Anyone out there? This board has been very quiet lately, so here's an effort to revive it.
Did you know that in the Ben Spees' original levels, he only used two buttons - facing right compared to 22 floor buttons, and he didn't use and buttons - facing left? These buttons helped control 43 rock barriers and 14 "brown rock" spinblocks, though Ben didn't use any other types of spinblocks. There are a total of 5642 sprites in his 25 levels, in addition to 177 sprites that come out of treasure chests and crates. He used 1944 "Bonus Spider" sprites but no "Xichron" sprites; the only distinction between the two is the item kind in MASCOT. There are also 11 Red Xichrons scattered through his levels. You can find 15 smite rings but only 2 escape rings throughout the entire world. And don't count on finding an ice pick on the ground; you have to receive it through a conversation.
How did I come by this wealth of information? Well, I've been quite bored this summer, so I decided to look through every single of Ben's levels in MASCOT and tally what I could see. It only took about 5 hours a day, 6 days a week, for 3 weeks. (90 hours if you like, or 3.75 straight days.)
Just kidding.
I'm not sure who among you remember the days of aschaaf_86's interesting program "Ferazel Drop Statistics". Once the search function of these boards returns, I'll try to find out just how I heard of that program. It's being elusive for the moment. Anyway, I've recently acquired the source code to the program and done some modifications. It's undergone some major redesign.
For those of you who haven't been following along on the (url="http://"http://www.ferazel.net/webboard/index.php")Ferazel.net boards(/url), here's what this program does:
You drop a Ferazel's Wand World Data file onto it, choose what kind of statistics to generate, and it makes a text file and/or an HTML file containing information about all the levels within the file.
Some features:
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It optionally counts items within treasure chests and crates
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You tell it what kinds of sprites to count using a template file
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It analyzes secret spots and tells you which ones and where have the "secret spot sound" off
It's a useful program if you make levels and want to keep track of how many max. magic/health increase crystals, xichrons, secret spots, smite rings, fire seeds, or save points, etc. you've used.
Some example statistics and screenshots are available (url="http://"http://pcheese.ferazel.net/ds/")here(/url).
Ferazel Drop Statistics is almost done. I would like to get one tester to squash as many bugs as possible. If many of you show interest, I'll release the current version and let you all find bugs, then release an improved version soon afterwards. I also plan to release the source code if I can get aschaaf_86's agreement.
Hopefully, this tool will allow you hackers to make levels faster and more easily, so we can all enjoy your amazing level-making skills. 
Ferazel Drop Statistics can answer questions like (url="http://"http://www.ambrosiasw.com/webboard/Forum7/HTML/000619.html")this one(/url) (not counting conversations: 2 health potions and 2 magic potions plus 1 health potion in a chest or crate)
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Come on over to irc.ambrosia.net !
(url="http://"http://ninthkingdom.ferazel.net")The Ninth Kingdom(/url), progressing quickly thanks to (url="http://"http://pcheese.ferazel.net/ds/")Drop Statistics(/url)
(This message has been edited by PCheese (edited 07-16-2003).)
(This message has been edited by PCheese (edited 08-01-2003).)
