BJ Returns

BJ Returns (also known as "BJ The Return" and "QL Cavern 2") is one of the three "BJ" games by Janko MrsicFlögel, published by Eidersoft. The other two were QL Cavern and BJ In 3D Land

Colourful and action-packed, this game follows the death of Drunx, leaving BJ helpless in the caverns after his previous adventure. Escape is impossible unless he satisfies the fairy Matilda by collecting all of the miracles from the cave.

Eidersoft claimed that this used much more complex graphics than QL Cavern and was twice as fast, with a spectacular ending. Eidersoft ran a competition offering £500 worth of computer equipment to the first person to complete the game.

A small BASIC routine to patch the program to give BJ infinite lives was published in QL World August 1986, page 15. The author was Peter Dampier. From the specific addresses and so on, it looks like this patch might only work on 128K systems (untested):

100 PAPER 0
110 INK 6
120 CLS
130 CSIZE 3,1
140 AT 4,1
150 PRINT"BJ, The Return, is loading"
160 CLOSE #1 : CLOSE #2 : CLOSE #0
170 LBYTES MDV1_CDS,200000
180 EXEC_W MDV1_PRc
190 D=PEEK_L(163872)
200 E=RESPR(D-189574)
210 LBYTES mdv1_CD,189574
220 POKE_W 199450,16890
230 CALL 189574

There are 50 caverns to explore, with the game running to some 50 screens. In its time, this was described by Jason Ball in QL World magazine as "without doubt one of the best arcade games for the QL."

Title: BJ Returns
Language: 68000 Machine Code
Author: Janko MrsicFlögel
Publisher: Eidersoft
Year of Publication: 1985
Platforms Suitable for: All Sinclair QLs and emulators
Commercial Status: Commercial
Price as at October 1985: £12.95
Reviews: Unknown
Sources Available from: n/a
Latest Version available from: Unknown