The classic SkoolDaze game is finally available for your Oric!
In the role of our hero, Eric (or any other name you decide to call him and the rest of the cast), you know that inside the staffroom safe are kept the school reports. And, being Eric, you realise that you must at all costs remove your report before it comes to the attention of the Headmaster.
We tried to keep it as faithful to the original as possible, which has been a really difficult task due to the Oric 6 pixels per byte display. You can follow the development progress in the Defence Force forums.
Some small differences exist, though. A few of them are intentional, others just due to slightly different code. Anyway the gaming experience should be the same than in the original Spectrum version.
The combination to the safe consists of four letters, each master knowing one letter and the Headmaster's letter always coming first. To get hold of the combination, you first have to hit all the shields hanging on the school walls. Trouble is, this isn't as easy as it looks. Some of them can be hit by jumping up. Others are more difficult. You could try and hit a shield by bouncing a pellet off a master's head whilst he is sitting on the ground. Or, being Eric, you may decide to knock over one of the boys and, whilst he's flattened, clamber up on him so that you can jump higher.
OK. So all the shields are upside-down, disorienting the poor masters. Knock them over now and, before they can stop themselves, they'll reveal their letter of the code. All except for the history master, of course, who because of his great age and poor eyesight can't be trusted to remember. His letter has been implanted into his mind hypnotically. To make him reveal it, you must find out the year he was born (which, in case you were wondering, changes each game). Then, creep into a room before he gets there and, if the board is clean, write it on the blackboard. When he goes into that room and sees his birthdate he will, as if by post-hypnotic suggestion, give away his letter.
Now that you know all the letters of the combination, all you have to do is work out which order they go in. You know that the Headmaster's letter is always first, but as for the other three ... you'll just have to try the various possibilities. Find a clean blackboard and write out a combination.
Rush back to the staffroom and jump up to reach the safe with your hand. If nothing happens, then the combination must be wrong, so you'd better find another clean blackboard and try a different one.
With the safe open, your troubles still aren't over, as the upside-down shields are rather a giveaway. You now have to hit all of them again.
Done it? Congratulations! You are now allowed, along with all your friends, to move on to the next class at school. But remember, there will be reports at the end of this term.....
Boys shall attend lessons as shown in the timetable at the bottom of the screen. (Remember that because you cheated in the exams last year, you always go to the same lessons as the swot.)
Boys do not score points by attending lessons, but may be given lines if caught in the wrong place.
Boys who acquire over 10,000 lines shall be expelled immediately from the school.
Boys are not allowed to enter the staffroom or the Headmaster's study. Take care.
At playtime, boys are supposed to be playing and not in any of the classrooms.
Boys shall not hit their schoolmates.
Boys shall not fire catapults.
Boys are expected to walk quietly in the corridors, they are not for running or sitting in.
Due to restrictions imposed by the owners of the copyright (see below), we cannot offer a direct download of this game here. Downloading should be done through www.oric.org, where you need to be a registered user.
Registering is free and Oric International will not spam you with email or share your data with anyone, so it is an easy process
If you want to load Skool Daze on a real Oric, just convert it to wav first, using tap2wav or tap2cd (Check for those on Fabrice France's site and read the instructions).
However, along with the release of this game, you should find a pre-generated wav file with a custom fast loader. It is only valid for 1.1 ROMS, beware.
(Note: It seems this is not working in the Pravetz)
We have tested the loading process on different machines and with different tools and it is quite reliable once the appropriate volume setting is found.
If the loading is aborted (usually with an 'Errors found' message, though it might not be visible if already in HIRES mode -- just the 'Ready' prompt) try altering the volume until the game loads and auto starts.
If you are using a modified ROM with 60Hz and you want to generate the wav file from the tape image yourself, you should get to HIRES mode *before* loading the game, so it does not set the HIRES 50Hz mode. Just issue a HIRES:CLOAD"" command and it should work. As the pre-generated wav files witches to HIRES using a ROM call before loading the screen, it should work with modified ROMs.
If you like the game, if you have questions, if you want to post encouragement messages or suggestions, feel free to register on the Defence-Force forums and post your message in the official SkoolDaze feedback and review thread
This version of Skool Daze would have never seen the light without the help of the Oric community. Thanks to Symoon for providing the first approach of the loading screen, and Dbug for his work in refining it, and also for his ideas about how to reduce the code size.
Thanks to Symoon, Dbug, Twilighte, Anti/rad and all the rest of the oricians who tested the game and provided feedback and ideas.
Special thanks to Richard Dymond (SkoolKid) for the incredible work he did in commenting the disassembly of the original game in his site, which was an invaluable source of information.
Happy playing!!! -- Chema
1. This includes the Oric 1, Oric Atmos, and Oric Telestrat. OSDK is not compatible with the first, original, machine in the Oric range (the Microtan 65). If you never heard of Oric before, you can read about it on Wikipedia↩
2. This game should be compatible with the following emulators: Oricutron, Euphoric (and derived versions like Caloric or XEuphoric), Mess, Atoric, Amoric, and probably some more.↩
Atari Demos
Source code
Oric.org page
