So after downloading and transferring several different disk images of Skate or Die to real disks and only getting copies that wouldn't boot up correctly, I finally found one that worked with my 64c ( this one: http://noname.c64.org/csdb/release/?id=31139 ).

The game loads and plays just fine, but one thing I found odd was that high scores don't get saved after turning off the computer. Is that just the way Skate or Die was written?
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The disk original saves your scores to disk. Either your disk is write-protected or that crack doesn't save the scores.
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Did you try the images on Gamebase? http://www.gb64.com/game.php?id=6849

I did notice that all the files on the disk are locked (they have "<" after "PRG" in the directory). I'll try unlocking the files and see if that fixes it.

Dink, I was using Pokefinder to find the images I downloaded. I'm not really too concerned about finding another copy. I found one that actually loads, and all the events play, so I'm happy.
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Only if the high score file is locked...
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I tried unlocking all the files on the disk, but that didn't work either. I also tried download all the other disk images I could find online, but none of those worked either. This one is the only one I've found that boots up correctly on my real 64c.
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Dunno about the mentioned issues, I've had ESI crack on floppy from late 80's and never had any problems with it.

Romppainen, would you be able to make d64's of the disks you have and e-mail them to me? I'd like to give them a try. I don't think any of the ESI cracks I downloaded were actual straight ESI cracks. Instead, they were originally cracked by ESI then imported to Europe by another group. I have a suspicion that there may be an issue with "PAL-fixing" that isn't agreeing with my NTSC 64C.
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What error do you get when they doesnt work?

Will try to transfer them myself to check

Mason

Following the Electronic Arts logo on boot, when it's supposed to go to the Skate or Die title screen, it goes to a blank blue screen instead, usually with a flickering spade symbol somewhere in the middle. After that, nothing happens.
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Now, the following bits are just lamer talk so I might be wrong in there but here's what I've figured out so far:

Original version, and couple of cracks I've tried which use the original file system store high scores directly on track 35, sector 16. The Mule extracted contents of disk to files and altered the loader in his version, I didn't check out the disk throroughly but there's nothing in original location so I suppose the saver got broken somewhere in the middle with splat files having probably nothing to do with the fact it doesn't work.

I tried ESI version from CSDb (which isn't 100% original ESI release by the way; check track 2, sector 0 for details) in VICE using both PAL and NTSC mode and at least in all events mode the saver worked just fine, I blanked the scoreboard and reuploaded it so grab it from here and give it a try: If you can't get it to work with real hardware the problem might lie in transferring method you're using.

I think I found "clean" ESI crack, at least the hidden message ain't present in this one, now available here with cleared scoreboard aswell. As few sources mention that Hotline messed something up with their ESI import I'd suggest to snatch this instead of the one linked above just for sure.

@Wiskow: Glad you have a good working copy.

@ Romppainen: How did you blank the scores? Do you (or anyone) know how to copy my scores from my original to the last version you posted? You said the scores are on track 35, sector 16. If I knew a way to only copy that sector, I assume that would work.

Thanks for your response. I will try to nibble copy over my original with my 1541U to make a g64 of it. Then try to get DirMaster to copy that sector. Not sure how to do the rest so I am looking forward to your explanation.

I think D64 could be enough, it's not necessary to preserve original protection in this case as I'm pretty sure you should be able to at least view the contents of that particular sector even from copy/image that doesn't work for playing.

So, if you didn't find the way to copy single sector from disk to another here's how to transfer the scores manually using DirMaster with source (original) and destination images:

First, open the image of your original version in DirMaster. Open "View" from top menu, click "BAM editor", locate T35 S16 from new window and click it to get into edit mode. Contents should look like this:



DirMaster show sector contents as both hex and text, and you can edit them in both fields whether one you want to use.

First 12 lines - inside the red area - contain the scoreboard, line per entry. Corresponding order in in-game scoreboard is left tables from top to bottom - right tables from top to bottom.

First 9 values in each line are for name and next 6 for score (although all of them aren't used), purpose of last remaining value is unknown to me but in all the versions I've tried they contain either 07 or 03 but in varying order. The following 4 lines are some other data which seem to be same in all versions I've tried.

As the names are stored in somewhat mixed way (letters as inverted chars and all the punctuation marks as regular ones) and score entries aren't shown as numbers but in encoded form (I couldn't bother to find out how it works but apparently game doesn't read values from all the lines in same way, if you copy values that work in one line to different one the visible result might vary A LOT) it is easier to copy them into new image using hex values instead of fiddling with PETSCII chars.

Now open your destination image in DirMaster aswell and go thru the same view-BAM-locate-click procedure described earlier. If you use the version I linked in this thread the sector info should look like this:



The rest is quite self-explanatory: Align the sector editor windows so you can see them at the same time, alter manually the values of first 12 lines in destination sector to make it look exactly like source one (just click on first number of first line and start entering), when you've done close sector/BAM windows and save the modified destination image.

About clearing the scoreboard: I found out how to do it when one of the cracks I tried happened to have saved scoreboard of names with blank scores, obviously modified by crackers. When I checked it out the score areas were filled with 00, so I just figured out the rest and edited the ESI image by replacing names with 20 (space), zeroing the score areas and leaving those rightmost mystery bytes as they were as I didn't know what to do with them - when transferring existing scores I think it's better to copy them over aswell. It was all more about beginner's luck than knowledge but hey, it worked

Awesome! Works perfectly. Thanks so much

The original loader on Skate or Die doesn't like having more than one drive on the serial bus. It tends to crash back to a blue screen in that case.