Date   : Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:50:18 +0100
From   : "Samwise" <samwise@...>
Subject: Re: Chuckie Egg (was: Re: Econet-Ethernet bridge)

> The funny thing is that I've never kept up with Chuckie Egg lore -

I don't think anyone really did.  chuckie-egg.org was the only source of
information for a long time and, tbh, it doesn't hold that much of interest,
which is why I decided the gap needed to be filled last year - I couldn't
sit by and watch manic miner have a stronger web presence!

> Could there have been an unofficial version of the game 
> floating around
> at the time which did have this feature? I know the one we 
> used to play
> was (shock, horror) a copied rather than original floppy. 

It was the fact that it was so easily copied to disk from the tape that
contributed to CE being as popular as it was - it was in every school in the
land!

I can't rule out the possibility that someone added it to a hack, but it
doesn't appear to be in any of the ones I have come across:

http://www.bagshot-row.org/chuckie-egg/hacksandupgrades.html

It's not out of the question that someone could've added the feature in a
hack, but most of the hacks tended to be simplistic affairs which change the
wording through the game, specify start level, add infinite lives and/or
change the levels around.  There were a couple that added more tricky
features like joystick support, but not many.  Now that Rich has created a
spectrum colours loader, a hack with two ducks would be the new holy grail
of beeb CE upgrades but I'm not hopeful it'll turn up anytime soon, if it
hasn't shown itself so far.

> I remember the sequence as being normal levels, then levels repeated
> with extra chickens wandering around, then levels repeated with two
> ducks (can't remember if the number of chickens went back to normal at
> that point or not!)
> 
> Knowing me I'm imagining things though :-)

well, we've already gone over what the actual sequence is for the original
beeb CE release, so I won't repeat it here.  Suffice to say, if anyone has a
version with two ducks, hack or otherwise, I'd love to hear about it!

Cheers,

Sam.