Maze of Galious overlay

A more creative aspect of emulation is that it opens doors to things that are impossible on the real hardware. One of the new features in openMSX 0.7.0, the on screen display (OSD), is not only practical for quick and handy features such as loading ROM images and making save states.

One surprising application of the OSD-technology is having an information overlay in certain games. A first test has been done with Konami's platformer The Maze of Galious. There is a TCL-script available which gives you an extra layer of information in this game. You can for instance read what sort of item is hidden in the rocks you need to destroy, and much more.

To see this effect with your own eyes, download the TCL-script, and place it in the share\scripts directory of your openMSX installation folder. Next, start openMSX and run Maze of Galious. In the console window, type: toggle_mog_overlay and after pressing enter the overlay will be activated. This new overlay feature has exposed a few bugs in the official 0.7.0 release of openMSX, you are thus invited to download a recent build. More information in this thread.

Naturally, it would be most fun to see these kind of scripts popping up for as many games as possible. Since it's a mere script, everyone can contribute. It's not easy, and you got to know where the game stores its variables, but at least it's possible.

Relevant link: Maze of Galious overlay - YouTube