BASIC saver POKEs
POKE 29387,80: POKE 29391,45
These POKEs set the instruction at
29130 to 'LD L,80' and the instruction at
29135 to 'DEC L'. (The contents of addresses 24832-32767 are shifted down by 256 bytes to 24576 by the startup routine at
33204 before the game starts.) One wonders what these instructions were before they were POKEd. Perhaps:
| 29124 |
IN A,(31) |
| 29126 |
AND 31 |
| 29128 |
JR Z,29154 |
| 29130 |
LD L,79 |
| 29132 |
RRCA |
| 29133 |
JR C,29151 |
| 29135 |
INC L |
| 29136 |
RRCA |
| 29137 |
JR C,29151 |
Which would suggest that David Reidy liked moving the joystick right to move ERIC left, and vice versa. Who knows?
MR WACKER waits for ERIC
Like time, MR WACKER waits for no man - except when it's assembly and the man (or boy) is ERIC. In fact, MR WACKER will dutifully wait on stage, silent and motionless, until ERIC has arrived in the vicinity of the assembly hall, before delivering his detention speech.
To verify this curious phenomenon, proceed as follows. When the bell rings for assembly, go to the right end of the dinner hall and stand so that the stairs leading down to the stage are just visible at the far right of the screen. Now keep an eye on MR WACKER; when he decides that it's time to start assembly and begins his descent down those stairs, move left until the screen has scrolled twice and the stage is no longer in view. Then wait a bit - long enough for MR WACKER to have reached the stage and begun his speech. After that, move right until the screen scrolls once and brings MR WACKER back into view. MR WACKER will be standing on the stage, and only when the screen stops scrolling will he begin his detention speech.
(Hanging around on the outskirts of the assembly hall during assembly is a fine way to get lines, so you might want to use the
no lines POKE before trying this for yourself.)
The reason for this uncharacteristically patient behaviour is the routine at
62032, which makes MR WACKER stand on the stage doing nothing until he comes into view (or the bell rings for the next lesson, whichever happens first).
Lesson 43, where art thou?
Lesson
43 (MR WITHIT - YELLOW ROOM) does not appear anywhere in the
main timetable. But it is a perfectly good lesson. If you want to try it out:
This removes the first PLAYTIME that normally takes place when starting the game for the first time and replaces it with lesson 43.
Timetable stats
There are 64 periods in the
main timetable: 16 playtimes, 8 assemblies, 2 dinner periods, and 38 lesson periods (when ERIC is supposed to be in either a classroom or the Revision Library).
In the 38 lesson periods, ERIC is scheduled to be in the Science Lab 15 times, the Blue Room 7 times, the Yellow Room 7 times, and the Revision Library 9 times.
ERIC has 11 classes with MR ROCKITT, 10 classes with MR CREAK, and 8 classes with MR WITHIT.
ERIC has 11 classes with MR ROCKITT in the Science Lab (which is more than any other teacher/classroom combination), but only one class with MR WITHIT in the Yellow Room.
MR WACKER is on dinner duty for one of the dinner periods, and MR WITHIT is on duty for the other one.
MR CREAK is the busiest teacher: he teaches a class in 37 of the 38 lesson periods (lesson
42 being the only time he takes a break). MR WITHIT is the laziest teacher, teaching a class in only 29 periods.
MR ROCKITT teaches most often in the Science Lab (28 times), MR CREAK teaches most often in the Yellow Room (23 times), and MR WITHIT teaches most often in the Blue Room (18 times).
MR WACKER spends 21 of the lesson periods (including 4 of the 9 Revision Library periods) pacing up and down in his study, and the remaining 17 lesson periods on a tour of the boys' skool, oscillating between the cloak room, the assembly hall stage, and his study.
Every boy is taught at least 4 times by each teacher, and at least 4 times in each classroom. In addition, every boy has at least one lesson period in the Revision Library, though little boy no. 9 has only one period there (lesson
42), while all the others have at least three.
ANGELFACE spends more lesson periods in the Revision Library than any other boy (14 periods compared to ERIC's 9).
In the 38 lesson periods, MISS TAKE teaches 24 times in the top-floor classroom and 14 times in the middle-floor classroom.
HAYLEY has only one lesson period in a classroom with no teacher (lesson
42 in the top-floor classroom); each of the other little girls has at least three such lesson periods.
Playtime probabilities
Little boys 4-10 spend every playtime (of which there are 16 in the
main timetable) walking around from one
randomly chosen location to another; little boys 1-3, however, each spend two of these playtimes walking up and down in the Revision Library until the bell rings.
Like little boys 4-10, all the little girls spend every playtime on a random walkabout; HAYLEY, however, spends 12 playtimes on random walkabouts, and 4 playtimes walking up and down in the kitchen in the girls' skool until the bell rings.
MISS TAKE spends 9 playtimes walking up and down in the kitchen in the girls' skool, and the remaining 7 on random walkabouts.
BOY WANDER spends two playtimes writing on the boards in the girls' skool, 4 writing on the boards in the boys' skool, and the remaining 10 on random walkabouts.
ANGELFACE spends 9 playtimes
stalking HAYLEY, and the remaining 7 on random walkabouts.
Fast ways from A to B
As if being immobilised while off-screen were not enough, those same minor characters are occasionally teleported to their destinations too. After scrolling the screen right (as ERIC approaches or goes deeper into the boys' skool), the routine at
25080 considers teleporting little girls 1-7; after scrolling the screen left (as ERIC leaves the boys' skool or approaches the girls' skool), the routine at
25026 considers teleporting little boys 1-8. And just before the bell rings for a new lesson, the routine at
63309 considers teleporting little girls 1-7 and little boys 1-8.
ERIC's pellet v. water v. plant v. desk lid
RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool. For example, ERIC's catapult pellet is forced to share its character buffer with plants, desk lids, and water/sherry fired from the pistol. One consequence of this is that ERIC cannot open a desk lid immediately after firing his catapult. Another is that ERIC cannot fire his catapult immediately after firing his water pistol, or while waiting for a watered plant to grow. Yet another is that he cannot fire his water pistol while his catapult pellet is still airborne.
All about mice
Did I mention that RAM is in short supply in Back to Skool? So much so that when ERIC releases a mouse, instead of using a character buffer of its own, it hijacks the character buffer of one of the boys: little boy no. 9, little boy no. 10, BOY WANDER, ANGELFACE or EINSTEIN. See
31502.
The hijacking will only happen if the boy is far enough away from the girls' skool at the time of release, though, which is safe because mice can only be released in the girls' skool. See
31462.
How do the boys get their buffers back? Unlike the 'main' mouse in the game - which shares its buffer with the frog, again owing to RAM limitations - mice released by ERIC eventually die (either from old age, or by ERIC leaving the vicinity of the girls' skool). When a released mouse expires, the character whose buffer it hijacked will rematerialise at x-coordinate 32 on whichever floor the mouse was on when it passed away. That is deep enough into the boys skool that you will never notice it happening. No matter how fast you run from the girls' skool after releasing a bunch of mice, they'll all be dead before you reach the far left end of the boys' skool. See
31254.
Don't bother trying to catch any of the mice released by ERIC: they cannot be re-caught. Only the 'main' mouse (using buffer 212) can ever be caught. See
31573.
The aforementioned 'main' mouse always begins life in a new game at coordinates (17,3) in the Blue Room (see
54305).
One more thing: when ERIC catches a mouse, a new one is supposed to materialise somewhere else off-screen. However, because of a
bug in the mouse placement code, the new mouse can sometimes be spotted appearing on-screen out of thin air at x-coordinate 10, 88 or 170.
Inferior catapult
The catapult in Back to Skool is not quite so handy as the one in Skool Daze. In both games, the catapult's range is the same (13 spaces), but in Back to Skool, its 'hit zone' is shorter (the last 4 spaces of the range instead of the last 7). So in Back to Skool, ERIC has to be further away from his target in order to hit it.
To adjust the hit zone (and the range) of the catapult, see
these POKEs.