Adventure weirdness?

[Gabriel]

Are there different versions of Adventure?

 

I haven't had an actual Adventure cart for a few years, and have been playing it for a while in emulation on the PS2 or on a Flashback 2. Before that I used to play my old Adventure cart endlessly. I've never noticed any differences in behaviour.

 

Recently, I bought a new Adventure cart to play on the real hardware. And it's like the early 80s again as I find myself playing it over and over and over. But I'm noticing some behavioural differences in the game.

 

1) Rhindle is harder to kill. Whenever the flicker comes into play, Rhindle is nearly invincible. This was not the case before.

 

2) On several occasions, I've found the bat sitting stationary. Even when picked up and released the bat still remains perfectly stationary. The only way the bat can be made to move is to pick it up and then prompt it to grab another item (everytime I've seen the bat do this it has been holding the sword, I think). I never saw this happen in all my years of playing my original cartridge the PS2 emulation or on the Flashback 2.

 

3) Items are showing up in the empty rooms on the right side of the maze where the White Castle is. The only time I ever saw items end up there before is if the bat dropped an item there while picking up a wandering dragon. However, that can't be happening in the games I've seen it occur on this cart because the bat is locked in one of the castles. I've seen others comment about this "dead zone" before as well. But for some reason this copy of the game is starting items there.

[Tinman]

I've certainly seen Rhinde being hard to kill where there is a lot of flicker, but it sounds like you're seeing something new. I've also seen items in those rooms to the right of the White Castle, but perhaps it is, as you suggest, the bat moving things around.

 

I've never seen the bat not moving, though! That is definitely weird.

[Rex Dart]

Did that cart spend some time in the sun? I had a sun-baked Stargate cart that behaved really strangely. Cosmic & solar radiation can play havoc on those poor chips.

[SeaGtGruff]

Rhindle and the other dragons can be hard to kill when there's a lot of flicker-- that's not new.

 

I've found items in the empty rooms on the other side of the maze from the White Castle, even when the bat's locked up in a castle-- I always check them out when exploring, in fact those are some of the first places I look (mostly just habit I guess, following a pattern of exploring that I developed when playing Adventure long ago).

 

As for the bat-- I've found him stationary as described when playing the actual cartridge, although I don't recall that ever happening in an emulator. But I'm not sure why the same ROM would behave differently in a real console versus on an emulator, unless it's something to do with the TIA, or random numbers, etc. There were revisions in the TIA chip, and I suppose some of them might have been to "correct" things that seemed to be a bit glitchy, although I presume most of the revisions were more for the sake of streamlining the design a bit rather than "fixing" any bugs.

[+RevEng]

Yup, the stationary bat is a known phenomenon.

 

Flicker is a fickle mistress in Adventure. Sometimes it makes it hard to kill Rhindle, sometimes it lets you pass through him when he should be chomping on you. Assuming you're playing B difficulty, drop the sword and steer him on to it instead - that way you can make a tactical retreat if he passes through it!

[Gabriel]

OK. Nothing new in the world.

 

#1 and #3 were trivial and could easily be the fault of my own perception and aging memory. But the thing with the bat blew my mind. The kicker is that it happened twice in back to back games.

I actually made it a mini-quest to cheer the bat up and get it flying again.

 

Incidentally, has anyone ever seen the bat win the game? I know the bat can sometimes fly into the castles. I've watched it carry objects through the gates (most often dragons). Has anyone observed the bat carrying the chalice into the gold castle?

 

And to round out the post, alternate names for the Golden Chalice!

 

Everfull Candy Jar

The Magic Toilet

[SeaGtGruff]

I may have had the bat win the game on me back in the day-- I can't say for sure, but it's definitely possible as long as you're outside the gold castle. If it did ever happen to me, chances are I wasn't happy about it, because I always try to collect everything and store it in the gold castle before I take the chalice in there too, so I probably would have been chasing after the bat, or else been about to take the chalice inside and he grabbed it from me before I could.

 

Now, I know for sure that I've won the game by carrying the bat inside while he was carrying the chalice, but that's not what you meant!

 

As for trying to collect everything in the yellow castle-- which I'm sure everyone does-- I even try to take the bat inside while he's carrying a dragon, so he'll drop the dragon and pick up something else. A "perfect" game is where I've managed to get all three dragon corpses inside, plus all the other objects, plus the bat, before taking the chalice inside. It's tough to get the bat inside and keep him there, but sometimes he flies just right so he doesn't fly back out. You have to take him in last (except for the chalice), while he's carrying something, otherwise the next time you go in with something he'll likely grab it and fly out. And of course you could take him in last while he's carrying the chalice, but that's one step less than "perfect"!

 

What I hate is if I've got everything else inside the yellow castle-- including the bat and the magic dot-- but then when I try to take the chalice inside it triggers the end before I actually make it inside, because then I'm cheated out of the Ultimate Flicker-Fest.

 

Alternate names for the chalice? How about the Psychedelic Buttercup?

[AtariBrian]

some games i remember some items werent there, like the bridge or a key. ive had quite a few odd things happen. cant remember at the moment

[SeaGtGruff]

some games i remember some items werent there, like the bridge or a key.

Usually that's because the "missing" item is locked inside a castle and so is the key to the castle! Another possible reason is because the bridge is in the "extra" room in the white castle (the area that's separated from the main area by walls), but you can't get to that area because you need the bridge to do that.

[Luc]

some games i remember some items werent there, like the bridge or a key.

Usually that's because the "missing" item is locked inside a castle and so is the key to the castle! Another possible reason is because the bridge is in the "extra" room in the white castle (the area that's separated from the main area by walls), but you can't get to that area because you need the bridge to do that.

 

Yes you can. Just pick up the bat and drop it in the white castle. It will fly over the hidden area and pick up the bridge for you.

[retrorussell]

 

The Magic Toilet

I thought of that too. I would put a key or the sword next to the top of the goblet like it was the flush handle.

I'd also let the dragon eat me while holding the key and hold it so it looked like he had hillbilly teeth.

[GideonsDad]

This is probably nothing new and probably doesn't even qualify as "weirdness". I am not as well versed in Adventure as most of you (haven't played it a lot). But I noticed on my Flashback 3 that the green and yellow dragon will runaway when you are armed with the sword in game 1. When I play via emulation in game 1 those 2 dragons practically impale themselves on the sword. I guess they made the dragons "smarter" on the Flashback 3 version.

 

Nevermind, I researched this and it has to do with the difficulty switches. Duh...

Edited June 30, 2012 by GideonsDad

[SeaGtGruff]

some games i remember some items werent there, like the bridge or a key.

Usually that's because the "missing" item is locked inside a castle and so is the key to the castle! Another possible reason is because the bridge is in the "extra" room in the white castle (the area that's separated from the main area by walls), but you can't get to that area because you need the bridge to do that.

 

Yes you can. Just pick up the bat and drop it in the white castle. It will fly over the hidden area and pick up the bridge for you.

True, and I've done that. But I was thinking of those times when the bat's also locked up somewhere and you can't get to him.

 

Hmm, that raises a question. Has anyone ever stuck the bat in a castle while he's carrying some unneeded item, then locked the castle behind him to keep him trapped?

[Tinman]

True, and I've done that. But I was thinking of those times when the bat's also locked up somewhere and you can't get to him.

 

Hmm, that raises a question. Has anyone ever stuck the bat in a castle while he's carrying some unneeded item, then locked the castle behind him to keep him trapped?

I used to do that quite a bit.

[Nukey Shay]

Regarding the stationary bat...that can only happen in game #1 (where the bat is given no initial flight direction and no movable objects are present in it's room to alter it) and game #3 (when the random routine assigns the same room number to both the bat and sword). The problem with game #3 is that the bat and the sword are given identical horizontal and vertical co-ordinates (20,20). The random routine used to shuffle objects does not change co-ordinates...only room numbers. The generic movement routine used for everything dictates that if one object shares the same co-ordinates as the object it "likes"...it should stop moving (hence, the dragons stay right on the objects they guard and a magnet-attracted object stays put when reaching it). Although the bat is given an initial flight direction of down and left...this is trumped when it appears on a screen with any object it "likes"...and it will head toward it for pickup. But (oops) the sword in such a case is not at any direction...the co-ordinates are the same as the bat. It's picked up and the bat doesn't fly anywhere...it needed no direction to reach it.

 

About allowing the bat to win the game for you...this is possible if either the bat or it's held chalise hits the gate. Hardware collision-detection is used to move objects into a castle, so you must be present on the screen for this to happen. Interestingly...if only the chalise hits the gate, the game is won but the chalise immediately reappears next to the bat again (a bat's held object is automatically given the same room number as the bat, and the collision routine that moves objects into castles no longer executes when the game is inactive).

 

Similarly, you could allow a magnet-attracted chalise to win the game (such as shoving the magnet below the wall South of the castle, then dropping the chalise to allow it to float up to it).

[Nukey Shay]

I should mention that it's possible to create an unmoving bat in any game it's in...but it's kind of tricky. You'd need to carry the bat to a screen and position it at identical** co-ordinates as a carriable object that it would prefer over any object it currently carries, then hit reset. **The reason it's tricky is because a bat has it's own 3-pixel flight direction which is trumped from being held by you...so when positioning it on the object, you'd need to adjust this by 3 pixels in the opposite direction of where it currently flies. In other words...although it is held by you, the bat is constantly flying 3 pixels away in it's current heading. The routine that deals with your held object overwrites this, so the movement is not visible before displaying the screen.

[7800Lover]

I remember getting a "trip around the world" - as I used to call it - when one of the dragons ate you and then the bat grabbed the dragon and flew you all over the self-contained universe of Adventure.

 

As for the flicker, I'm guessing it must be the same thing that plagued the NES and Super NES - image breakup triggered by many objects on the screen. That caused slowdown and could trigger some very weird effects.

[Nukey Shay]

No slowdown here...aside from the non-flickered ball or missiles, Adventure's display only allows 2 sprites of all 19 to be displayed at any time (for 3 frames) before overwriting this with the next 2 objects present in the displayed room. The speed at which objects move is not affected...but collisions often are (a sword must be displayed on the same frame as a dragon in order to kill it, etc). The ball sprite is not flickered, so onscreen dragons are always able to collide with it and attack. The bat uses relative position instead of collisions to pick up objects, so it doesn't need to be onscreen to do so.

[7800Lover]

No slowdown here...aside from the non-flickered ball or missiles, Adventure's display only allows 2 sprites of all 19 to be displayed at any time (for 3 frames) before overwriting this with the next 2 objects present in the displayed room. The speed at which objects move is not affected...but collisions often are (a sword must be displayed on the same frame as a dragon in order to kill it, etc). The ball sprite is not flickered, so onscreen dragons are always able to collide with it and attack. The bat uses relative position instead of collisions to pick up objects, so it doesn't need to be onscreen to do so.

 

I see...and I thought it was image breakup caused by slowdown all this time. At least it would also explain why the sword failed to kill the dragons at times.

[Luc]

some games i remember some items werent there, like the bridge or a key.

Usually that's because the "missing" item is locked inside a castle and so is the key to the castle! Another possible reason is because the bridge is in the "extra" room in the white castle (the area that's separated from the main area by walls), but you can't get to that area because you need the bridge to do that.

 

Yes you can. Just pick up the bat and drop it in the white castle. It will fly over the hidden area and pick up the bridge for you.

True, and I've done that. But I was thinking of those times when the bat's also locked up somewhere and you can't get to him.

 

Hmm, that raises a question. Has anyone ever stuck the bat in a castle while he's carrying some unneeded item, then locked the castle behind him to keep him trapped?

 

I did that all the time. You don't even need to lock the castle behind the bat, as long as he's flying upwards. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put an unneeded object in the golden castle somewhere near the top, then pick up the bat, wait until it's fed up with its current object (you'll see the object change position when this happens), then drop the bat just as you enter the golden castle. Since the other object is higher up on the screen, the bat has no choice but to fly upwards, thus trapping himself in an infinite loop. Don't forget to remove the old object from the castle before the bat gets fed up again.

[+Gemintronic]

Using Knubberrub I would collect all the Dragon carcasses into my castle before taking the chalice. THAT's Adventure weirdness. Totally pointless.

[7800Lover]

I used to grab the bat and trap it in the golden/yellow castle. That was at best a short term solution for me as the bat eventually got out somehow (maybe one of the dragons let it out when I wasn't looking).

 

 

On that second or third game setting, I ran into complete bad luck when one of the dragons appeared on the starting screen at the golden castle and ate me on the spot. That was nearly as bad as them showing up after 30-60 second later after starting a game and having them eating you. Talk about cheap.

[R.O.T.S]

I have to agree the bat not moving is the oddest of the three observations,the only time he does not move is when he flies past with an item and you have the magnet and capture him.

[Nukey Shay]

BTW I've been looking at point #3 from the topic, and so far I've found (out of the first 64 of the 256 possible random "seed" values) that there is better than 1:2 odds that a game will begin with at least 1 object in the center room of the "dungeon" (room #$0C) - to the right of the catacombs. But there is less than 1:6 odds combined that an object will begin in rooms above (room# $1C) or below (room #$1D). Not surprising, I guess...since those two rooms are at the end of the data list.

[+Gemintronic]

I forgot that if you're eaten while hanging onto the bat you can still somewhat move..