Video Posted April 29, 2003 Share Posted April 29, 2003 Has anybody tried hacking DK JR into a good Donkey Kong game? that's how they got Pac-Man was hacking MS Pac-Man. I don't know, DKJR may have the sam elimitations as the original DK does as far as hacking. But could you perhaps hack Miner 2049r or something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack-Ass Tramiel Posted April 29, 2003 Share Posted April 29, 2003 I've had the damnedest time trying to read the DK disassembly of the ROM. Specifically, I'm not sure where the game level data is located. But my guess is that the programmer did some clever tricks in order to store the layouts. If I could figure out where the layouts are located, then maybe I could attempt to hack the levels. Would anybody here know how to read the disassembly? If somebody could direct me to where they think (or know for certain) where the game level layout data is located, then maybe I could do something with it and attempt to create the levels that are roughly based on the two other levels of the arcade version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 29, 2003 Share Posted April 29, 2003 I've had the damnedest time trying to read the DK disassembly of the ROM. Specifically, I'm not sure where the game level data is located. But my guess is that the programmer did some clever tricks in order to store the layouts. The levels are stored by various levels of indirection. There are a lot of low-byte-only tables which point at different areas in the ROM where little parts of the graphics data is stored. And the offsets to those tables are loaded from other tables. Quite complicated... Therefore it won't be easy to hack the level layout (if possible at all). And even if you are able to change the graphics I am quite sure that the gameplay has also to be adjusted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted April 30, 2003 Author Share Posted April 30, 2003 i think dk really needs a ground up effort, especially if its going to anywhere close to its potential (ie my nice mock ups :-) ) still just plain 'ol floored by 'ol Lost Monkey steppin' up to the plate and layin' down the smacketh on the heretics & non-believers :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted May 1, 2003 Share Posted May 1, 2003 Eh, The Atari ST had a had to display 4096 colors on it, then again you couldnt do anything but look at pictures. So, The 'smacketh' you mention is just a pretty picture - If we see movement and enemy AI then you can call it smacketh Which brings up another question - Who's going to display 4096 colors on the 2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack-Ass Tramiel Posted May 1, 2003 Share Posted May 1, 2003 I've had the damnedest time trying to read the DK disassembly of the ROM. Specifically, I'm not sure where the game level data is located. But my guess is that the programmer did some clever tricks in order to store the layouts. The levels are stored by various levels of indirection. There are a lot of low-byte-only tables which point at different areas in the ROM where little parts of the graphics data is stored. And the offsets to those tables are loaded from other tables. Quite complicated... Therefore it won't be easy to hack the level layout (if possible at all). And even if you are able to change the graphics I am quite sure that the gameplay has also to be adjusted. Yes, this is pretty much what I suspected when I examined the disassembly. I came to a same (though not as technically detailed) conclusion. In layman's terms, I figured that the layout was "scrambled" and spread throughout the code, done this way in order to save on memory usage. I'm glad you've confirmed this, putting any doubts I had to rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazzeri Posted June 14, 2003 Share Posted June 14, 2003 So where are all of the good (or any for that matter, since I've not seen any) DK hacks for the 2600? Why don't you do it yourself? I mean with AHD (and the appropriate .AHD file, already available for this particular game) this would be piece-of-cake... Take a look at the hacks session, there's the link for the software in there... Sorry, just shameless advertisement of my piece of software... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 14, 2003 Share Posted June 14, 2003 Is there a Mac version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazzeri Posted June 14, 2003 Share Posted June 14, 2003 Is there a Mac version? Wow now THAT was a low blow... Honestly? I dunno... It worked flawlessly under DOS emu in Linux, so i guess it will work also on DOS emu in Macs... But don't have a clue... Care for some testing? Regards, Lazzeri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted June 15, 2003 Share Posted June 15, 2003 I do have Virtual PC... but then it's not really a Mac version.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbird Posted June 15, 2003 Share Posted June 15, 2003 Heh, well, this is something interesting. I actually tried a few expiriments with DK graphics, and came up with the nearest-pixel perfect conversion from the NES game. Then, I examined it, and to an extent it's possible it can be done with flicker and still have it look pretty good... I have planned out which objects are used as which, and which objects would be displayed on each frame, though they're not much use to anybody as it would probably be extremely hard to pull them off... Anyway. I think it's fine for him to post concept images, at least to get the idea started off. Then we can modify these images down to a level which the Atari can handle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 Hi All, I have been studying the graphics techniques used in Activision's Dolphin. Its pretty incredible when you look at the game and see that there is no flicker. Anyway I see a potential to exploit the technique used to make the octopus and Dolphin in that game to create a better DK graphic. The trick used is the sprite is double wide, but each line is offset by 0 or 1 pixel from the previous line. This trick allows "smoother" contours to be made. Since DK is immobile I also assume it would be easy to put some Playfield graphics into place behind the sprite there by coloring the eyes, teeth, chest and hands. I have attached a mockup of what this technique could accomplish. NOTE: this would take a serious code rewrite and nota simple hack to implement in DK. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert M Posted June 20, 2003 Share Posted June 20, 2003 My bad, I made a serious mistake on that first mock-up. I think this one is more technically correct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godzilla Posted June 20, 2003 Author Share Posted June 20, 2003 did you check out the .bin here in this thread in an emulator? That technique you mention could easily render the donkey kong I drew in my mock ups. That ape you posted looks more like a real ape than donkey kong, but still very nice. I always love to see creative stuff working within the 2600s known 'issues' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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