19 April 2022:
Had the idea that "Illuminati II" could be a fine contribution to WOOT! 2022.
Took the 16K Spectrum conversion of the ZX81 original (that was for WOOT! 2021) and "de-converted" it from 16K spec "back" to 48K - removed all the VALs, NOT PIs, SGN PI, INT PIs and any other memory-saving devices that might have been necessary to cram it into the 16K model.
Optimised the code that generated the values in the pyramid.
Added Alvin Albrecht's byte-at-a-time flood fill because it will probably be useful - the idea is to make this version look like the QL conversion with eight colours (and hopefully minimal clash).
Still had no idea how the game might be made harder, though...

24 August 2022:
Finally had an idea how to make the game harder by making two passes through the codes.
The first time will generate the standard odd number 81-FF at the top of the pyramid; this will then be converted into a key (0-F, invisible to the player) which affects the second pass. The upshot of this is that all 256 hex combinations should be possible.
The code that converts the CHR$ 0-9,A-F to their actual values and back again is still intact; the rest of the code needed to be rewritten so that it would work for all the possible keys.
Added this to the game - needed to reassemble Alvin's flood fill to a lower address.
Checked to see if the keys generated correctly and that they had the desired output that I'd already calculated on a spreadsheet - and they do.

17 September 2022:
Wrote the VERY SPICY text for the Good End and the Bad End. Actually, your mileage may vary on the spice level.

20 September 2022:
Converted the text into a machine code routine to print the VERY SPICY endings like the Videprinter from the BBC's football results, though rather faster so it doesn't take for ever.

21 September 2022:
Drew the map of the not-so-United-anymore States of America for the intro, along with most of the MC routines to hide the hidden bits in the beginning and reveal them only when necessary.

22 September 2022:
With a bit of assistance from Einar Saukas, compressed the map with ZX0 (it now takes only 1,923 bytes and needs only 68 bytes of Einar's code to decompress it).
Reassembled the less-necessary MC routines to start from 50000, to get them out the way for the important stuff. With RAMTOP at 49999, there's only 7945 bytes free and I've not even started on updating the graphics yet! (And that'll take a lot - maybe another ZX0-compressed screen will help.)
Changed all the numbers in the machine code poking area to VALs - now 10211 bytes free.
Drew the UDGs for the NPC and Pepe faces, and the slice of grilled bread.
Nicked the milk bottle from Death Stalker and altered it a bit. (Put those last two together and see what you get.)
Drew the Illuminati II title - used CodexSSK and HelveticaInserat in GIMP, transferred it to ZX-Paintbrush, cut the resultant screen down to 2048 bytes for the top third of the screen, and compressed it with ZX0. Wrote a short routine to get it back again with the correct attributes.

23 September 2022:
Drew the Illuminati's Pyramid - needed to go back and forth between GIMP and ZX-Paintbrush to get it all right and eliminate colour clash. It looks even better than the QL version from earlier this year...
Added this to the ZX0 block because it's an entire screen, compressed to 1016 bytes.
Also merged the "map reveal" code into the ZX0 block with the (and but it from 601 to 182 bytes).
Added a Beepola version of the Gargoyle's Quest pickup fanfare (Tritone; sounds a bit manky but it's a better bet than having to rely on the 128K model - that's not the intention for this game).
Improved the Videprinter code and added the introductory back story - the rest is still held in a separate text file.

24 September 2022:
Finished the text and code for the Videprinter with all introductory and ending messages.
RAMTOP is now at 47239...
Yeeted the original instructions and ROT13 and Direct Line fanfare from the original game - now 11310 bytes to play with (with most variables defined).
Wrote a MC routine to translate the NPC face (graphics LMNO, CHR$ 155-158) to attributes for one of the final endings. It fits neatly into the gap between the character set and the ZX0 block.

25 September 2022:
Added the Spice Level, with the required value POKEd to USR "u" i.e. 65528. Three levels: NPC (PEEK 65528 = 0), Milquetoast (1), Pepe (3), with 1 as the default. Some combinations are disabled on NPC level, but it also shows the key that's generated at the first pass.
Made a MC routine to print the keys at the left of the screen as small characters (and much faster than BASIC).
Made a BASIC version of the improved score fuse which allows 40 tries, but this is slow.
Wrote a general MC routine to convert PLOT positions to display file addresses (and it's only 49 bytes, I thought it'd be a lot more complicated than that!) Note that it doesn't check for illegal values of the y-coordinate. Cheers to Dilwyn Jones for his "Beyond Simple BASIC" book explaining how all the bits in the display file work... before the QL took over his life.

26 September 2022:
Converted the TRIES counter to an effective machine code version - with a bit of trial and error on the sound effects and the delay between them. It works about as well as I could expect, but isn't perfect.
Eliminated the last traces of the variable colour scheme from the 16K Spectrum version of the original game.
Added an array to hold the input and output of the Illuminati's Top-Secret Code so that it can be called via a MC routine instead of four POKEs before and two afterwards - thus speeding up the process now that it has to go through the pyramid twice.
Reordered the listing, just to tidy it up.

27 September 2022:
Transferred all the machine code to +3 disc - development continues on there at the BETA stage. Deleted all the MC-setup DATA statements and transferred all the tests into a separate program, merged with the Videprinter test.
Added the MC title, new pyramid and Videprinter routines to the game.
Added the custom character set - a modified version of the Times Roman style from The Fall Of Rome.

28 September 2022:
Made a similar BANG-type graphic "borrowed" from Big Clive's Supergayrainbow Exploding USB Power Supply Game. Converted it to display "KABOOM" and mesh with the eye graphics underneath. (Not by some kind of masking with OR, mind, just hard-writing over the DF addresses that needed it...) The KABOOM turns the screen black on white.

29 September 2022:
Actually made the KABOOM work with the main game, which involved writing a second routine to un-draw the KABOOM, turning the screen black to black on white (so that the GQ fanfare wouldn't disturb the border - Tritone on Beepola doesn't change the border colour anywhere except an EQU that isn't ever used in the main routine... gah!) and drawing an "X" where the iris and pupil of the eye was.
And then there needed to be a routine to hard-invert the internal borders (i.e. where KEY and TRIES are drawn, and the messages appear at the bottom of the screen).
Relented on the intention to only reveal the key to players on the NPC level. Now everyone can see it and there's a (very basic, single line) lightning strike showing the key, which then stays lit.
This is essentially a functional game now - unless the INPUTs are replaced with INKEY$ at any stage (thinking of the three Commodore versions, these use GET for single-key inputs). Using INKEY$ would allow error checking on the fly and disable any inputs that would result in "You brainlet..."
Instead: moved each INPUT position to the point underneath the cell to be filled. As this is a variable-length string in an INPUT statement, this is a completely legitimate use of VAL$!

30 September 2022:
Had about an hour to attempt to make a loading screen. It was terrible.

1 October 2022:
Had a better idea for the loading screen, and this one worked - with much shuttling between GIMP and ZX-Paintbrush, as usual.
Concatenated the machine code together into one huge lump of 19,902 bytes.
Altered the BASIC program to fit and made the proper tape.
Effectively this is v1.0 of the game and could be released as it is, but there will probably be mistakes, and maybe further additions...

2-3 October 2022:
Wrote the extensive backstory.

5 October 2022:
Noticed a mistake in the Videprinter during the writing of the backstory. In correcting it, because a lot of code needed reassembling and repositioning, it made sense to add in all the text and title graphics for the original Illuminati and give the option to play this version with the updated graphics. This took far, far longer than it had any right to do... but it's done and it works.

October to Mid-December 2022:
The US Midterm Elections threw the backstory into a bit of doubt - and it needed revisions to keep up with the march of reality, but in the end, I decided the game was good to go as it was and the backstory could be moulded around reality as we knew it at the time. I'd already been assured by those who knew the American political system better than I do that what I'd devised was legal; whether or not it becomes reality or FAKE NEWS, only time will tell.

If you want something to read on the khazi, you'll need 12 sheets of A4 to print out the backstory. There's 6,821 words, and a helpful map with flags.

What more do you want?
