Big Money! Deluxe

Big Money! Deluxe
Developer: PopCap Games Publisher: PopCap Games Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X Released internationally: June 4, 2002 (Windows), December 20, 2002 (Mac) This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has revisional differences. This game has a prerelease article

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue this article?

Big Money! Deluxe is a puzzle game that centers around, you guessed it, money. It was about as average as you can imagine.

Development Text

A few development-related strings can be found in the game's executable.

incompatible version
buffer error
insufficient memory
data error
stream error
file error
stream end

Rather vague-sounding error messages which were likely used for development purposes.

Unused Text

c:\windows\media\Windows XP Menu Command.wav

A path to a sound file from Windows XP.

Debugging Material

Pressing CTRL + ALT + D in-game will play the user's Asterisk sound to indicate that the debugging mode has been enabled. Afterwards, the game allows the player to access certain debugging features using various keybinds.

• F2: Toggle performance timing. When disabled, it will open a message box alerting the user of what was timed.
• F3: Toggles whether to display the game's FPS or not.
  • Shift + F3: Toggles whether to display the player's cursor's coordinates or not.
• F8: Opens a message box telling the player various video-related statistics.
  • Shift + F8: Toggles 3D Acceleration.
• F11: Takes a screenshot and saves it to a folder named _screenshots, which is located in the game's directory.
  • Shift + F11: Dumps all the game's images loaded in memory to a folder named _screenshots, which is located in the game's directory. It also, for whatever reason, automatically generates an HTML file named imagelist.html. The HTML file contains a list of the images dumped as well as their properties.

Audio File Oddities

While most of the game's audio files are in OGG format, two are in AU: explode.au and piecehit.au. AU is what the Java demo of the game used, which has a lower bitrate than Big Money! Deluxe's OGG files.

Revisional Differences

Version History

• 1.0 (1.00) was the initial release.
• 1.1 (1.10) tweaked scoring and fixed some minor bugs.
• 1.11 tweaked the title theme (more info in the Music section)
• 1.22 fixed more bugs.
• 1.3 (1.30) changed music handling and fixed some more bugs. There are at least three variants with three different PopCap logos.

Title Screen

v1.0 to v1.3 (initial)	v1.3 (middle)	v1.3 (latest)

Earlier versions of Big Money! Deluxe used the older variant of the PopCap logo, before switching over to the 2003-07 logo briefly for v1.3's post-release revision, and one last time to the 2007-11 logo for the latest v1.3 revision.

Icon

v1.0 to v1.3 (middle)	v1.3 (latest)

Like Bejeweled, earlier versions of Big Money! Deluxe featured the money bag graphic straight from the game, but the latest version of v1.3 uses a unique money bag graphic instead.

Music

v1.0	v1.1	v1.11 to v1.3 (latest)

Earlier versions of Big Money! Deluxe had considerably different versions of the intro/main menu themes (especially v1.0). The intro theme from v1.0 and v1.1 is strikingly similar to the intro of "The Big Money" by the rock band Rush (which is acknowledged in the song comments in the .IT module file used in the game; read below), while the composition of the lead instrument in the main menu theme from v1.0 is different than in v1.1/1.11 and onwards.

v1.0	v1.1	v1.11 to v1.3 (latest)
Quality Time - Big Money Mix The name is a paradox. Modern times dictate that you can either have big money or quality time, but not both. Original (C) 1997 (unreleased) - Remix (C) 2002 (C) Peter Hajba - peter.hajba@kolumbus.fi ----> http://www.futurecrew.com/skaven A nice challenge. How to make it recognizable but not a "cover"? Song Parts: Pos: 00-21 - Puzzle mode music (loops) 23 - Puzzle level complete fanfare, continues to.. 24 - Puzzle chill-out / pause (loops) 26-38 - Action mode music (loops) 40 - Action level complete fanfare, continues to.. 41-42 - Action chill-out / pause (loops) 44-61 - Strategy mode music (loops) 63 - Strategy level complete fanfare, continues to.. 64-65 - Strategy chill-out / pause (loops) 67 - Game Over fanfare, continues to.. 68-85 - High Scores music. After it ends, it jumps to Main Menu. 87-88 - Game Intro, continues to Main Menu. 89-97 - Main Menu (loops) 99 - Break / Music Off pattern (loops)	Quality Time - Big Money Mix The name is a paradox. Modern times dictate that you can either have big money or quality time, but not both. In other words, if you are intent on making big money, you hardly have any time left for anything else. :) This song is dedicated to people who hold their breath while shaving. Original (C) 1997 (unreleased) - Remix (C) 2002 (finally put into use) (C) Peter Hajba - peter.hajba@kolumbus.fi ----> http://www.futurecrew.com/skaven Song Parts: (Pos) (title) 00-21 - Puzzle mode music (loops) 23 - Puzzle level complete fanfare, continues to.. 24 - Puzzle chill-out / pause (loops) 26-38 - Action mode music (loops) 40 - Action level complete fanfare, continues to.. 41-42 - Action chill-out / pause (loops) 44-61 - Strategy mode music (loops) 63 - Strategy level complete fanfare, continues to.. 64-65 - Strategy chill-out / pause (loops) 67 - Game Over fanfare, continues to.. 68-85 - High Scores music. After it ends, it jumps to Main Menu. 87-88 - Game Intro, continues to Main Menu. 89-97 - Main Menu (loops) 99 - Break / Music Off pattern (loops) <clever secret message> It's interesting how incorrect melody can make a song lawsuit-proof. </clever secret message>	Quality Time - Big Money Mix The name is a paradox. Modern times dictate that you can either have big money or quality time, but not both. In other words, if you are intent on making big money, you hardly have any time left for anything else. :) This song is dedicated to people who hold their breath while shaving. Original (C) 1997 (unreleased) - Remix (C) 2002 (finally put into use) (C) Peter Hajba - peter.hajba@kolumbus.fi ----> http://www.iki.fi/skaven More pummeling applied 12-14 Aug 2002. Song Parts: (Pos) (title) 00-21 - Puzzle mode music (loops) 23 - Puzzle level complete fanfare, continues to.. 24 - Puzzle chill-out / pause (loops) 26-38 - Action mode music (loops) 40 - Action level complete fanfare, continues to.. 41-42 - Action chill-out / pause (loops) 44-61 - Strategy mode music (loops) 63 - Strategy level complete fanfare, continues to.. 64-65 - Strategy chill-out / pause (loops) 67 - Game Over fanfare, continues to.. 68-85 - High Scores music. After it ends, it jumps to Main Menu. 87-88 - Game Intro, continues to Main Menu. 89-97 - Main Menu (loops) 99 - Break / Music Off pattern (loops) <clever secret message> It's interesting how incorrect melody can make a song lawsuit-proof. </clever secret message>

The song comment text in the game's Impulse Tracker module file contains a message from the composer Skaven. The text in 1.0 (along with the "clever secret message" in 1.1 and 1.11) indirectly points out the similarities between the intro theme and the intro to "The Big Money" by Rush.