Posts for TurboC--

Posted: 7/7/2005 4:23 AM
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TurboC--
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2005
Posts: 3
Yes, I pretty much gathered it was a "speedruns" forum, just didn't know what that was called. I have watched some of the videos before. By the way, your current list is completely correct, I just verified it using the results from my completed C program, which correctly generated all vault codes based on the known S-code and bit-flipping, with the method given to me by "DarkCecil". So his method and your list were right. I'm glad I could independantly verify it without doing them all by hand. You actually went through the entire game for each PW?? o.O Well, at least you could walk through walls I guess... Mathematically the A-code is no different from any of the other 31 codes, as it obeys the same rules and can be generated from the S-code (or any code) in the same way. I don't think it's right to call the first PW digit a "seed" after all, that was just my original musing. You could look at it this way. The "real" vault combo is the A-combo (00000 combo.) Then the first digit in the password modifies the vault combo the exact same way it modifies the other 8 digits in the password, by bit-flipping. But I don't remember the proper term for what the first PW digit would be (bit mask?) Maybe you are seeing patterns in the A-combo as different because only the highest order bits in the vault combos happen to have an odd mix of 0's and 1's? I don't know, just something I noticed. Anyway, I think most everything about the password is utterly and totally conquered now. Thanks for the idea-bouncing, I'll update the FAQ shortly.
Posted: 7/7/2005 3:12 AM
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TurboC--
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2005
Posts: 3
OK. I just didn't know if you used hacks to cause the game to have an "A" password which it couldn't otherwise have. Also ... entry times for each code? From all that optimal-speed game beating you guys do, I can see. Heh. How did you achieve your vault code list? Did you compare some known ones to try to derive the rest? The original person that emailed me the method of generating the vault codes (which I have yet to include in my FAQ but will soon) - his method works with all tested codes, and makes perfect sense in terms of the binary workings of the password. In short, say you changed from S-code to C-code. That is a change from 10000 to 00010. Bits 1 and 4 are changed - this flips bits 1 and 4 in all the digits in the vault code. In essence, the vault code is affected in the same way the password is - by the vault-code-PW-digit. Starting with S-vault-code and flipping those bits, the resulting C-vault-code is then N1KMHGOF. Hmm, that matches yours, not his. It is a lot of tedious work to do all 31, and error-prone. To avoid further human error, I'm just going to write a C-program to let me do it automatically. I will post the results and credit you both accordingly. P.S. Yes I HATE W&W games for their frustration level as well! (Though they were cool.) Cracking Ironsword would be a good project...
Posted: 7/7/2005 1:44 AM
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TurboC--
Experienced Forum User
Joined: 7/7/2005
Posts: 3
Hey there. I'm the one that cracked the Gauntlet PW, and posted it on GameFAQs. Thanks for the interest. It's been a while since I've thought about it. In fact, I DID mention in the FAQ that 'A' passwords do not work. It's addressed in the section labelled 'Vault Combination - Part 1'. As explained in the password FAQ, the first PW digit (vault code digit) affects all the other digits in the password, by flipping their bits where the vault digit's bits are 1. It's because of this security method that (I believe) they intentionally did not allow 'A' (00000) codes, as that would effectively remove that level of security. But, are you saying that the game will in fact generate 'A' codes on its own? That would be quite a screw-up. Maybe I misread your post on that, though. Congrats on beating Gauntlet, I never had the patience (and haven't even seen the invisible levels.) My brother-in-law spent months on it, but gave up. Personally I find cracking passwords a lot more rewarding than seeing an end-game screen. :D When I was 14 I cracked the PW to Solar Jetman, and excitedly mailed the completed results off to Nintendo Power. Got back a form letter and never saw my crack printed, then later saw someone that submitted "The Q Code!!" with all Q's, which sends you to some glitch board. That ticked me off a lot (but now as an adult I understand why they wouldn't want to release full password crack info for a game...) I should dig out my old Solar Jetman PW crack papers, and post it sometime as well. I solved both with basically the same method, which did not involve any ROM cracking of any kind. Just observation and deduction. However with the advent of GBA flash cards w/ NES emulators (read - SAVE STATE), I can solve them MUCH more quickly. (Man I remember having to put all those Solar Jetman passwords in by hand for hours...) I also made some progress on Faxanadu, but never finished it. The coolest part of PW cracks is when (like in Solar Jetman) you can generate working passwords that the game could have never given you, and see glitch boards and truly weird things. Anyone interested in having a particularly troublesome/popular game password cracked? (Hard to find one more troublesome than Gauntlet though, I imagine...)