's put a lot of work into it; it's worth the
investment. And no, I don't get kickbacks for saying that, either (although
he DID develop the Module Generator for me for the Football module...)
On to the game:
Anvil Of Dawn has many features that can be changed. These will be
taken out of order that they appear in the module (and thus in the saved
game file). To use the module, Add it to your list of editable games on
the UGE main menu page. The file you want to edit is in the SAVE
subdirectory of your Anvil of Dawn directory, with the name SAVEXX.DAT,
where XX is the saved game slot # (starting with Game #0 listed in the
Anvil Save/Restore Menu being contained in save00.dat) The various files
may appear to be different sizes (usually a bad thing for editors), but
fortunately, the file size does not affect the things this module will edit.
First off, let me say that, like the Stonekeep module, Inventory was
impossible to edit; too many variables change when you pick up any object to
accurately determine which one contains the data you want. So you'll have
to struggle along without inventory changes. No problem, though...as you'll
soon see, you don't have to worry about Armor at all, which counts a LOT for
weight reduction...
You can change your character's name. This is not a big deal, but
it's always nice if you want to rename "Heinrich" to "Heinrich The Great"
or something like that.
You can edit your Current and Maximum Hit Points and Spell Points.
The game manual says you can have a maximum Hit Points of 200. Yeah, right.
I've put it up WELL over 1,000 with this. Same with spell points; you
want 20,000 Spell Points? Go right ahead and give 'em to yourself.
You can edit your levels for all four attributes (Strength, Stamina,
Agility, and Power). "Normally" these can range from 1-10; I've set them
to 11 with no ill effects. I don't know what would happen over 19, though.
Experiment if you like, but be sure to back up your saved game files!
Spells are a different story, and a serious pain in the ass to
implement. You CAN actually give yourself the capability to cast any of
the 24 spells at any time. To make a spell able to be cast, first set its
appropriate "toggle" flag (i.e. set the "Iron Fist Spell" variable to 1 if
you want to be able to cast the Iron Fist spell). Next, you have to make a
spell ICON active for it. Set the "Spell Toggle" flag to 1 to make the
icons active. Set the "Total # Of Spells" to the number of spells you wish
to have icons for (should be equal to the number of individual spells you
set toggle flags for above. Maximum # of spells is 24.) Then you must
determine how many icons you want in each "column" of icons (safest number
is four). Then, you must tell the game file what the FIRST icon in each
column will appear as; after you set that, the remaining icons in the column
will be the next one (or two or three or none, depending on how many icons
you have in that "column") will be the next spells you have available (set
by the individual toggle flags above). Spell numbers are listed below in
Table A. For those of you who just went "what the hell is he talking about"
you are not alone. To make your life simple, just set the "Blah blah blah
Spell" values all to 1, then set these values:
Total # Of Spells 24
Spell Toggle 1
Spells In Column 1 4
Column 1 Start Spell 0
Spells In Column 2 4
Column 2 Start Spell 4
Spells In Column 3 4
First Spell Column 3 8
Spells In Column 4 4
First Spell Column 4 12
Spells In Column 5 4
First Spell Column 5 16
Spells In Column 6 4
First Spell Column 6 20
This will give you icons to cast all 24 spells in six columns of
four icons each (note the little arrows to the bottom of the two visible
columns to scroll left and right). Note these ONLY show up in a dungeon
or building; when outdoors, only a few select spells (Healing Weave, Mind
of Artisans, and Soul Link, if you have them) ever show up on the screen.
(This is because the others won't do you much good out there)
Of course, being able to cast a spell does not mean that you will
be very GOOD at casting the spell, just as having a weapon doesn't mean
you're very good at using it. While there are actual values for skills
that could be changed, just changing them right off the bat doesn't seem
to work as well (in terms of increasing power of weapons or spells) as
actually gaining the levels. So instead, I included fields for both
Weapon and Magic experience. Before you exit the first "dungeon" you're
in (the little keep with the guards & messenger dude), set both of these
values to 100,000. When you leave the keep, you will have sufficient
"experience" to promote ALL your weapon levels and ALL your spell levels
to their maximum values of 10. (The computer will give you a chance to
do just that!) That way, you can be sure your skill promotions will be
fully effective.
You can teleport anywhere in the game. The field "X-Coordinate"
determines your X-axis position on your current level of the game (a.k.a.
your relative east-west position). "Y-Coordinate" does the same, except
with your relative north-south position. Adding 1 to Y-Coordinate moves you
one square south, regardless of barriers in your way. Subtracting 1 moves
you one square north. Adding 1 to X-Coordinate moves you one square east,
and subtracting 1 moves you one square west. You can teleport any number
of squares in any direction, but I suggest you only teleport to known areas;
teleporting into a wall can be rather bad for your health. You can also
teleport from "level" to "level," using the Level Number field. For
example, the level of the place you start your adventure in is 0. To
teleport back to the place where you started the whole game at any time,
set X-Coordinate to 14, Y-Coordinate to 10, and Level Number to 0.
Direction faced simply determines which way you're looking when you restore
the game. 0=North, 1=East, 2=South, 3=West. Not much use, but hey, why
not, right?
Finally, the most important feature of all in my book-Inverse armor
percentage. This is the amount of damage you will take from any given
attack. When you start the game, you have a 100 in this field; you are
unarmored and take 100% damage from any attack that lands. Let's say you
find a helm that reduces this number to 95 when equipped. That means you
take only 95% of any damage you would normally suffer from ANY attack.
Guess what happens if you set this number to 0, boys and girls...bingo.
God mode, effectively...you take 0% damage from ANY attack. And I do
mean ANY attack. Of course, do NOT equip any armor you find if you set
this to 0; setting damage % below 0 may result in some NASTY effects.
Just a warning to you.
TABLE A: Spells By ID #
0=Iron Fist Of Chaos 1=Granite Ward Of Tempered Skin
2=Deadly Spores Of Earthen Rot 3=Dance Upon The Stones Of Wind
4=Shrouded Gale Of Vengeful Winds 5=Ghastlly Howl Of Mortal Anguish
6=Unholy Conflagration 7=Ash And Cinders 8=Fire Haven
9=Shackles Of Ice 10=Reflections Of The Lake
11=Vampiric Mist Of Innate Weakness 12=Fountain Of Scorching Vapors
13=Laughing Skull of Thunderous Might 14=Roaring Column of Lightning Wild
15=Heavenly Mend of Unseen Artisans 16=Blessed Weave of Healing Wounds
17=Heightened Flesh of Strength & Hale 18=Bane's Boiling Blood
19=The Strength Of Titans 20=Rage Of Fallen Heroes
21=Ritual Of Unmaking 22=The Dark Cloak Of Shadow
23=Soul Link
Well, that's about it for this module. I welcome comments,
complaints, or questions at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., but PLEASE no requests-not
every game is editable (I've found that out the hard way...a LOT) and I
don't have every game out there. Enjoy, and GO GET THE WARLORD!
-Dave Melanson
(This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
(a.k.a. Mortuai)
Files : 3, NeW:NONE, oLD:NONE
uL Node : 1, NFo:NONE, D?Z:NONE
