Short:    HD-Installer for Ian Botham's Cricket V1.0
Author:   Codetapper/Action (codetapper@hotmail.com), ICQ: 26051687
Uploader: Codetapper/Action (codetapper@hotmail.com)
Version:  1.0
Type:     game/patch

This patch applies to "Ian Botham's Cricket" (c) 1992 Celebrity Software/
Mason Soft - 2 disks. Thanks to Carlo Pirri for sending the original!

REQUIREMENTS:
- Slave requires WHDLoad V13+
- Game requires 1.0Mb chip mem (+1.6Mb other memory for preload option)

FEATURES:
- Full load from HD
- Disk images converted back to files
- Manual protection removed
- Loads and saves highest team totals, save games, and fielding tactics to
  separate files
- Keyboard routines fixed
- Snoop bugs fixed (x4)
- Copperlists terminated correctly (x2)
- Now defaults to a joystick controlled game
- Manual included (you will need it for the stupid keyboard controls)
- All files can be compressed to save space (FImp, Propack etc)
- RomIcon, NewIcon and GlowIcon (created by me!)
- Quit option (default key is 'F10')

The original game requires 1Mb of RAM, but it was hard-coded to only accept
1Mb of chip memory, or 512k chip and 512k of "slow" memory at $c00000. I 
began to patch all the $c00000 memory locations but gave up in frustration
at the large number of them. Sadly this means the game requires 1Mb of chip 
memory.

The original game saves over 3 of the game data files, so this has been
changed.  You can clear out the saved games, highest totals and fielding
positions at any time by erasing the IanBothamsCricket.xxxx files located
in the data dir.  There is a default save game containing a 5 over match
against the computer which you can access by the disk icon on the main
menu.

You can view most of the graphics as the files are standard IFF files.  The
file END.SCR contains 3 IFF's containing the various ending screens, so use
a utility like WRip to extract them.

If you compress all the files, you will only need 750k to preload the
entire game, rather than 1.6Mb.

This game is badly written, buggy, inefficient and a pretty shocking game
of cricket.  The load and save game routines in particular are terrible,
with it sometimes deciding to corrupt data, cause access faults, and
disabling the joystick controls!  The default of a 55 over CPU vs CPU game
controlled by the keyboard just shows how sloppy this game is.  A banner on
the field shows "Mike Read's Pop Quiz" and if this team were involved with
that terrible game then it's no wonder this turned out so poorly!

I removed the protection screen completely but found this caused more
glitches in the game, and since you are required to press Space to get past
certain screens, you need a keyboard anyway.  Sorry CD32 users but you can
play better cricket games than this anyway!

Greetings to Carlo for the original, all cricket fans (even though this
game is awful), all Action members and the WHDLoad team!


Codetapper/Action (28-Jul-2007)


         Bug report form, full WHDLoad package and other installs:
                          http://www.whdload.de/

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