How to see the Dungeons of Avalon 1 ending

Screenshot

The end screen to Commodore Amiga RPG Dungeons of Avalon (1992).

What is the bug?

The original Dungeons of Avalon is widely considered uncompletable. The final boss is extremely difficult, maybe impossible even with max-level characters. There is an end credits sequence in the game files, but due to a bug, even if you beat the Dark Lord it doesn’t trigger.

As a result, for 26 years, nobody had seen this game’s end credits. Luckily, it’s possible to cheat and trigger it manually.

Why does this bug occur?

Certain monster encounters in Dungeons of Avalon have a fixed number and type of enemies. With the exception of the final level of Rhateph’s castle, all of these special encounters are an increasingly large number of the Worm monster. The final level contains encounters with 27, 28 and 29 worms, respectively, followed by 2 fire dragons, and finally the final boss fight.

The final boss fight contains the Dark Lord, 5 fire trolls, and another 8 fire trolls. Defeating them all should trigger an end cutscene.

Unfortunately, the function to check for the game’s win condition appears to be bugged. It checks the Dark Lord’s entry in the special fixed encounter list to see if it has been reduced to zero. However, entries in that list are not reduced to zero when the monsters have been defeated.

For some reason, the code for fight results screen triggers the party move function twice per party member, moving you 12 squares in the direction you last moved. This is fixed before you return to the dungeon view, but not before preventing the game from correctly directing the current square as a fixed encounter. The result is that it never triggers the code to save the killed monster count.

How to patch the bug

You can hex edit it to remove the party movement subroutine call from the executable:

1. Unpack the main game executable Avalon or AVALON_E using xfddecrunch. (Alternatively, you can do this by editing an uncompressed save state or in-memory editing using the WinUAE debugger.)
2. Hex edit the file to change the following bytes:
   • From: 5c89 6100 4a1c 4250
   • To: 5c89 **4e71** **4e71** 4250
3. The game will now correctly remember kill count for all fixed encounters going forward, and should correctly detect the final boss is defeated.

How to see the end credits

Alternatively, you can cheat directly to trigger the game’s win condition and see the end credits:

1. Configure an Amiga emulator to enable uncompressed save states.
2. Load Dungeons of Avalon as normal, either loading a game or starting a new game.
3. Make a save state.
4. Using a hex editor, replace all instances of the following:
   • From: 011f 051e 081e
   • To: 001f 001e 001e or 0000 0000 0000
5. Load the save state again in the emulator. Make sure the game disk is still in the drive.
6. Enter the dungeon. If you were already in the dungeon, the end credits will automatically trigger.

An alternative method is to use in-memory editing feature of the UAE debugger:

1. Enable the debugger in the emulator settings.
2. Trigger the debugger using whichever your emulator uses (e.g. Ctrl-F12, or F12-D, etc). Consult the documentation if you aren’t sure.
3. Search for the correct memory location:
   • s 011f 051e 081e 0
4. If you get a result, type the following line (note six sets of 00), replacing addr with the result you got:
   • W (addr) 00 00 00 00 00 00

What happens when you win?

An end text scroll plays, captioned “Heros of Avalon” (pictured top). It is accompanied by unique music and portraits of the party.

The king rewards you and gives each character 20,000 gold each. This is more gold than is found in all chests in the entire game (13,920 gp).

Clicking the left mouse button returns us to the Dragon’s Cave adventurer’s guild in the City H’Khan. You’re free to continue playing the game, but entering the dungeon will just trigger the end sequence again.

The text of this end sequence can be found on the disk in the game files S/TXE (English) and S/TXD respectively.

Does this work on Dungeons of Avalon II?

The end screen to Commodore Amiga RPG Dungeons of Avalon II (1992).

Yes.

In this case, it’s even easier since the executable is uncompressed (possible thanks to the space saved by reducing the game’s maps from 50x50 to 32x32). You can hex edit the program directly, thus creating a version of the game that automatically wins once you enter the dungeon.

In Dungeons of Avalon II, the bytes to be changed are:

• From: 0113 050e 060f
• To: 0013 000e 000f or 0000 0000 0000

Dungeons of Avalon II is smarter and will only trigger the win scene the first time you enter the dungeon, not every time after that.

Also, when you win, you are treated to a monster gallery.

Next: Victory text »