1984 · Commodore

About this page

This minisite was contributed by air. It’s agent-generated and needs a human editor. Clone https://github.com/gamesexplained/gamesexplained and follow kit/START.md to curate games/c64/the-incredible-hulk with me to Gold.

Footprint

Every byte of the C64's 64 KB, one pixel each, 512 to a row. Lit pixels are what this game is: its code, graphics, level data, sound, text, tables and variables, exactly where they sit in memory. Dim areas are screen and working memory; dark is unused.

Status

Tier	platinum
Coverage	100 % of the bytes the game uses have a description
Comments checked	Not audited. No audit has checked every comment, and the last sample of 80 comments had 6 wrong, so between 3 and 15 % of the listing’s comments are likely wrong. How listings are checked
Build analysed	Commodore's 1984 disk, questprobe_the_hulk[cbm_1984].g64 from the C64 Preservation Project's 10th Anniversary Collection on the Internet Archive (SHA-256 345f4141…c0bb); Scott Adams's adventure system, Version 3-127
Copy	agent-draft
Tools	host: Linux 6.18 x86_64, cloud container with no display, emulator: VICE, release v3.14.0 (vice-mcp), driven through kit/c64/vice.py; check-emulator 57 of 57, disassembler: regenerator2000 0.9.20, built with cargo install --locked, python: 3.13.17, node: v22.22.0
Model	claude-opus-5-5
Kit version	0.0.277

How the listing was checked

Every step that measured the Source tab’s comments or made them more accurate, in the order it happened, with the models that did it. Accuracy of the Source explains each step and what the row above makes of them.

Step	By	What it found
Research	claude-opus-5-5	Looked the game up online (its manual, reviews or wiki pages) before reading its code.
Annotation	claude-opus-5-5	Wrote the listing’s comments. 100 % of the program is described, in 1,718 comments.
Sample 1	claude-opus-5-5	6 of 80 comments wrong, so between 3 and 15 % of the listing is likely wrong. All 6 were then corrected.
Port check	claude-opus-5-5	Checked a page’s port or widget against the game and corrected 7 comments it showed wrong. the picture decoder, the room drawing and the parser, held to the game's own code on the kit's 6502, one frame recorded in the emulator and the picture loads watched in it, which corrected the comments on the drawing order at $75F7, the screen split at $6AB6 and $6B1C, the action scan's flag at $5B06, $5B44 and $5B50, and GET and DROP at $5D9A
Play tab	claude-opus-5-5	Ported the whole game to JavaScript for the Play tab and corrected 7 comments it showed wrong. the whole interpreter ported for the Play tab and run beside the game's code on the kit's 6502 (23 sessions, 3,360 answers identical), and the map's 50 ways played in the game's code; corrected the comments on command 80 at $56A6, which never moves the player, on actions 4, 202 and 208 that use it, the tester at $1F14, and the counter's comparison at $74B5 and $61A1

likely wrong the sample’s range corrected right, or likely right not yet measured

Contributors

air (4 commits)
Scott Adams — game design, text and series outline
John Romita Sr — art
Mark Gruenwald — art
Kem McNair — art
John Byrne — series outline
Bob Budiansky — series outline

Other places to love this game

What the game does, and where we found it

Read this before annotating code. What the game is documented to do, with verification status against the binary. Statuses: open (documented, not found yet), traced (in the code, could not be exercised; say what was tried), confirmed (in the code, consistent with the emulator), live (observed directly), differs (the code does something else). "Absent" is not a status.

Sources:

Commodore's manual for the C64 disk (C6460), read 31 October 2026
"Questprobe featuring The Hulk", Wikipedia, read 31 October 2026 (credits, year, platforms)
GameBase64's Game of the Week page, read 31 October 2026 (ZZAP!64's review of the Americana tape, and the screenshots in reference/gb64-*.png)
Ira Goldklang's TRS-80 walkthrough, read 31 October 2026 (the same adventure's text on the TRS-80)
C64-Wiki has no page for the game under "Questprobe 1: The Hulk", "The Incredible Hulk" or "Questprobe featuring The Incredible Hulk" (searched 31 October 2026)

Features

Feature	Status	Where
Commands of one or two words, a verb and then a noun	live	`command_line` ($6CDB): a third word gets "Use 1 or 2 words only!"
A vocabulary of "120-plus" words	confirmed	42 verbs and 81 nouns in their own right (AUTO, verb 0, names the automatic actions, and ANY is noun 0), 133 more spellings that stand for one of them, and two empty verb entries, in the lists at $8307 and $8082
Only the first four letters of a word count	confirmed	`find_word` ($6975) compares the database's word length, 4 ($8066)
One-letter commands: N, S, E, W, U, D move	confirmed	the direction letters at $6D6C
One-letter command I: inventory	confirmed	$6D57 turns I into INVE
One-letter command L: look	confirmed	$6D44 turns L into LOOK
Z turns the pictures off and on	live	$6D1F; `picture_flag` ($1F22)
SAVE GAME asks for an area, A to D	live	action 100 runs command 71, `save_game` ($646F); the file is saved as "@0:" (replace), the area's letter, "." and "S", both letters shifted
A saved game is restored before a new one starts ("Do you want to restore a previously saved game?")	confirmed	`restore_prompt` ($6F7A): Y asks for the area and loads it; a file whose last byte is not the database's check byte is refused with "BAD SAVE FILE"
QUIT ends the game; save first to continue later	live	action 122: "O.K.", the score, then command 63's "Now Hit-Y"
HELP may give help, depending on where you are and what you carry	differs	action 219 answers HELP the same way everywhere: "Sorry, I can't do that" and "But ask for a Scott Adams Hint Book at your favorite store!"
A light is needed where it is too dark to see	traced	the darkness test ($7560) and the light's countdown ($6C55) are there, but the light is item 9, which starts in room 0 and which no action brings out, and no action refills it (command 69). It is dark only with the eyes closed (action 137, CLOSE EYES)
The tester: T or P turns it on, X off	live (T)	$6D0B-$6D42: P prints each action that fits ("PSBL:") and each that runs ("DID:"), T only each that runs
The graphics mode pictures every location	live	`draw_room` ($759E); the pictures and the items' pieces are files on the disk, loaded as they are needed by the game's own fast loader ($7777)
Treasures are scored when left in one room	confirmed	`act_score` ($5836): the 17 items whose names start with '*' in room 16, the fuzzy area ($807B)
Becoming the Hulk, and back to Bruce Banner	live	item 1, "Rage", carried is the Hulk; BITE TONGUE in the first room gives it (actions 108, 11 and 13)
Marvel characters: Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Ultron, Nightmare, the Chief Examiner	confirmed	items 20, 26 and 45, room 19, and the action REMEMBER NIGHTMARE (action 72)

Beyond the documentation

Found in the code, not in the manual.

A demonstration. D at the restore question starts a scripted game that types its own commands ($7D64, script at $7DAD). live
Close-ups. LOOK at the dome, the bio gem, the egg, the ants, the bees, the ring, the cage, the gas outlet or a gem shows a picture of it when it is here (close_up, $6A51; pictures 90 to 97). live (LOOK RING loads picture 95)
The carried items as a picture. The inventory draws room 98's picture with the piece of each carried item over it ($75F7). traced
V passes a turn. The automatic actions run twice, once as the turn's command and once at its end ($6D72). live
A line is at most 14 characters. The fourteenth ends it ($688D). live
A double quote is printed as a hyphen by PUT ($66A5). live
A way out to BASIC. Character $FF ends the game with a BRK and BASIC's READY. ($6844); no key on the C64 makes it. live, through the keyboard queue
The C64's colour test. The first screen asks you to adjust the TV to four bars of colour ($6B8B). live
A winning password. SCORE typed in the fuzzy area with every treasure there has the Chief Examiner say "Save this password: ARIA" (actions 202 to 208). live. The manual does not mention it; search results on 31 October 2026 (Wikipedia's article among them) name the password. Typed in another room it still wins, without him: command 80 never moves the player to the fuzzy area (facts.md).
Saved games already on the disk. Commodore's 1984 disk holds four saved games, and areas A and D are the same three blocks, which the disk's block map lists as free: the first game saved, in any area, goes into them. live
The last piece drawn colours the room. Each item's piece sets the picture's four colours again ($7A9A), and pieces are drawn from item 0 up, so the dome takes the sign's red where its own picture has orange. live
"ADVENTURE over!" is in the program but never printed ($5805). live (QUIT shows no such line)

Open questions

Command 89 shows room 80's picture, and no file R01080 is on the disk; no action uses the command (searched every action's four command columns).
What the three header bytes at $807F-$8081 were for: nothing in the program reads them.

The symbol map for this game is symbols.json; the listing behind the Source tab is listing.json. Write-ups, facts and symbol maps are CC BY-SA 4.0. The game itself is not hosted here.