Harry the Handsome Executive is a new game from Ambrosia Software that looks like a cross between Dilbert and Indiana Jones. Very tongue in cheek and lots of fun to play. One minor drawback of the game is that the saves (copy machines) are few and far between - usually only one, and sometimes none per level. Sometimes you have struggled so hard to get to a save that you are out of health and ammo when you get there. This is where the Harry Cheater comes in.
How to use it:
Just drag your saved files onto the Harry Cheater application (or open the application and use the Select File menu to find your file) and you will see a dialog box containing all the things that are changeable so far.
Controls of the initial dialog box:
• The Level is not editable, it is just there to let you know that you are editing the right file.
• X, Y and Rot are Harry's position on the map - don't edit these unless you know what you are doing. (Increase in X is further right, increase in Y is down, both max out at 4095. Rotation is 0-350 in 10 degree increments).
• The Score is just that - go ahead, inflate your ego all you want!
• Comfort is your life force, you might want to max this out.
• Corporate Favor isn't as important (unless you are running really low), you only lose this when you accidentally shoot coworkers. I usually just leave this at about half.
• Stapler Ammo for all three kinds of staplers can be anywhere from 0 to 100.
• Show Whole Map: This makes your game think that Harry has been to every point on the map, including secret areas and places that you can't even get to. No more blacked out regions when you hit the 'Tab' key.
• Item Macros: Brings up the macro dialog box. Allows you to change items on this level by type. Be careful with this, as there is currently no error checking.
• Edit Items: Brings up the single item edit box. Allows you to change an individual item by number. Same warning here, there is no error checking, so be careful.
• Items: Harry must have 12 pockets, 'cuz that's how many things you can hold. Choose which type of item from the menu and how many of that item you want. Giving yourself more than one stapler is possible, but doesn't do any good. Lots of Soda Cans and Caffeine can be fun though!
Note: When you save between levels (not at copy machines), information about the upcoming level is not stored yet, so you can't change Harry's position, show the whole map or edit any items. These options are disabled for that type of saved games.
Controls of the Macro dialog box:
• Pick your macro from the list on the left and the information about it will appear in the editable region on the right.
• Add Macro will take the information on the right and create a new item in the list with that information.
• Modify Macro will take the information and overwrite the currently selected macro with that information.
• Delete Macro gets rid of macros that you no longer want.
• Run Macro - this is the fun part, searches through the items in your saved game for items in the 'from' box. Modifies that item according to your 'to' box and the parameters that you specify. *Note* Remember that you are running the macro that is selected in the list, not the information in the edit region - so if you make changes, you must hit modify macro before those changes will be run. (I usually just click another macro, then click the one that I want, just to make sure that the parameters are what I expect them to be).
• Done exits the macro dialog box. The changes to your macro list *will* be saved, but the changes to your saved game will only be saved if you hit 'Save' in the main dialog box, not if you hit 'Cancel'.
• The name field contains the name that you will see in the macro list.
• The 'from' field is the item type to search for in your saved game.
• The 'to' field is what the item will be changed to (make it the same as the 'from' field if you only want to change the parameters).
• Always Add Back & Always Delete - if neither of these are on, you will not change whether or not Harry can see the item. If Add Back is on, you will put back items that Harry has already used (This can have the odd effect of reviving items that the author took out of the map originally! The Harry Level Editor only changes this parameter of an item if you delete it from the map, so it still exists in the data structure.) If Delete is on, you will get rid the particular item from the map - Harry will not encounter it after this. No more water coolers? - no problem.
• Each item has 4 parameters that act differently depending on what the item is. If the check box is off, the parameter won't be changed, if the check box is on, the parameter will be changed to whatever is in the box next to it.
• The last check box allows you to only modify one item at a time - this is useful if you just want to search for a particular item and find out which number it is. Just have the from and to fields be the same and don't change any of the parameters.
• After you hit the Run button, a message will appear under the list telling how many items were found (and what the item number was if only one was found). If you click on the message, it will take you to the Edit Item dialog for the last item changed.
Controls of the Edit Item dialog box:
• Hit save to make the changes in the region to the right, hit cancel to leave the item untouched.
• The scroller allows you to look through the items and pick which one you want to edit.
• If Visible is checked, the item will exist on the level, if it is unchecked, it will be as if the item is not there (the game turns this off when Harry picks something up).
• The Item Type tells you what the item is.
• Each of the 4 parameters act differently depending on the item.
• The X and Y coordinates act the same way that Harry's coordinates do. Once again, be careful about changing these, you could move the item behind a wall, and make it inaccessible.
*** Special Secret Feature Inside ***
Since the Harry Level Editor is missing one small feature, I added it to the Cheater. That is the ability to view the text of the messages that Harry runs across. If you want to see (or even edit) the messages, open the Harry Cheater and Use the Select File menu - instead of opening a saved game file, open a Harry World - Vóila…
Version History:
0.9b - First public beta.
Just the basics.
0.9b2 - Second public beta.
Added the Show Whole Map & Fix Copy Machines options.
Made the about box a bit nicer, minor interface cleanup.
1.0b1 - Internal version only
Added the ability to edit single items and add items by item number.
Added the ability to write macros to change objects in the current level. Included a couple of sample macros.
Added Harry's coordinates to the main dialog box.
1.0b2 - Internal version only
Added the view messages feature.
Much interface cleanup.
Fixed a possible memory leak.
1.0 - First public release version!
Check for saves between levels - thanks to Clayton Ginsburg for finding that problem.
Made changes for both 68K & PPC compilation - allows for FAT version.
Made the documentation a bit more readable.
Future Versions:
• That's all I have planned, unless people ask me for other options.
Author info:
Feel free to let me know if you find anything about the Harry Cheater that you would like to see changed, or if you find any bugs. Or you can just let me know if you like the Cheater and found it useful.
e-mail: al@ucsd.edu
snail mail address:
Alan T. Goates
PO Box 2913
La Jolla, CA 92038
Legal Gunk:
The Harry Cheater is FreeWare, which means that you don't have to pay me to use it, but I still retain all rights to its ownership and distribution. The Harry Cheater may be included on any CD-ROM shareware compilation CDs or magazine CDs as long as the author is mailed an evaluation copy of said CD.
The Harry Cheater was based on the DropShell 2.0 framework and uses code from ArrowCDEF by David Hay.
