How to activate the secret debug menu in The Adventures of Willy Beamish?

Written on March 24th, 2026 by zappatic

This blog post is an addendum to this YouTube video:

If you watched the above YouTube video, in which I figure out how to activate the secret debug menu, you'd have noticed there were lots of other things hidden behind the mysterious global value 159. Below is a list of scenes which contain a HotArea that is activated by this global, in other words, the "debug mode activated" toggle.

All you need to do is open the console in ScummVM, type scene [scene number], click on the respective HotArea and see what it does. The four parameters after each HotArea are x and y position, followed by width and height.

Have fun!

Scene 3

HotArea at 0,156 320,44 : showdlg [49 1]

Scene 5

HotArea at 83,187 237,13 : showdlg [2 1]

Scene 10

HotArea at 34,87 41,39 : showdlg [49 11]

Scene 11

Scene 12

HotArea at 257,168 63,32 : showdlg [6 1]

Scene 14

Scene 15

Scene 16

HotArea at 39,13 35,12 : showdlg [49 2]

Scene 22

HotArea at 100,54 46,16 : showdlg [49 18] (on use) and showdlg [23 32] (on look)

Scene 29

HotArea at 0,162 52,38 : showdlg [26 22]

Scene 31

Scene 32

HotArea at 1,10 57,31 : showdlg [35 45]

Scene 33

Scene 35

HotArea at 252,25 50,18 : 
    global [3 80 10 0 79 10 0 283 10 0]
    setItemAttr [39 1 1]
    setItemAttr [28 1 1]
    sceneOpSegmentStateOps [2 1 2 2 0 0]

Scene 36

HotArea at 270,165 50,30 : 
    setItemAttr [27 2 2]
    setItemAttr [19 1 1]
    global [9 287 10 0 288 10 0 285 10 0 97 10 50 398 10 0 402 10 0 401 10 0 400 10 0 224 10 0]

Scene 40

HotArea at 273,9 46,34 : global [3 143 10 0 136 10 0 3 10 100]

Scene 41

HotArea at 107,10 43,25 :
    global [4 128 10 0 127 10 0 139 10 0 105 10 1]
    setItemAttr [22 1 1]
    setItemAttr [3 2 2]
    setItemAttr [23 2 2]
    setItemAttr [12 2 2]
    setItemAttr [10 2 2]

Scene 42

HotArea at 297,178 23,13 : showdlg [27 9]

Scene 44

HotArea at 155,155 41,45 : 
    global [6 95 10 4 230 10 0 331 10 0 213 10 1 97 10 43 94 10 10]
    setItemAttr [34 2 2]
    setItemAttr [20 1 1]
    setItemAttr [20 1 1]
    setItemAttr [83 1 1]

Scene 45

HotArea at 216,37 27,26 : showdlg [29 4]

Scene 46

HotArea at 270,9 50,32 : showdlg [33 26]

Scene 47

HotArea at 196,184 102,16 : 
    global [9 97 10 70 208 10 2 95 10 4 250 10 0 247 10 10 87 10 1 94 10 10 121 10 0 93 10 1]
    setItemAttr [86 2 2] (has extra condition)
    setItemAttr [13 2 2]
    setItemAttr [5 2 2]
    setItemAttr [9 2 2] (has extra condition)

Scene 49

HotArea at 0,0 47,50 : showdlg [49 23]

Scene 50

HotArea at 155,129 52,34 : 
    global [5 95 10 3 216 10 1 80 10 0 223 10 0 224 10 1]
    setItemAttr [29 2 2]
    setItemAttr [30 2 2]

Scene 57

Scene 58

HotArea at 243,24 47,38 : showdlg [49 13]

Scene 59

HotArea at 57,54 34,34 : showdlg [49 14]

Scene 60

HotArea at 117,75 33,16 : sceneOpSegmentStateOps [2 7 0 0]

Scene 65

HotArea at 0,7 133,51 : 
    global [4 96 10 33 120 10 999 121 10 0 1 10 6]
    sceneOpSegmentStateOps [2 1 2 2 2 4 0 0]

Scene 69

HotArea at 8,16 48,29 : 
    setItemAttr [31 2 2]
    setItemAttr [12 2 2]
    setItemAttr [27 1 1]
    global [5 281 10 0 320 10 0 97 10 32 3 10 500 95 10 2]

Scene 71

Scene 76

HotArea at 29,2 175,24 : showdlg [49 26]

Scene 78

HotArea at 0,0 320,26 : global [2 322 6 322 321 10 1]

Scene 79

HotArea at 14,11 67,28 : showdlg [49 17]