The game

The Treasure of Usas (Konami, 1987, RC-753) is a platform game for the MSX2 with two heroes, Wit and Cles. Everything on this page comes from the cartridge's own tables.

The story

The prologue on the title screen (p05:9849) tells that the treasure of Usas was split into four over the centuries, and that the two set off along the Silk Road to find it. According to the opening scene, the first ruin is Pegu, in Rangoon (Burma), discovered by Professor Atley (p04:752B).

The ruins and the stages

There are five ruins (0xC21D), each with four stages and a statue room: 20 stages in all. On the status bar they are called Pegu, Dunhuang, Alchi, Hunza and Agra (p15:BE3D). Each screen is 8 × 6 metablocks of 4 × 4 tiles (p15:BEBF); each stage's map is an RLE stream from p10:5FFE, and each ruin's metablocks another from p10:6032. Screens are laid out by their neighbours (p09:B921).

Each screen carries what the game places on entry: the enemies created at once and the nests the rest come out of (p09:B12B), the traps (p15:A4F9), the items (p12:B8BB) and, in its room, the boss (p09:BED3). Each sprite is drawn with the first frame of its animation.

The twenty stages, at full size: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24. And with the tiles only: 1, 6, 11, 16, 21 (the rest are named fase_NN.png).

The antechamber

Before each stage there is a door that lets only one through: "ONLY ONE PERSON MAY ENTER?" (p06:BB2F). You choose who goes in, and the other says goodbye with a line that depends on their mood (p12:B85E). Without the four keys, the final door does not open ("YOU HAVE TO GATHER FOUR KEYS"). And if one has fallen: "I CAPTURED YOUR FRIEND".

The passwords

On reaching ruins 1-4, a map makes the ruin blink and types out its password: JUBA RUINS, HARAPPA RUINS, GANDHARA RUINS or MOHENJO DARO (p06:A2BB). On the title screen, CTRL or button B asks for the password (KEYWORD, p00:4643), and with it you start at that ruin (p00:45CB).

Wit, Cles and their mood

Each has four states (happy, calm, sad and angry), and each state changes their jump, their shot or blow and the way they push: it is in Findings. The faces on the INFORMATION screen change with the state and move their mouths every 8 frames while they talk (p06:A774).

Coins and INFORMATION

Coins are kept in BCD (p00:55B9) and come from the items of classes 1 to 4 and 12-13. In the pause they are spent on SPD and JMP (p06:A0EA).

Enemies, traps and bosses

• The enemies are 63 actor types (p02:82E9), placed screen by screen by p09:B12B.
• The traps (drops, rocks, statues, columns) are another list, of 13 types (p15:A4F9).
• The bosses: each stage ends with one, the same four in all five ruins (types 30 to 33, p09:BED3), with 16 more life in each ruin (p03:AD28). In the statue room there are five tablets (type 25), one per ruin (p02:8DB9).

The ending

The four stones join, Wit and Cles enter the temple of Usas and put the stone in the statue (p04:73D2). In Japanese the ending goes on: Professor Atley finds out that the statue was the detonator of an atomic bomb built by an ancient civilisation, and that the stones had been scattered around the world so that nobody could use it. It ends with «¡¿そんなあほな!?» (it can't be!). The English table for the last two scenes points to those same Japanese texts (p04:745D).