GTAKid667

11 years later, a screenshot of GTAKid667's "Personal Vehicle" in Round 152 of the Grand Theft Auto III Chain Game. A description at the bottom of the screenshot reads: "GTAKid667's Mafia Sentinel - In a parking space outside of Greasy Joe's Cafe in Callahan Point".

The basic concept and rules of these rounds are the same as they have always been, and they continue to bring a lot of enjoyment and activity to our community, but the process behind creating them has fundamentally changed with the evolution of modding.

11 years on, the process is much simpler. Now we read and save the co-ordinates as they are and modify the save file data directly. We can even have multiple contributors each produce a save file and then use an automated method of merging these together to produce a final save.

There was then a lengthy QA styled process of checking every vehicle and ensuring that it met the guidelines, spawned properly, and that there were no issues you hadn't thought of earlier. Once the save file was created, that was it, so you had to make sure you got it right!

The editor, created by Barton Waterduck, applied the modifications you'd make to the main.scm file meaning that to create a save file, you would then need to launch the game and start a new game, completing the first mission and then saving at the first safehouse.

A screenshot of a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel showing two sets of vehicle models from Grand Theft Auto III split into "Category A" and "Category B" which a thick black dividing line between them in the centre of the worksheet.

You also had to be careful of which vehicles you were replacing. Certain vehicle models replacing certain other vehicle models would result in a game crash. I therefore had to document and split all vehicles in to two categories, ensuring that I didn't mix them when adding them to the editor.

Using LithJoe's Ultimate Trainer, I'd read and save the co-ordinates of where to place each vehicle to a Word document. The Z co-ordinate you'd need to mulitply by 1200 and convert the value to hexidecimal. There was no ability for us to use custom colour schemes for the vehicles back then.

A screenshot of Barton Waterduck's "Parked Car Editor 6" that was used to create "Generated Vehicles" rounds of the Grand Theft Auto III Chain Game between 2012 and 2017.

A screenshot from Microsoft Word showing a list of location descriptions and co-ordinates for the "Personal Vehicles" category of the hidden "Generated Vehicles" in Round 23 of the Grand Theft Auto III Chain Game.

A screenshot of GTAKid667's "Personal Vehicle" in Round 23 of the Grand Theft Auto III Chain Game. A description at the bottom of the screenshot reads: "GTAKid667's Mafia Sentinel - At the end of the Picnic Area".

A screenshot of GTAForums.com showing the topic for Round 23 of the Grand Theft Auto III Chain Game. Displayed is the first section of the "Vehicle Hunt" checklist, showing the 5 "Personal Vehicles" in red, yet to be discovered by players.

11 years of creating "Generated Vehicles" rounds for @gtachaingame.com allows you to appreciate how far our knowledge of these games has come and the tools that are now available. What is now a simple save file edit was once a project involving trainers, quirky editing tools, and a 4:3 PC monitor!