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04-25-24 12:49 PM |
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| Main - Posts by Trax |
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 Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 936/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Other questions...
Is there any reason the AI blocks are differently colored? Or is it just to distinguish them? In this screenshot, there are track blocks that have a stair-like boundary. How is this expressed in the code? Is it just a block with 3 coordinates instead of 4 (assuming the ordinary ones have 4 coordinates, which may be incorrect as well) ? |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 937/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Can you eat it? |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 938/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
To ease my mind, I sometimes work on simple ROMs, which are still games that I like a minimum, just to keep a minimum of interest. One of them is Binary Land, a game with an interesting concept. Two little penguins must reach a caged heart while avoiding enemies. Their movements are mirrored horizontally. That's it...
I made a rough version of an editor, with the data I already know. The levels have a basic layout and then specific blocks are added as needed to complete the maze. Oddly enough, the data I found until now only covers the left side of the 16 levels. My best guess is that the second half is somehow calculated. Or maybe I just didn't find the data for the second half... Here you can get my notes on the second bank, which contain key data. These notes are basically a disassembly of the ROM, with contents added as I discover the nature of the data. Note that this file is bound to be modified regularly, so you can expect more stuff to appear anytime... Some key tables: 4892: Table for High Scores Tables for ? When modified, it affects both tiles and Spider Webs 6519: 0F 00 04 08 0C 01 05 09 0D 02 06 0A 0E 03 07 0B 6529: 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 6741: Table related to hidden items in blocks 6751: Pointer table for levels extra blocks (left part) 6771: Tables for levels extra blocks (all 16 levels, each series end with FF) 6827: Pointer table for Spider Webs? (not as straightforward as Level Data) 6847: Tables for Spider Webs (sort of) The two tables at 6519 and 6529 seem to affect tile layering, so I guess there's something to discover there. If you can find anything of interest in those lines, or if you can find other data, let me know. Feel free to use this information if you want to make an editor or a hack... Comments are welcome... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 939/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Excellent, more useful info...
I got the trick about level layers. Both halves of the levels use one of the 16 possible sets of extra blocks. And each of these sets have their corresponding set of Spider Webs. So if you change a level to have another set of blocks, the spider webs will change along with it. That calls for a strange implementation of a level editor. But nothing is impossible... For each level, you have 2 sets of blocks, one for the left part and one for the right part. The tables at 6519 and 6529 are used to make the associations. The first set of 0x10 is for the left side, and the next is for the right side. For example, level 1 has codes 00 and 01. Level 2 has 04 and 02. Etc... Right now, my editor has 3 modes. One to edit the basic layout, common to all levels. One to edit the 16 possible sets of blocks. And the third one is for sets associations for each level... Another interesting spin of the game is that the halves associations change when you go around the 16 levels cycle. So level 17 will have its left half the same as level 1, but the right half the one of level 2. That's why some people thought that the levels following the 16th one were randomly generated... Now, I'm trying to find out about how enemy patterns are generated. Their initial locations seem to be randomized... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 940/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
I've read some of the information in the links you provided, it seems you know quite well where you're going. I'm not sure exactly how I could be of use. If this kind of implementation can help bringing debugging features to the Mac platform, I could be interested... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 941/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
For those who might be interested, here's all the information I gathered on Arkanoid until now, which is, as usual, a disassembly of the ROM, with commented lines, some explanations of code and data tables and sometimes a few chunks of ASM code...
Most of the information I needed for my editor Arkalavista is probably part of these files. Surely there are many comments that may look confusing or just not explained enough, this is not intended to be a full-fledged data collection, nor any sort of guide. I started a page on my site that explains some of the key elements of the game, with offsets and how to use the data... And as usual, these files are bound to be modified any time, either by me or someone else... Arkanoid - Bank 0 Arkanoid - Bank 1 Arkanoid - RAM Map If you have any questions because you're interested in making an editor or a hack, drop me a line here or by email... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 942/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
For those interested, I submit here all the information I gathered so far on the game Contra. As usual, in the form of a disassembly of the game with as much comments as possible. As usual, these files could change anytime. Most information contained in these files were used to make my still-in-the-works editor Red Falcon. If someone wants to make an editor for Contra, you should have enough information to cover the basics. If you can find anything that could complete our current knowledge of the game, let me know...
Contra - Bank 0 Contra - Bank 1 Contra - Bank 2 Contra - Bank 3 Contra - Bank 4 Contra - Bank 5 Contra - Bank 6 Contra - Bank 7 Contra - RAM Map Any questions ? |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 943/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Super C looks a little more like the original Contra, which is what it appels a little more to me...
I just find it weird that the guy has a big stupid head, or maybe I'm not seeing the right thing... Other than that, I'm not sure it's different enough to be really challenging or refreshing or whatever. But it's better than nothing, of course... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 944/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
The MMC1 mapper (or simply Mapper 1) has 4 input ports that are written to for various reasons, like bank switching. I read somewhere that the registers have weak decoding capabilities, and that's why there are ranges of addresses instead of just one address. For information on mappers, I usually go to this site. The registers are listed like this:
So whether you write to $8000 or $91DC, it doesn't matter, it's still Register 0. Right? So, why do I see this kind of code?
Why use $C004 specifically, and how is the Y index supposed to change anything? Any insight will be appreciated... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 945/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Once again, I decided to step into unknown terrain and explore a game that, to my surprise, have apparently been left alone completely in the hacking world. This game is Micro Machines. I don't know if it used to be a popular game, but I know I spent countless hours on it on a real NES...
This game uses compressed graphics, and the algorithm is more complicated than regular RLE... And again, I guess that it's one of the reasons noone did anything significant with it... I'm not at the point of being able to edit tracks, yet, but that's my goal for now. I successfully exocised the demons and made a decompression algorithm for the graphics, so I end up with a cool matrix of tiles. Each block is made of 6 rows of 6 tiles. This is the graphics matrix for the Jeeps courses, using a fixed, arbitrary palette... That's it for now. If anyone has information that could help, please let us know... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 946/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Well, that's just another game between friends... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 947/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Title joke notwithstanding, it's been quite some time we hadn't any quality hacks, aside from a few tests and labs and the usual Mario stuff. The levels are well done, and not freakishly hard. On another note, I found the various tunes somewhat irritating...
All in all, very good work... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 948/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
As in the first example:
LDA foo ADC #$00 STA foo This operation is for numbers that are more than 1 byte long, and is used to compute remainders. Adding 0 to A will result either in 0, if the Carry Bit is clear, and 1 if the Carry Bit is set. Another thing to remember is that there could be another place in the code that points between two lines, where A gets another value, and then is stored like in the example, when returning from a subroutine... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 949/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Yeah, but I'm a 8-bit NES old fart... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 950/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Ah, those running gags that are not meant to enter the Realm... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 951/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
That's pretty impressive, indeed. I suspect he was using some recording tool to go back and make a perfect run (à la TAS Videos), and it is still possible that he died on purpose to look more "human", though. He did use a turbo with the regular bullets... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 952/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
If you have never seen a car seat being dragged behind a car (and you probably didn't), well, now it's been done. We used a chain about 20 feet long, secured with a carabiner at both ends. The video was shot from inside the car.
Check it out... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 953/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Well, the white thing is a dummy, made with a one-piece cleaning suit stuffed with newspaper, with shoes and gloves, a stuffed raccoon for the head and a cap. Everything was secured either with rubber bands or yellow tuck tape. The dummy actually rode the damn thing, but the results were quite the opposite of what was expected. It had apparently enough weight to stabilize the system, so he just turned around the seat while he was dragged, fastened with yellow nylon cable...
We ran square into him later on during this session, and the poor fellow was shredded under the car AND passed under the car seat, that was still attached to the back of the car... During this same session, we also destroyed a printer. Not as funny or spectacular, but he disintegrated piece by piece until the outer cover exploded... We have videos of a couple of computer screens and TVs who met similar fates, but they are on mini DV tape, so I just have to find the time to transfer them from analog to numeric and upload it for everyone to enjoy... I'll upload more stuff later. If you have any suggestions for things that you think would be funny dragged behind a car at high speed, let us know and we'll see what we can do... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 955/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
Noone wanted to sit on the damn seat, so we only need a guinea pig and we're ready to go. And we don't have fine China, either. Someone suggested a blender, but I suspect it's an underlying joke that noone can understand. Maybe a blender filled with gas with a burning rag tied to the lid, something like that...
Our next goal would be a clothes-dryer or a washing machine. As soon as we can get our hands on one, we will get to work. Until then, the good old pyramid of anything will do. We tried the water balloon in the windshield, but it cracked full-width and the rear-view mirror fell off... We can't garantee that your suggestions will be honored, but we will take them in consideration, that's for sure. Keep them coming... |
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Yellow Stalfos Level: 71 Posts: 956/1145 EXP: 3035568 Next: 131546 Since: 07-06-07 From: Québec Last post: 3626 days Last view: 2878 days |
It depends of the kind of wheels, but yes, that would be quite cool, although we need someone with the guts. If we can find a replacement for our very ugly couch, we will probably put it at good use: screw some wheels to it and drag it at high speed with one or more people sitting on it, eating popcorn, reading a book, stuff like that... |
| Main - Posts by Trax |
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