Three days ago I decided to take a look at Hocus Pocus' HOCUS.DAT file. Here's what I've found so far. So naturally I just had to get started working on a level editor: Currently I'm puzzling over how this is actually going to work, as the setup for switches and keyholes is rather complicated.
Bluh bluh I wasted three days doing something that was already done. There doesn't appear to be a fully functional level editor yet though.
I always wondered if games like Hocus Pocus could be retroactively fitted with a "smoother" scrolling system. Everything travels in blocks of eight pixels, which although doesn't hurt the game all that much, it would be interesting to see if it looked any better if it were as smooth as something like Commander Keen. Nothing that would adjust gameplay, just the rendering side of things. Though I'm guessing you might have to rip the game apart to do major adjustments like that. To me it always made Hocus Pocus look a bit... dated. It happens in other Epic games like Jill of the Jungle and Xargon, but those games are slightly slower and rely on precise jumps, so it's not a big issue there. Also Hocus Pocus was released in mid-1994 (after Doom).
I don't plan on looking into the code much, because it turns out I'm kind of useless with 16-bit x86 code and no decompiler option. Also because I only have the Shareware v1.1 version. On the plus side, I found some information ModdingWiki didn't have. Now if only they would approve my account request...
I got that account request approved, made some edits, started a disassembly, and found some unused stuff. I should make a small mod and put it on YouTube.
