Target Renegade

01 · Endurance

A life lasts 22 ordinary blows

The player's endurance starts at 44 and is restored to 44 each time a life is lost ($8D67). The bar on the panel shows it as eleven cells of four units each ($8544).

Event	Endurance	Code
An enemy's blow lands	minus 2	`$9BD1` takes one unit, then a second.
An object hits the player	minus 4	`$8B88` takes three units, then one more.
An enemy is defeated	plus 2, only if the result is below 44	`$9ABA` adds two only when the sum stays below 44.

From full endurance a life is lost on the 22nd ordinary blow or the 11th object hit. At zero endurance a life is lost. With one life left, zero endurance sets the end flag to negative, which skips the ending and returns to the title ($8283). Defeating an enemy restores two units only when the result stays below 44. A recovery that would reach full endurance is rejected.

02 · The fight

Two enemies at a time

The game keeps two enemy slots. When the player attacks, the code tests slot 1 and then slot 0 ($A0B7), and a new enemy goes into a free slot, sometimes with a partner on the opposite side ($8631). That fits what Commodore User wrote: "Attackers come at you in pairs or singly."¹⁰

There are nine enemy types, numbered 0 to 8. The game gives each a starting health ($8704) and a score for each hit ($A0AD), and a stage adds a base number of 0, 0, 2, 4, or 6 to pick which types it spawns ($8738). The fifth stage forces type 7 instead. The table below is the data, by type number. Which picture on the screen carries which number is not settled, so only the traced behaviours are named.

Type	Health	Score per hit	What the code does with it
0	4	100	Starts a hold only when its partner slot is active (`$9418`).
1	3	200	The armed type, with an ammunition byte (`$9232`).
2	3	200	No special rule traced.
3	5	100	No special rule traced.
4	6	300	Has a special-hit path.
5	6	300	No special rule traced.
6	3	400	A player's attack only reaches it when the remembered direction bit 1 is set (`$A0B7`).
7	8	500	Walks toward the player when its approach flag is set (`$90E7`). Forced for the fifth stage's spawned enemies.
8	15	800	Its hold sets a counter of five (`$94C7`) that the move which works against a hold counts down, and a sixth use releases it (`$A1D4`), and its defeat sets the ending flag (`$9ABA`).

Scores are in displayed points: the game stores them in hundreds. The score table holds a tenth value, 900, that has no health entry beside it. Each landed hit takes one health point ($A12E); a weapon may take more, and that has not been checked. Type 8 has the most health and the highest score, and its defeat ends the game, so it is almost certainly Mr. Big.

03 · Lives and time

Five lives at the start, where the manual says three

The supplied cartridge starts a new game with five lives ($8000). The manual says three, and Zzap!64's review says five.¹^,⁹ The first extra life comes when the score passes 50,000, and then one more for every 100,000 (Discoveries). Lives stop at nine.

The time on the panel counts down once every 51 passes of the main loop ($8771). When it reaches zero the same negative end flag is set as when the last life goes.

04 · The hold

One enemy holds, the other hits

Paul Glancey described "a biker who sneaks up behind the player and holds him while his partner beats hell out of him from the front".⁹ The code has a matching rule. A type 0 enemy starts a hold only when its partner slot is active ($9418). The enemy then places the player 24 units to the side it faces, one lane unit above its own, and gives the player the held pose. Whether type 0 is the sprite Glancey called a biker has not been checked.

Turning your back is not safe. The review's own caption says so: "Turning your back on the opposition isn't advisable, even when they're on their knees."⁹

05 · The gun

A limited supply of bullets

The manual says the boss of stage 2 has a gun with a limited number of bullets, and advises waiting until they run out before attacking him.¹ The armed type shows why that works. When it is 30 to 34 units away and within six lane units, a tick-based test may start pose $60. Closer than 30 units it uses up one from an ammunition byte at $0674, starts pose $65, and sets the shared weapon state ($9232). The spawn routine gives each new armed enemy six rounds ($8665).

06 · Motorbikes

Kicking a rider off his bike

In the car park, riders on motorbikes try to run the player down. The bike's code tests whether the bike overlaps the player ($8E44). On the ground, an overlap hurts the player. A player who is in the air meets a narrower window, and an overlap there marks a dismount hit. That fits the jump kick the manual describes, though the code tests only that the player is elevated. The dismount ($902B) puts a rider in slot 0 at the bike's position, with its own health and pose, and starts two sound effects. At the end of the dismount animation the game leaves an object on the ground if none is there and spawns an ordinary enemy ($8F8E). The manual says a rider kicked off his bike is knocked unconscious for a very short time.¹ How long that is has not been measured.

07 · Checked

The magazines' claims, checked against the code

The claim	Where	What the code shows
Attackers come in pairs or singly.	Commodore User¹⁰	Two enemy slots. Matches.
One enemy holds the player while a partner hits.	Zzap!64⁹	A type 0 hold needs the partner slot to be active. Matches. Which sprite type 0 is has not been checked.
The gunman has limited bullets.	Manual,¹ Zzap!64⁹	Each shot uses one from an ammunition byte. Matches. The supply is six rounds (`$8665`).
The player starts with five lives.	Zzap!64⁹	Five at `$8000`. Matches. The manual says three.
The player starts with three lives.	Manual¹	Does not match the cartridge.
Moves score between 200 and 2,000 points.	Manual¹	The hit table holds 100 to 900 per hit. The rest of the manual's range is not found. Open.
Each man is four sprites large, and Mr. Big eleven.	Commodore User¹⁰	The fighter tables use three components for the player and two for each enemy (Graphics). Open.
The baseball bat from stage 1 never returns.	Readers at Lemon64	Not checked. The stage spawn tables decide it.