threephi
Feb 10, 2003, 01:20 AM
Jan, I have uncovered three issues with Insaniquarium that I think you should take a look at. The first two are fairly major, and the last is pretty minor.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starThe first is a serious bug that dramatically inflates high scores in Challenge mode. It may also lead to game corruption.
In a nutshell, it seems the maximum price for an upgrade that the game can handle is in the vicinity of 2^15 or 32768. When the price of an egg piece increases such that it would exceed this number, instead it cycles to a negative value (probably counting up from -32768). These are true negative prices--in other words, buying an egg piece with a negative price increases your cash balance! Egg piece prices thereafter will cycle between positive and negative values, although not in strict alternation. Additionally, the game score bonus for buying negative-price egg pieces is grossly inflated.
The following four screenshots illustrate this bug in action. Very little game time elapsed between these captures.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs1
This first screen shows the price of an egg piece at $-30,200. I intentionally didn\'t buy any pieces earlier in the game, since there\'s no way to beat that price. ;)
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs2
The second screen shows what happens after purchasing an egg piece at that price. Note the cash balance increase ($30,200 plus a gem or two and minus some food pellets) and the 80,000-point jump in score. I suspect part of this was the usual increase when you gain cash.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs3
And after buying the second egg piece, another 30 grand was added to the bank, but this time the score bonus was a whopping 170,000!
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs4
Now I bought the last egg piece. No cash was added to the bank this time. But instead of the normal doubling of the end score, an additional 60,400 was tagged on to reach a grand total of 904,210! This is considerably higher than it should have been considering the score in screen 1.
Twice while exploring this bug I experienced further issues. In the game shown in the above captures, the \"new high score\" dialog experienced some corruption, which I unfortunately did not get a screen shot of. And in a previous game where I attained negative egg prices, I experienced a sudden soft reset. I have not explored these two events any further, however.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starNaturally, invoking the above bug requires getting a game to last long enough to reach very high egg prices, which isn\'t easy. To do so, I utilized more than just brilliant tactics and strategy. ;) I used a \"feature\" that may not be a bug per se but is certainly a somewhat unfair exploit of what I believe to be a common feature of many, if not all Astraware games.
It has to do with the fact that gamestate is only overwritten when you exit the Insaniquarium app. It is not overwritten when a game ends, nor is it overwritten when a game starts. One can exploit this mechanic to create an effective save game condition by doing the following:
1) Exit Insaniquarium at an appropriate safe point (for example just before the appearance of aliens) .
2) Launch the game again, and if things don\'t turn out the way you want, pause the game (but do not exit) and execute a soft reset.
3) When your PDA boots up again, run Insaniquarium again. The game is restored to the safe point.
This exploit can also be used to \"lock in\" high scores. As long as you make sure not to exit Insaniquarium, you can end a game, get the export score code, and then reset to go back and see if you can do a little better.
I suspect that many players listed atop the high score boards for many Astraware games have used this exploit for a long time, as it makes high-scoring games a lot more attainable.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starThere is a third little issue I ran across which is much less consequential. You can pull up the \"export high score\" menu item while in the tank selection screen for Timed or Challenge modes, and you get the following dialog:
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_export
In discovering all of this I have played Insaniquarium quite a bit, and it\'s proven to be a really fun game with a lot of non-obvious strategy. It really holds up to repeat play.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starThe first is a serious bug that dramatically inflates high scores in Challenge mode. It may also lead to game corruption.
In a nutshell, it seems the maximum price for an upgrade that the game can handle is in the vicinity of 2^15 or 32768. When the price of an egg piece increases such that it would exceed this number, instead it cycles to a negative value (probably counting up from -32768). These are true negative prices--in other words, buying an egg piece with a negative price increases your cash balance! Egg piece prices thereafter will cycle between positive and negative values, although not in strict alternation. Additionally, the game score bonus for buying negative-price egg pieces is grossly inflated.
The following four screenshots illustrate this bug in action. Very little game time elapsed between these captures.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs1
This first screen shows the price of an egg piece at $-30,200. I intentionally didn\'t buy any pieces earlier in the game, since there\'s no way to beat that price. ;)
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs2
The second screen shows what happens after purchasing an egg piece at that price. Note the cash balance increase ($30,200 plus a gem or two and minus some food pellets) and the 80,000-point jump in score. I suspect part of this was the usual increase when you gain cash.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs3
And after buying the second egg piece, another 30 grand was added to the bank, but this time the score bonus was a whopping 170,000!
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_hs4
Now I bought the last egg piece. No cash was added to the bank this time. But instead of the normal doubling of the end score, an additional 60,400 was tagged on to reach a grand total of 904,210! This is considerably higher than it should have been considering the score in screen 1.
Twice while exploring this bug I experienced further issues. In the game shown in the above captures, the \"new high score\" dialog experienced some corruption, which I unfortunately did not get a screen shot of. And in a previous game where I attained negative egg prices, I experienced a sudden soft reset. I have not explored these two events any further, however.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starNaturally, invoking the above bug requires getting a game to last long enough to reach very high egg prices, which isn\'t easy. To do so, I utilized more than just brilliant tactics and strategy. ;) I used a \"feature\" that may not be a bug per se but is certainly a somewhat unfair exploit of what I believe to be a common feature of many, if not all Astraware games.
It has to do with the fact that gamestate is only overwritten when you exit the Insaniquarium app. It is not overwritten when a game ends, nor is it overwritten when a game starts. One can exploit this mechanic to create an effective save game condition by doing the following:
1) Exit Insaniquarium at an appropriate safe point (for example just before the appearance of aliens) .
2) Launch the game again, and if things don\'t turn out the way you want, pause the game (but do not exit) and execute a soft reset.
3) When your PDA boots up again, run Insaniquarium again. The game is restored to the safe point.
This exploit can also be used to \"lock in\" high scores. As long as you make sure not to exit Insaniquarium, you can end a game, get the export score code, and then reset to go back and see if you can do a little better.
I suspect that many players listed atop the high score boards for many Astraware games have used this exploit for a long time, as it makes high-scoring games a lot more attainable.
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_starThere is a third little issue I ran across which is much less consequential. You can pull up the \"export high score\" menu item while in the tank selection screen for Timed or Challenge modes, and you get the following dialog:
http://board.astraware.com/images/uploaded/threephi_iq100_export
In discovering all of this I have played Insaniquarium quite a bit, and it\'s proven to be a really fun game with a lot of non-obvious strategy. It really holds up to repeat play.