Coming Soon - Jungle King!

[Kjmann]

A Heavy Re-Work of the game Code, graphics and Sound.

 

We have already sped up the game significantly.

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgcerDA0SoQ

[GaryH917]

Looks n sounds great! Great job!

[BrianC]

Sweet. Music sounds awesome with pokey sound!

[Heaven/TQA]

aehm... where is the difference?

[BrianC]

aehm... where is the difference?

 

It's all listed at the beginning of the video. Why not watch a video of the original 800 port and compare? The speed and music in this hack are a major improvment over the original 800 version.

 

Is the sprite of the diving section going to be altered aside from making it look like Jungle King? It almost looks like he's naked in those sections.

Edited March 17, 2011 by BrianC

[NML32]

Nice, I like the changes.

 

About the top 10 high score saves. Is it just HS or will you be able to enter your initials also?

[Tezz]

cool, like the improvements (and the ones to come) nice to see another game being enhanced.

[Syfo-Dyas]

A Classic reborn. Great news!

[+doctorclu]

That looks like a lot of fun!!

[Rybags]

aehm... where is the difference?

 

Speedup is acheived by greatly optimising the DLIs within the game. The original uses the one DLI which covers all 4 levels and branches accordingly.

It's very inefficient and just burns cycles via WSYNC to the point where it slows down the NTSC version such that it's slower than the PAL one.

The biggest benefit seen so far is in the vines level, it's now at full speed (faster than PAL).

The volcano level still needs some work, but not sure if it'll realise the same full benefit.

The single DLI has been replaced with multiple DLIs per level which are optimised to be much less wasteful on CPU time.

 

Also, the original has a "bug" in that you get occasional black glitches within the player character. This is because the game maintains a colour table for the player, and the DLI changes the colour every second scanline. Sometimes the graphics get out of step with the colour table, and for whatever stupid reason, they decided to put zeroes in parts of the colour table where there's no graphics.

Obviously the solution there is just to overflow the colour tables slightly such that when things get out of step, you still have the proper colour.

 

Next step is to work out where/how all the player graphics are stored - part of the way there now. Then see how the thing will look with the loincloth-wearing character from Jungle Hunt rather than the dorky looking pith-helmet character.

 

The "missing" part from the end sequence is where you get the closeup where the woman kisses your character - that will be added later.

 

High Score table/save feature - the intent there is to have 10 or so best scores of all time, as well as allowing them to be saved back to the flashcart. Possibly have a seperate score table for each difficulty setting (regular, advanced etc)

 

Other additions - the Tarzan "yell" at the start of the game. This will only be done if I go with the graphics from Jungle King, it'd just be too out of place in Jungle Hunt.

 

Also, anything from 1 to 3 graphical screens which appear at powerup and during the title menu/attract mode. These aren't from the arcade game, will likely be based on stuff like the bezels and flyers from the physical machine itself.

[Heaven/TQA]

ah... ok I know the PAL version and did not see or realised speed improvements. but if speed improvements means more cycle left to include the bits and pieces and Kudos. do not know the NTSC version.

[Rybags]

There's no specific NTSC version - everyone runs the same code.

 

It's just that the game isn't written very efficiently and NTSC suffers slowdown.

[Heaven/TQA]

same as my code...

[Tempest]

Also, the original has a "bug" in that you get occasional black glitches within the player character. This is because the game maintains a colour table for the player, and the DLI changes the colour every second scanline. Sometimes the graphics get out of step with the colour table, and for whatever stupid reason, they decided to put zeroes in parts of the colour table where there's no graphics.

Obviously the solution there is just to overflow the colour tables slightly such that when things get out of step, you still have the proper colour.

Ahh I've always wondered why that happens. Thanks for the explanation.

 

Tempest

[Heaven/TQA]

so... who is doing the upgrade? Rybags, you? or Brian? and if so... is there dis6502 file available?

 

most annoying things in Jungle Hunt on the A8 for me were the "black player" bug and that game itself uses normal screen width (40 bytes) while the players cross the border which looks cheap... so I would fix at least level 1 where the lianas are swinging in the borders... beah.... looks ugly. Same at the end of level 1 when you are going to dive into the water level... if you are quick you can fly through the "border".

 

does Jungle Hunt scrolling "by hand"? or uses LMS scrolling?

[BrianC]

I'm not doing the hack, I just commented on what I saw in the video.

[Rybags]

No Dis6502 file, I used IDA to source-ify the code.

 

Expect a cutdown demo version to be available later, the full game will be on a 128K cartridge.

 

Agreed about the scrolling - it's LMS and does look better in Wide mode. That's another thing I'm considering with the game but I'd need to do more testing to make sure no glitching pops up.

[+therealbountybob]

As you may be aware we are currently playing Jungle Hunt in the High Score Club (and Pooyan). Jungle Hunt is very dissapointing and I guess that's why your looking at revamping it. Were playing on Beginner, a few thoughts and suggestions:

 

The first level is good - waiting for the vines to get in synch is neat, on the 2nd and 3rd times round it gets harder - some people would like to see more of the 2nd vine - on one of my TVs you can see the base of it, but it is not covered by the playfield.

 

2nd level is way too easy - make the crocodiles have some AI and/or randomness to theie movements - faster movement too and maybe a longer level - could introduce some other features or creatures to make this more challenging - maybe a deeper water area to allow more playability?

 

3rd level is good - but gets way to challenging on the 2nd time through, the difficulty for this stage needs to gradually increase. I can get to this with 5+ men and be lucky to beat it. Is there any point to having a jump and a higher jump, when do you ever use the normal jump? - so make this the standard jump! Also make the small boluders' start positions vary so you cannot stand still for the entire level and just jump straight up.

 

4th level is over a bit quickly - jump straight away (guy1), wait, run jump (over guy2 and get girl) - perhaps this could be made harder on later levels. Randomise the start positions so you cannot always jump straight over the first guy.

 

Ideally scrolling levels 3 and 4 would be good to extend them. Another idea would be to slowly scroll level 1 in play and have you keep on the screen!

 

Overall the game would be more fun if it gradually got harder, at present it gets to a wall (round 2, screen 3 or round 3, screen 3 if you're lucky) and you really lose the will - it is missing the one more go factor. (I've only played the A8 version)

 

Hope some of this is useful

 

[edit] Nice video like the upbeat tune, game speed and clear sound effects

 

p.s. Hey how about some new levels !!!

[Rybags]

The vines are how they're supposed to be. They're not onscreen 50% of the time in the arcade version either - that's part of the challenge of the level. Taking risky anticipated jumps is how you get ahead, but really the only advantage of rushing is that the overall timer value at the rescue stage will be higher - and of course just like the arcade there's only a limited time you can stay on each vine, he drops off if you wait around too long.

 

For me, the river is as hard as it needs to be. As much as you resist, you usually go the kill on the crocs, and IMO the Atari version actually suffers in that there's less kill zone and the crocs seem to open their jaws much quicker than on the arcade.

 

Agreed somewhat about the volcano level. First time around it's easy then it gets stupidly hard.

 

Rescue stage - on the arcade there's actually a guy that appears in the trees and throws a spear at you in later levels. It seems they didn't bother to include this on the Atari version.

[+therealbountybob]

If the crocs were worth more points it would make this more of an incentive (or make it clearer where they can be hit?! different colour on mouth or something?) - I still think some AI and/or randomness of their movements would be a good idea

 

Pooyan also needs revamping

[Rybags]

You can only hit them head-on... they kill you if their mouths are open when you stab at them.

 

Extra level - that's a maybe. A lead-in part before the rescue stage would be where it'd go.

But really, I just want to get this finished in reasonable time - got other stuff I want to be moving onto.

[+therealbountybob]

Ignore that I just killed a bunch of them! Keep up the good work

[Heaven/TQA]

ok... should I take some look into Moon Patrol?

 

simple things:

 

- Font

- Widescreen (don't think it will effect game play)

- Buggy Sprite

- Sound

[Tezz]

ok... should I take some look into Moon Patrol?

 

simple things:

 

- Font

- Widescreen (don't think it will effect game play)

- Buggy Sprite

- Sound

and replace the big blocky sprite

[mimo]

ok... should I take some look into Moon Patrol?

 

simple things:

 

- Font

- Widescreen (don't think it will effect game play)

- Buggy Sprite

- Sound

and replace the big blocky sprite

 

and use VBXE