Bug hunt: Why you only need Paris to beat Pizza Tycoon (1994)
Posted by Optdev@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 14 comments
Posted by Optdev@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 14 comments
screener_kev@reddit
Late 90s and early 2000s strategy games are a goldmine for this kind of bug archaeology. Half of them shipped with one or two regions where the AI's economy formulas overflowed in some specific arithmetic edge case, and the entire competitive balance hinged on that. I remember finding something similar in Caesar III where a particular ratio of senate vs governor's palace tax buildings would make the AI's gold counter wrap. Nobody documented it because nobody was running save-state analysis on a 1998 city builder. The screenshots of the disassembly here are the right level of detail.
mangiucugna@reddit
Thank you. Always something interesting to read about this project!
BetaRhoOmega@reddit
Really fun deep dive, thanks for sharing
dreugeworst@reddit
Lol I remember playing this game as a kid, just designing pizzas. I never figured out how to make a profit though
kisielk@reddit
Ditto. I’d make cool patterns and load them up with tons of ingredients to the point where they were way too expensive to sell. Never had any idea how to actually play the game.
Holkr@reddit
Why OP, surely you mean ice-cream dealing.
backelie@reddit
IIRC you could save your character and your money would get saved but debts would be wiped.
Optdev@reddit (OP)
Ah yes that's true! I think that was only in Pizza Connection (the German version) so it didn't occur to me but indeed I could have done the trick where you create 8 human players, make them all take out loans and transfer the money to player 1 then save it as a character (and repeat). For next time then :)
Optdev@reddit (OP)
Oh how I'd hate accidentally clicking the "I want to buy some weapons!" option and getting slammed with the "Help! Police! This man is dealing with weapons!!!" response :D
Holkr@reddit
If I remember correctly it also locks you out of "ice-cream" dealing for the rest of the game
Optdev@reddit (OP)
Nah, you just get locked up by the police for a couple of days or pay a fine.
Narrow_Ad_8997@reddit
Very interesting... This sounds like a really fun project
thedopefish1@reddit
I found this an interesting read, as another person who played a lot of Pizza Tycoon in the past but never considered "winning". Thanks!
Optdev@reddit (OP)
Author here, as part of my effort to build an open source Pizza Tycoon engine I had to figure out how to win the original game, which showed some interesting differences between the original German Pizza Connection and the English Pizza Tycoon.
Let me know if you have any questions about the process.