10 replies to this topic

[Random Terrain]

Take a look at this from 2002:

Thomas Jentzsch, on Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:43 AM, said:

Cafeman, on Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:15 PM, said:

I'd love to do a hack of 2600 River Raid. I don't know how to do 2600 hacking yet, but that is my favorite game ever.

If I were to do a 2600 hack, I'd like to change the colors and enemies completely, and also change the river layout. That would be enough to make a whole new River Raid. How come nobody did this yet?

I've done complete disassembly of River Raid last year which you can find at The Dig!

To generate a different river layout, you only have to simply change the start values of the random number generator.

Would it be possible for someone to fix it so that River Raid would have different start values of the random number generator each time the game is restarted?

If someone could adjust River Raid so that it's different every time we play, that hacked version would become one of my favorite games. Lack of randomness is what keeps River Raid off my list of favorite games.


Thanks.

[batari]

Random Terrain, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 3:47 PM, said:

Take a look at this from 2002:

Thomas Jentzsch, on Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:43 AM, said:

Cafeman, on Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:15 PM, said:

I'd love to do a hack of 2600 River Raid. I don't know how to do 2600 hacking yet, but that is my favorite game ever.

If I were to do a 2600 hack, I'd like to change the colors and enemies completely, and also change the river layout. That would be enough to make a whole new River Raid. How come nobody did this yet?

I've done complete disassembly of River Raid last year which you can find at The Dig!

To generate a different river layout, you only have to simply change the start values of the random number generator.

Would it be possible for someone to fix it so that River Raid would have different start values of the random number generator each time the game is restarted?

If someone could adjust River Raid so that it's different every time we play, that hacked version would become one of my favorite games. Lack of randomness is what keeps River Raid off my list of favorite games.


Thanks.

This was discussed here:
http://www.atariage....showtopic=86120

There you can also find a hack where I implemented 4 unique rivers.

[128bytes]

Random Terrain, I have noticed a distinct lack of randomness in your disdain for games lacking in randomness.

[Random Terrain]

batari, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 5:27 PM, said:

Random Terrain, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 3:47 PM, said:

Take a look at this from 2002:

Thomas Jentzsch, on Thu Apr 11, 2002 2:43 AM, said:

Cafeman, on Wed Apr 10, 2002 11:15 PM, said:

I'd love to do a hack of 2600 River Raid. I don't know how to do 2600 hacking yet, but that is my favorite game ever.

If I were to do a 2600 hack, I'd like to change the colors and enemies completely, and also change the river layout. That would be enough to make a whole new River Raid. How come nobody did this yet?

I've done complete disassembly of River Raid last year which you can find at The Dig!

To generate a different river layout, you only have to simply change the start values of the random number generator.

Would it be possible for someone to fix it so that River Raid would have different start values of the random number generator each time the game is restarted?

If someone could adjust River Raid so that it's different every time we play, that hacked version would become one of my favorite games. Lack of randomness is what keeps River Raid off my list of favorite games.


Thanks.

This was discussed here:
http://www.atariage....showtopic=86120

There you can also find a hack where I implemented 4 unique rivers.

Thanks, 4 is better than 1, but would it be hard to have it randomly generate a river, such as one of 255, instead of only one of 4? If you had to make it a one-player only game to do that, it would be fine with me since I never play the game with others anyway.


Thanks.

Edited by Random Terrain, Wed Apr 2, 2008 4:07 PM.

[batari]

OK, here's an attempt.  Still 4 rivers, and doesn't work with P2, but you should start off at a random place in the river each time you press reset.

Attached Files

•  rr4rand.bin   4K   180 downloads

[Random Terrain]

batari, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 7:10 PM, said:

OK, here's an attempt.  Still 4 rivers, and doesn't work with P2, but you should start off at a random place in the river each time you press reset.

Thanks. That's better and more fun.

Did you happen to notice if anyone did something similar for Pitfall? Thomas Jentzsch did a random version of H.E.R.O, but I don't remember seeing a random version of Pitfall.

[Nukey Shay]

Since you have a time limit to discover all the treasures (and not enough time to just run above ground on every screen), IMO that idea wouldn't work so well.  Perhaps just placing you at a random spot in the jungle would be better...with you to discover where you are as you collect treasures.

[Random Terrain]

Nukey Shay, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 7:48 PM, said:

Since you have a time limit to discover all the treasures (and not enough time to just run above ground on every screen), IMO that idea wouldn't work so well.  Perhaps just placing you at a random spot in the jungle would be better...with you to discover where you are as you collect treasures.

I never stick around long enough to collect all of the treasures, so it wouldn't matter to me.

[supercat]

Nukey Shay, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 6:48 PM, said:

Since you have a time limit to discover all the treasures (and not enough time to just run above ground on every screen), IMO that idea wouldn't work so well.

Actually, I think it would work very well if the 'game number' were selectable and displayed on screen.  Under that scenario, it would be possible to have a 'Pitfall puzzle challenge', where people are given one week to figure out how to get the best possible score (and actually achieve it) on a set of levels they've probably never seen before (I suppose someone could figure out all 255 level sets before the start of the contest, but that seems unlikely).  I suppose for that scenario to work best it would help to have a 2-byte game number and improve the scrambling, but I would think that sort of scenario would work very nicely.

Too bad Activision didn't do that with any of their games.  Bridge, especially, would have been a lot better if one could specify a 'deal number', since then people could compete to see how they do with the same set of cards (incidentally, nearly all real-world tournament-level bridge is played that way).  Likewise, the 'random' course option for skiing would have benefited (both from a player standpoint and a marketing one--the cartridge could offer 10,000 selectable courses).

Are there any released 2600 carts that allow the user to select a numbered random scenario (from a huge selection)?

Edited by supercat, Wed Apr 2, 2008 7:06 PM.

[batari]

There was some discussion about a random Pitfall here, but it's only an 8-bit randomizer:

http://www.atariage....showtopic=75884

It appears a 16-bit randomizer was not compiled into the game, but the suggested code to do so is there.

[Random Terrain]

batari, on Wed Apr 2, 2008 10:03 PM, said:

There was some discussion about a random Pitfall here, but it's only an 8-bit randomizer:

http://www.atariage....showtopic=75884

It appears a 16-bit randomizer was not compiled into the game, but the suggested code to do so is there.

Thanks. I sent him a PM to see if he ever tried the suggestions.