CRACKING CREATURES 2: How John and Steve Rowlands helped create CF’s epic playing guide

John and Steve Rowlands, programmers of Creatures 2, gave Andy Roberts a stack of notes to crack the game and make the player’s guide as good as it is. Those notes have been in a drawer for over 20 years. They’re being published here for the very first time! Here’s Andy to explain:

“This first scan is an example of the information for the Interlude Screens which John Rowlands kindly supplied; at the top you can see a printout directly from the C2 source code, with his pencil notes as to which variable does what (this would allow me to pull out information like the coin delays, maximum number of extra lives, fuzzies to save, time limits, snatcher aggression, etc.). Underneath, he added additional notes for various ways to hack the game to make it easier.”

Here’s the full feature on issue 27’s epic playing guide and how it was done.

And those type-in listings for infinite lives and unlimited everything? “Have a look at the final two scans. I took John’s notes and put together a series of notes for Martin Pugh and Warren Pilkington; from these directions, they produced the type-in programs which appear at the start of the guide.”