Skip to content

1.9.8 rules

The rewrite plays Crimsonland 1.9.93, the last classic release. A run can play the rules of 1.9.8, a 2003 release, instead: tick 1.9.8 in the Play Game menu, left of Ranked; tick both for a ranked 1.9.8 run. The replay keeps the choice, so watching the run later plays the same rules. In online co-op, the Host's box picks the rules for both players.

1.9.8 runs keep high score tables of their own, as 1.9.8 kept its scores apart from 1.9.93's. While the box is ticked, the High scores screen shows them, with 1.9.8 in its title, along with 1.9.8's online boards.

What changes

  • Fire Bullets adds to your gun instead of replacing it. While it lasts, every shot your gun fires gets a Fire Bullets shot alongside it, and the gun keeps its own fire rate, ammo and reloads. The Flamethrower, Blow Torch, HR Flamer, the rocket weapons and the Bubblegun fire flames, rockets and bubbles rather than shots, so they get nothing from it. See Fire Bullets 1.9.8 vs 1.9.93.
  • The Fire Bullets bonus doesn't drop while any player holds the Flamethrower, Blow Torch, HR Flamer, Flameburst, Rocket Launcher, Seeker Rockets, Mini-Rocket Swarmers or Rocket Minigun.
  • Fewer shots fit in the air: 64 at once, player and enemy shots together, against 96 in 1.9.93. With the air full, each new shot takes the last of the 64 places from the shot there, so under Fire Bullets the gun's shot replaces the Fire Bullets shot fired with it. With one place free, the Fire Bullets shot takes it and the gun's shot takes the last place.
  • Four perks don't exist yet: Man Bomb, Fire Cough, Living Fortress and Tough Reloader are never offered, and the Statistics menu's perk database leaves them out while the box is ticked.
  • Angry Reloader fires on every reload, the short ones included.
  • Radioactive kills lizards like any other creature, instead of leaving them at 1 HP.
  • Typ-o-Shooter names use fewer words: "sleep", "onyx", "mill", "blue", "below", "scape", "reap", "damo", "break" and "boom" are missing from the word list.
  • The G key does nothing, even with --preserve-bugs: 1.9.8 never had the Fire Bullets shortcut.

Everything else plays as in 1.9.93, including the rewrite's fixes for the original's bugs.

What stays 1.9.93's

A 1.9.8 run brings back 1.9.8's rules, not the whole 2003 release. Apart from the rules above, the weapons, creatures, spawns, modes, quests, unlocks and art are the same in both releases. Where 1.9.8 differs in other ways, a 1.9.8 run plays as 1.9.93:

  • Arithmetic. 1.9.8 was built with an older compiler that orders and rounds some calculations differently, in code both releases share too. A 1.9.8 run calculates as 1.9.93 does, so the same moves can play out a little differently than in the original 1.9.8.
  • Menus and controls. The menus, the console, key binding and the way the game reads keys, mouse and joysticks are 1.9.93's, and so are the game's messages. 1.9.8's birthday balloons and Christmas snow don't appear on the menus.
  • Smoke. With the screen full of smoke from guns and rocket trails, a new puff replaces an old one as 1.9.93 picks it.
  • Shareware. 1.9.8's trial limits, purchase screens and Reflexive Arcade code are left out.

1.9.8's own bugs

1.9.8 has a few bugs that later releases fixed: Radioactive pays twice for some kills, Jinxed kills during Freeze, Infernal Contract charges only player 1, and My Favourite Weapon loses its clip bonus and lets some weapon drops through. A 1.9.8 run plays these as 1.9.93 does; --preserve-bugs brings them back, along with the rest of the original's bugs. They are listed with the other classic quirks.

Ranking

A ranked 1.9.8 run ranks on boards of its own, never mixed with 1.9.93's: its rank, the board's best runs and its player's best count 1.9.8 runs only. The verifier plays 1.9.8 runs as the Python port does, and every other ranked rule holds as for 1.9.93. A play ranks on one board only: a replay whose inputs another build's board already holds is refused (leaderboard identity). The site's high score pages switch between the 1.9.93 and 1.9.8 boards, and a 1.9.8 run's page says so. See Ranked rules.