Fire 'N' Ice Bug Report

[Picture: Fire 'N' Ice improperly considers player victorious]

Fire 'N Ice is a bit of a buggy game. So far I've found two things in Fire 'N Ice that don't quite work the way it should.

One is with pausing the game. When objects such as ice cubes and so forth fall, the game cannot be paused. However, when the player character is falling, the game can be paused. When this happens, the player character (named Dana) continues to fall until he has fallen a certain number of blocks worth. In other words, if the character has fallen a distance of half the height of a block, he continues to fall the rest of the block's height until he's fallen a total of one block's worth. This doesn't work as it should because during the time the character continues to fall down to the height of the next row of blocks, moving enemy creatures do not move (since the game is paused). Then, after the man has falled down to the next block's worth (possibly suspended in mid-air since the game is paused), other objects such as ice blocks or flames will fall (all while the game is paused, and the man is suspended in mid-air).

Note: These screenshots were taken from the Japanese version of the game (called Solomon's Key 2) which contains some English and Japanese text. However, the U.S. version of the game acts in the same way as far as these bugs are concerned.
(This table has four columns. You may have to scroll.)
[Pic: Beginning of Custom Level] [Pic: Dana sticks hat out of pipe] [Pic: Dana stops fire from floating mid-air] [pic: Dana falls]

This is the beginning of the custom level used to demonstrate this bug. All objects (other than Dana) remain in their starting location until they are given a reason to move. Starting with a reason to move (like being mid-air) isn't good enough. Dana went through the pipe and is about to appear below the flame that is hanging mid-air. When Dana appears under the flame, he briefly holds the flame above him. The flame, having been tampered with, will move from it's original location given the opportunity.

Dana falls down. The game is paused as Dana falls down. As soon as Dana falls one block's worth, the flame above will notice that it's not being held up and it will fall..

[Pic: Dana hangs mid-air.] [Pic: Fire is falling]

Dana continues to fall the rest of the half-block, even though the game is paused. The flame then begins to fall. Fire 'N Ice's falling engine is very simplistic. Only one thing falls at a time, and the game cannot be paused or resumed while things are falling. The flame continues to fall while the game is paused, and falls behind Dana. Dana remains unscathed. The flame procedes to fall behind Dana, and will land on the ice block below Dana.

[Pic: Fire fell. Ice block falls.] [Pic: First ice block landed. Second ice block falls.] [Pic: End of movement that occurs while game is paused] [Pic: Dana falls on the flame. Ouch!]

After the flame falls, the ice blocks begin to fall. The ice blocks do not pass through Dana, however. This is the final position of Dana, the flame, and the ice blocks for the remainder of the pause. When the game is unpaused, Dana falls ontop of the fire and Dana gets burned.

(This table has four columns. You may have to scroll.)

This is the beginning of the custom level used to demonstrate this bug. All objects (other than Dana) remain in their starting location until they are given a reason to move. Starting with a reason to move (like being mid-air) isn't good enough.	Dana went through the pipe and is about to appear below the flame that is hanging mid-air.	When Dana appears under the flame, he briefly holds the flame above him. The flame, having been tampered with, will move from it's original location given the opportunity.	Dana falls down. The game is paused as Dana falls down. As soon as Dana falls one block's worth, the flame above will notice that it's not being held up and it will fall..

Dana continues to fall the rest of the half-block, even though the game is paused.	The flame then begins to fall. Fire 'N Ice's falling engine is very simplistic. Only one thing falls at a time, and the game cannot be paused or resumed while things are falling.	The flame continues to fall while the game is paused, and falls behind Dana. Dana remains unscathed.	The flame procedes to fall behind Dana, and will land on the ice block below Dana.

After the flame falls, the ice blocks begin to fall.	The ice blocks do not pass through Dana, however.	This is the final position of Dana, the flame, and the ice blocks for the remainder of the pause.	When the game is unpaused, Dana falls ontop of the fire and Dana gets burned.

There are other things that pausing can effect. When the game is paused and Dana is walking sideways between two different columns, Dana will continue to walk onward to the next column. When Dana is instructed to use the ice wand and the game is immediately paused thereafter, Dana will continue to use the ice wand and an ice block can be created, all while the game is paused. During this paused time, Dana can move extra fast compared to the monsters which are immediately paused.

I actually used this trick to originally beat the non-custom level 6-10. Immediately I walked right off of a ledge and fell extra-quick using pausing. Then I walked left extra quick behind a monster. Then I created an ice block extra quick as the monster turned around, ready to come back towards me. Then I turned around (slightly extra-quick) and ran right one square extra quick away from a monster that was to my left. If you're interested in trying this, use the password WL!M28VZ 1XNP?G7F SJ3HBLCL.

Other bugs I've noticed in the game is that Dana can stand on fire without getting hurt (if the fire moves ontop of where Dana is at), a large broken block of ice (with ice blocks where only one of the vertical halves are visible), fire appearing out of the middle of nowhere, invisible ice still on the level, and the level being beat when a deadly flame is still on the level. All of these bugs are demonstrated with a single custom level that I made. The blue-prints for the level in the map editor look like this:

(If all identical columns were removed from the map (and the remaining columns were moved over so there wasn't a gap), the bugs described on this page would still work in the same way. Actually, I've had the far right ice block of the fourth row directly below the far left block of the third row and, with other condensing modifications, got all the tricks to work. However, then the game doesn't show as large of an ice block being created, so this web site discusses creating the widest version of this level, since that will cause the most visually noticeable effects.)

You can see the level in action before any changes were made (except for the direction Dana faces) by finding the first graphic with the pausing bug. Note that all left and right edges of ice blocks are round (and not attached), and all ice in between two other ice pieces are CONTINUOUS type, except for the one piece of ice with both a flame above and below it.

If you study the level carefully, the level will look unbeatable. However, due to (a) bug(s) in the game the level is actually impossible to die or get into a position where the level is unbeatable unless you pause the game while Dana is falling.

If you wish to investigate the flame that is created from nothingness, you can do so by changing one or more of the stones into flames. All other aspects of the level should work as if the flames were stones except that you will have to eliminate one to three more flames (depending on how many stones you change to flames) than usual. My best guess is that the way the game determines when a level is beat is not by determening when there are no flames left, but determining when the number of flames eliminated is equal to the number of flames that the level started with. This would work if the game didn't bug out and... well, I'll let you see the bugs for yourself.

There's another odd quirk to the game (although this may not be a bug per se) where you can beat the game after dying. This can be demonstrated by making one minor changes to the level above: Move the flame that is below the burning pot two squares up, so that it is just above the burning pot. In the place of the flame in the SW corner you can use anything else (except for Dana's start position, which must be elsewhere). Make sure that you did NOT change any stones to flames (or, if you did, change those flames back) because if you did, the level won't get beat. Then play through the level normally.

I do plan on creating an update to this page. Hopefully I can get some screen shots from Fire 'N Ice instead of Solomon's Key 2j. If so, you may also find Fire 'N Ice NsM's, and another level showing an odd quirk (though not necessarily a bug) in the game. I may decide to create a help section with hints for the various puzzles. I do not have any current estimations on when any of this might happen. I do not illegally publicly provide computer images of copyrighted ROMs and I know this can be a difficult ROM to find, but all tricks are able to be done on a real, legitimate cartridge (which is where I first found each of these bugs).

All material on this page, except for the copyrighted sprites shown in the graphics, was discovered and published by Scott VanderWoude (although, I might not be the first to find or publish any of this).