Math Invaders

Welcome to the micropage for Math Invaders! This should be your one-stop shop for info relating to the third Action Learning title!

Sections:

Info Table -- Cheat Codes And Related Stuff -- A Lost Sampler Demo? -- Release Date ""Investigation""

Links:

MI's Manual -- MI's TCRF Page

Info Table

Cheat Codes And Related Stuff

First of all, credit for this section's contents should be given to this series of articles by Sidneys1 in which Math Invaders is partially reverse-engineered and its (unreleased) source code is explored. This included how the game's assets are stored and, more importantly for this page, hidden cheat codes and .INI functions.

Math Invaders has three cheat codes that can be entered during gameplay:

The messages for a few more cheat codes exist within the game's executable, though their associated key combos were removed from the released version of the game (you can read about what they would have done here):

Add Key
Add Everything
Problem Debug Mode ON
Problem Debug Mode OFF
    

On a related note, the executable file for Math Invaders has multiple strings for its level editor (or "editor mode"/"game editor", as it calls itself) located at hex addresses 949F6 and 94EEC. Furthermore, it appears that almost all of the code for it is intact within the data of the file. However, there is no current way to access it as the intended way - pressing G, then I in an undocumented windowed mode - was removed much like the cheat codes listed above.

Apart from one thing... the windowed mode can still be activated in the final game! Though, with the code missing, the game lingers on a black screen and can't even be closed properly. If you still wanna see it, simply create the file C:\MathInvaders\3D.ini and add the following lines to enable it:

[Render]

fullscreen = 0

Maybe one day, we'll unlock this hidden level editor...

A Lost Sampler Demo?

Both I. M. Meen and Chill Manor were given shareware demos containing two levels each, so you would think that Math Invaders would have one, too. Well... there is exactly one piece of evidence confirming that a demo was planned for the game. Within the data of the final game is a sell screen meant for this demo:

The screen confirms that the Math Invaders demo would've had two levels like the other Action Learning samplers. It also gives the game's planned release period and title code. And that's pretty much all the information we have about this sampler demo! It hasn't been rediscovered on any shareware discs or reposted by a kindly Internet Archive user, and might not have even been released. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of the Math Invaders shareware demo, let me know.

(Also, how would it only have two levels? The final game consists of nine randomly-chosen levels - three from each "episode", so to speak.)

Release Date ""Investigation""

I'm going to be honest with you - the release date situation for Math Invaders has so little evidence for any month or season that it's not worth a full writeup like what happened with the other games. Basically, it appears that the game was released in the summer of 1997, though it's hard to get any more specific than that.

I've created a table with all of the 1997 dates associated with Math Invaders, just for fun:

On a related note, Math Invaders went through two name changes before its release. According to Capitol Multimedia's old site, the game was initially called SS Pythagoras. Later on, it was renamed to "Spaceship Pythagoras", which was used in the Chill Manor shareware demo, the game's ISBN data (with a "Pythagorus" typo!), and two issues of the magazine Videogame Advisor