Pac Munchkin

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH WOWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!! That was all I had to do all this time I was using the editor to try to add screen shots!!! COOL!!!!! Wade I am now thinking of going back to all my hacks and adding screen shots now.

Cant paly it on my computer. Any screenshots? Well since you know how to load up screen shots if you tell me how you do it. I'll load some up. I click on insert image and it asks for a URL, it is on my hard drive not some web page so I can never post any screen shots. I have no idea how you do it? I'll upload the screen shots as a file then you can download them to view i guess that would work? Wade

I'd help you out but I never heard of Solarwarrior to know what it is supose to look like? I will check this out though. Wade

Wow Space Harrier huh? Cooooooool!!!!!! I will check this one out I know. Wade

I am getting closer this looks much more like arcade Battle Zone, unfortunatly for now I can not find the location to change the tank color. So I need to at least for now keep the ground in shades of blue. The mountains look like the vector green lines, the tanks look better now too i found a whole bunch I did not hollow out from before. black forground and sky. Another thing I did not take into account is how much the color changes in this game from day to night to snow to fog to rain all of these have different color setups that need to be found so that when the weather or day changes to night it will still look the same. Anyway enjoy here is my newest version. Wade ROBOTANK_hack_WIP_8_26_06_wc.BIN

Hack-O-Matic for Linix http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...matic&st=25 http://www.kudla.org/index.php?wl_mode=more&wl_eid=29

Robot Tank is closer to your mock up than Battle Zone, so I think Robot Tank could be hacked into a better Battle Zone more arcade like graphics than Battle Zone. Robot take has the sight for aiming already there it has no first person tank to get rid of either. All that would need be done is to change the colors and hollow out the tanks. Maybe I'll try this. Wade I concur...though it would still be missing the barriers that make BZ challenging to begin with. And the result wouldn't be possible to burn to a cart anyway due to the bankswitching used. So you think its posable in hacking Battlezone into a arcade like game? How do you like this for a start? Wade I need to find the colors now that will take me a while longer. ROBOTANK_hack.BIN

Robot Tank is closer to your mock up than Battle Zone, so I think Robot Tank could be hacked into a better Battle Zone more arcade like graphics than Battle Zone. Robot take has the sight for aiming already there it has no first person tank to get rid of either. All that would need be done is to change the colors and hollow out the tanks. Maybe I'll try this. Wade

Robby needs some sight work to get it looking a little more like Robby but with the pixel limitation maybe that is not possible what I am thinking. The sides are very smooth and straight I was thinking a few indentations around the legs and body to look a little more like Robby? Can it be done how many pixels are for each leg, if only two then it can't unless offset. Wade

Don't you think that since it is supposed to be a robot talking...it should sound like one? Well it depends in the 70's and 80's as far as movies go everyone thought a robot should sound like that, but if you hear robots today they sound much more human really. Even our movies changed like Terminator that did not sound like a robot. I guess really the quest is to get the most human sounding robots for us humans to interact with in the future. I think if a robot sounds like what we used to think a robot should sound like that is old technology there, robots are capable of sounding human now. Wade

I was just looking at the great job you did on your color chart! Wow at a glance I can see all the colors in decimal value without loading up ColourTest.bin and cycling through the colors to find what I am looking for. http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-me...html#colorchart Great Job!!!!!! Wade

I had that that was good but still a little complex, so I mostly used Mastertronix Games Creator, but then I found Broderbund's Arcade Games Construction Set!!!!!! WOW was that great!!!!!!!!! Very easy like Games Creator but you could make real arcade quality games with multiple levels and much more freedom of creation. That was so good I wish someone would have made something like that for other things like maybe for the Atari 2600 Wade

No Mappy was bigger than you think, we had one at our local food bag many years ago. I never played it there because it looked like a kids or girls game, it wasn't until MAME I had tried it and found I was missing a very fun game all that time! If I remember it replaced Missile Command at that store, that I did use to play there. But Zaxxon was the crown jewel what they got that game it was had to get to play it, everyone wanted to play it so it always had someone playing and others waiting to play it. Too bad that is impossible on the 2600, well like the arcade the three quarter scrolling I mean, as a side shooter Zaxxon should be excellent on the 2600, but we are talking Mappy, this should be great almost as good as the MSX version I'll bet! I have played that on an MSX emulator too. Wade

The Calculator in Windows (Start->Programs->Accessories->Calculator) does HEX, DEC, OCT, and BIN conversions. You just need to change the view to scientific. -Jeff I didn't know that, really all this time I had been using my old book Compute's book on machine language, they have a conversion list, I just am too lazy to figure each number out the way I explained I do some times. lol Some times I will if it is something easy like 37, 32+4+1 easy but most of the time I get my book! lol So I thought there must be a conversion tool to do it automatically out there so I found that web site just a few moments ago. Thanks Wade

WOW excellent I love it, I also love the other tools you have as well! Excellent site!!!! Thanks so much!! Wade

It has been brought to my attention to give links for everything I talk of along with the ColourTest.bin So I am providing all of this here and now. Everything is 100% FREE!!!!! http://www.bjars.com/tools.html Here you will find most of the tools http://www.download.com/Files-Compare-Tool...tml?tag=lst-0-1 Here you can get the file compare tool I use http://www.mistupid.com/computers/binaryconv.htm Here is a Binary / Decimal Converter Calculator save this page it works off line too. Ok enjoy getting started hacking Happy Hacking Wade ColourTest.bin

I would need pick C 64 version Atari 800 version Atari 2600 offical sega version (supercharger) then 2600 Parker Brothers version Wade

Oh yes these are even better! Wade

Well actually in the original game you could never really understand that robot voice, I think a more clear updated human voice might be better? Wade

Ok I'll attempt to write the story I am an expert author but this is not what I usually write what I usually write is ezinearticles.com First the elements of the game there are Wild Boar, Lions, Cobras and Crocodiles, also the Pits you must watch to avoid. You are Tarsan Lord and Master of the Jungle Swinging from tree vines Jumping over animals and pits. You see a plane has crashed and you find a survivor, she tells you the story of what had happened. She tells you there are many more and they all ran off "I am afraid they are all lost!" she says to you. you tell her "Never worry if anyone can find them all I can, I know this jungle very well." Your rescue mission starts now! Wade

Ok here is the final version I changed the Komono Dragon into a Lion, All prizes are turned into women and children. A plane crashed or something women and children all around the jungle it is up to Tarsan to rescue them all! Wow I need Tim to write a story I guess! lol Anyway you get the picture of the game. Here it is enjoy. Wade By the way change name to Tarsan to avoid any Trademark stuff. Tarsan__s_Rescue__Tom_Boy_hack_8_16_6__wc.bin

Yes this is very good, it has the look of a Soccer game I used to play on the Commodore 64, Very good graphics as good as the C64s soccer players I remember!!!! I am very impressed, it does have more of a table top soccer feel to it, but it is very fun, I deeply enjoy it and think it is great! Wade

You are right I don't remember sound effects only that music constantly playing. Was it the Entertainer I don't remember what it was but I remember it was constant. Wade

Neo I think you did a great job on this hack and you are right the original smaller sprites look better than the bigger version you made. It is better with the robots firing diagonally. Wade

I have been thinking there are a lot of people that like our hacks but would like to get into hacking them selves. Many good ideas never see the light of day simply because of a belief in limitation, remove that belief in limitation and you have a new found sense of adventure that you can learn and you can be as good as any one else if you are willing to learn to be. I will give you essential tools I use most in hacking that you can too. These are all easy tools nothing hard to understand. The tools I use are Stella Bit Hacker (some prefer Hack-O-Matic II) Showgfx File Compare and a ROM called Colour Test Also good to have is a Decimal to Binary converter (this can really speed things up for hacking) All of these are my tools I use. Ok if you have all these tools you are ready to start hacking! First is there a hack of the ROM you what to hack already preferably with color changes? This hack can not be a radically different hack like extra levels or different game play that is getting into advanced hacking. It should be the same except for graphics and colors. If you find one this will help you out a lot, I did this when I found out Tom Boy is really a hack of Pit Fall now I had two very different appearing and sounding even playing games to compare with each other. If you have found the one you want to hack and another that has been hacked or as in the case of Tom Boy the original it came from you now can move on to the next step. Copy both ROMs into the folder for Showgfx this should be in a main root not in a bunch of sub folders. After you copied both go to the [start] button then go to Programs Accessories and Command Prompt. This will put you in DOS the system Windows is operating from, type cd .. and press enter keep doing this until you see only this C:\ once you see this stop. Is your showgfx in the C:\ directory or maybe on another drive maybe D:\? I'll show you how to get to another drive lets say D:\ for example just type D:\ and press enter this puts you into the D:\ drive (if it is in C:\ there is no need to switch) now type CD 2600showgfx and press enter. Doing this now puts you into the showgfx folder if that is the location of the folder you put it at in windows. Type dir press enter you will now see a list of the programs including the ROMs you just copied. (it is good to rename these in windows to something like old.bin and new.bin (the one you don't want to change and the one you do want to change) so in this list you will see old.bin and new.bin next to these you will see a number that is the amount of bytes these have. It is important to find these, 4K ROMS would be 4096 so next we type showgfx old.bin 0 4096 > old.txt Press enter this will convert the old ROM to a text file. Do the same thing for the New.bin as well. Now type Exit Go back to the folder in windows click on Old.txt and open with the File Compare, it will ask you for the next file click browse and load the new.txt. Now it list both side by side you are now looking at both ROMs both the one you want to change and the one you want to compare it to, these as I said should have color differences maybe sound differences as well don't worry so much for graphics as those are pretty clear to see without comparing. Click on highlight differences, it will now one at a time find every difference between these two ROMs. When you find a difference Open Bit Hacker load the ROM you want to change save the ROM as something like 1Test Now scroll down locate the same number you found the difference at change that (note try to only change one line at a time otherwise you will not know which line had what effect of change) after you have changed that load up Stella and load the new 1test ROM you just made, play the game and look for what was changed, does it sound different, are the colors changed some place? If you just found a change you just found your first thing you can change to what ever you chose. Lets say it is color and you want a certain color, close that ROM and load up Colour Test in Stella, use the joy stick to find the color you want to change that to once you have found it write down the number. Go back to Bit Hacker now here is where it gets a little hard but stay with me I'll talk you though this. those little black boxes and white boxes represent one number each line. It is called Binary numbers this is what the computer understands, it is based in increases of 2 our number system we are use to is based in increases of 10. Starting from the right most box this can be 0 or 1 (simple on off, no box or black box) Next to it we have the on off bit for 2 (so if I wanted to make a 2 the second box would be checked, now don't get ahead of me and think if I wanted three the third box would be checked on!) So 2 would be nothing in the first box, black box in the second box. 3 would be 2 + 1 or The first box black and the second box black. So now we come to 4 which would be the third box black the first and second box clear. this adding continues on like this 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 (that is what 8 bits looks like or also called one byte) By the way when you get to color 255 you do not need go higher they repeat over and over again on that, also the colors go in twos as well so color 0 and color 1 is black (this holds true for all colors up to 255 which really means 128 colors) another good tool to have is a decimal to binary converter or use your math like this, what is the highest number not going over the number you want click that bit what is the next highest number you can add to that, click that bit the next highest until you get to the number of the color you wanted. Now after you get your color all punched in save the game again, go back to the 1test and look at your results, do you like what you see? If you want it a little darker you can remove the lower bits, it you want brighter you can add lower bits. So say you want it darker remove the first row to the left if it is a color that does not have any bits from 1 to 4 checked this will not work and you need to go back to the colour test to find a more suitable color. Ok that is only changing one line lets say now you are changing the color of one line in a sprite (one screen graphic like a man or space ship) now you can try changing the line above it or below it if you see a pattern there like a bunch of lines that look the same straight down you can be pretty safe changing them all and find you just changed the colors of the ship or person or what ever it is you wanted to change. For sound like I did for Tom Boy to Tarzan I found the lower the number the higher the sound went the higher the number the lower the sound went. Don't be afraid to experiment my whole hacking method comes from I wonder what would happen if I changed this. If it has no effect change it back, if it crashed change it back always keep track of what you changed and what it was like before you changed it, this can be done using two Bit Hackers side by side same ROM One is the one you are working on the other is only for reference of what it looked like before you changed it so you can change it back if you need to. Look for patterns of sameness in the bits those may be color or sound but not always there are games that use only one line to define the color of a whole sprite so it is only one color, these are harder to find but can be found. Now for graphics that is simple scroll until you see the players or space ships or what ever you want to change, then change the bits all around to look like what you want. (if it is upside down switch the order in view to assend) The only rule is to try to keep it the same size no bigger than the original but again sometimes you can go bigger and be safe. See if you go beyond what the ROM is suppose to see you may be making your sprite part of another sprite or worse part of data of the game. Anyway again if you mess up you can always go back and change it back. That is how I hacked Tom Boy into Tarzan I found other things as well like how to make the gators deadly which in Tom Boy they were not as they were only rocks, also tree placement and pit placement all from finding differences and testing what those differences did. By the way for sound at lest in Tom Boy and Pit Fall if you click the high bit 128 that turns the sound off or ends that sound it is playing. Like saying start sound stop sound. Enjoy your adventures into hacking! Wade If you want to hack something that has not been changed before remember look for patterns in the bits of sameness then add or subtract lines and see what happens, do any colors change did the sound change see it is all simply change this and see what happens. If you want to get into disassembly I am not the guy to ask about that.