A8 Donkey Kong Jr. Arcade HACK

[TheNameOfTheGame]

Best version yet!

[+therealbountybob]

Birds?! I always thought they were fish for some reason (probably the graphics), thinking about it I suppose there would have been more eggs

 

On the sparks screen when you hang out over the sides ready to cross, is it harder now as you are bigger or was this just me?

 

Will be playing v12 soon

 

Any thoughts on my question about game design using tables for movements / limits, rather than collision detections for everything? Was Popeye the same? Donkey Kong too? I suppose this method ensures the player always stays on the platform rather than moving into it to make the collision, say when jumping, and you can have areas of the screen marked as hostile but the same playfield elsewhere is ok. Has anyone seen an article on this anywhere?

[+darryl1970]

The updates you made to the game look awesome.

 

Soon I will be trying it on my Atari as well.

Am I to assume it works on NTSC and PAL machines?

I'm not sure if the ROM detects the display. As far as I know, I grabbed the only ROM I'm aware of,and it works in NTSC. There's plenty of talent in this forum though, if somebody needs PAL.

 

would like to Adlai see the final go 5200!

[+darryl1970]

Birds?! I always thought they were fish for some reason (probably the graphics), thinking about it I suppose there would have been more eggs

 

On the sparks screen when you hang out over the sides ready to cross, is it harder now as you are bigger or was this just me?

 

Will be playing v12 soon

 

Any thoughts on my question about game design using tables for movements / limits, rather than collision detections for everything? Was Popeye the same? Donkey Kong too? I suppose this method ensures the player always stays on the platform rather than moving into it to make the collision, say when jumping, and you can have areas of the screen marked as hostile but the same playfield elsewhere is ok. Has anyone seen an article on this anywhere?

haha. Funny about the birds. There were two types. One was called nitpicker. I think that was the bird on the spring level. Funny. Don't know that fish eggs crack open either.

 

The mapping was figured out, but I'm not sure if it's a table. There are coordinates.

Edited December 16, 2015 by darryl1970

[FifthPlayer]

Thank you for fixing the evil purple Donkey Kong and making him the proper colors.

[electrohaze]

I'm not sure if the ROM detects the display. As far as I know, I grabbed the only ROM I'm aware of,and it works in NTSC. There's plenty of talent in this forum though, if somebody needs PAL.

 

would like to Adlai see the final go 5200!

 

I can't wait to try it on my NTSC 130XE!

 

Love these Enhanced versions. Is there a list of Enhanced / Hacked versions of games you and others have done? I keep finding more and more in the forums. Would be nice to have a compiled list of some sort (and downloads too).. I would prefer to play the enhanced versions over the originals. I have no qualms with updating something if it can be improved...

 

Except.. Hon shot first.

Edited December 17, 2015 by electrohaze

[+playsoft]

therealbountybob, on 16 Dec 2015 - 7:13 PM, said:

Any thoughts on my question about game design using tables for movements / limits, rather than collision detections for everything? Was Popeye the same? Donkey Kong too? I suppose this method ensures the player always stays on the platform rather than moving into it to make the collision, say when jumping, and you can have areas of the screen marked as hostile but the same playfield elsewhere is ok. Has anyone seen an article on this anywhere?

 

Making these sort of changes does not require all that much knowledge of the game, just the bits you are changing.

 

I think Popeye uses a mixture of h/w collision and logical maps of some sort. Bottle collision (both punching and being hit by one) looked for h/w collision with the 3 playfield colours contained in the bottle characters. That restricts the rest of the playfield graphics in that they cannot contain those 3 colours together in a position where Popeye might come into contact with them all at the same time.

 

That is why Popeye's punching was a bit hit and miss (and sometimes bottles would go through him). The change to the punch frame was not synchronized to the display all that well (hence the corruption you sometimes saw) plus the bottles are moving coarsely a character at a time. So there was always a chance you'd miss the 3 colours collision when you really shouldn't.

 

Not using h/w collision gives you freedom to do whatever you like with the playfield graphics and also avoids situations like the above where the particular collision is not always guaranteed. On the other hand, h/w collision gives you a cheap way of doing it, particularly if you need pixel accurate collision.

 

With Altirra you can always turn collision detection off and see what happens. You can also break into the debugger and clear screen memory then resume the game and see how it plays. This is DK with all collision detection off and screen memory cleared. Everything still seems to function correctly:

 

 

Both DK and DK Jr seem to be logical and do not use h/w collision, not that I've checked that thoroughly.

[+darryl1970]

 

Making these sort of changes does not require all that much knowledge of the game, just the bits you are changing.

 

I think Popeye uses a mixture of h/w collision and logical maps of some sort. Bottle collision (both punching and being hit by one) looked for h/w collision with the 3 playfield colours contained in the bottle characters. That restricts the rest of the playfield graphics in that they cannot contain those 3 colours together in a position where Popeye might come into contact with them all at the same time.

 

That is why Popeye's punching was a bit hit and miss (and sometimes bottles would go through him). The change to the punch frame was not synchronized to the display all that well (hence the corruption you sometimes saw) plus the bottles are moving coarsely a character at a time. So there was always a chance you'd miss the 3 colours collision when you really shouldn't.

 

Not using h/w collision gives you freedom to do whatever you like with the playfield graphics and also avoids situations like the above where the particular collision is not always guaranteed. On the other hand, h/w collision gives you a cheap way of doing it, particularly if you need pixel accurate collision.

 

With Altirra you can always turn collision detection off and see what happens. You can also break into the debugger and clear screen memory then resume the game and see how it plays. This is DK with all collision detection off and screen memory cleared. Everything still seems to function correctly:

 

dk.png

 

Both DK and DK Jr seem to be logical and do not use h/w collision, not that I've checked that thoroughly.

I can't wait to fix that chunky, weird Mario and DK!

[Tempest]

I can't wait to fix that chunky, weird Mario and DK!

 

So is DK next? Landon pops into the forums now and then, he could probably answer any coding questions.

[+darryl1970]

 

So is DK next? Landon pops into the forums now and then, he could probably answer any coding questions.

That would be AWESOME, because it retains so much of the arcade detail. I so respect the fact that he hates DK, yet studied it to make it one of the best versions of the time.

I have always wanted to clean up the Mario graphics, but he offset the players. Mario uses 3 of the 4 players, and he offsets ONE of the colors to be a pixel ahead or behind the current step. It's not really necessary. I'd either like to know HOW to offset the players OR eliminate that offset.

[Level42]

Peops.

Donkey Kong on the A8 is perfect.

 

I wouldn't want it changed in any way at all.

 

Just MHO.

 

Then again.....it is the only game I am _really_ good at

[Tempest]

Peops.

 

Donkey Kong on the A8 is perfect.

 

I wouldn't want it changed in any way at all.

 

Just MHO.

 

Then again.....it is the only game I am _really_ good at

 

DK is very good, but there are things that could be improved.

[tep392]

I say go for it with DK if that is what makes the developer happy. It's not like the original is going to disappear off the planet.

[bfollett]

I'm not sure how the colors are laid out or shared, but how come Donkey Kong jr.'s diaper/bib are now sort of pinkish instead of white. That at least is one thing that doesn't look better to me now.

 

Bob

[José Pereira]

I'm not sure how the colors are laid out or shared, but how come Donkey Kong jr.'s diaper/bib are now sort of pinkish02instead of white.02 That at least is one thing that doesn't look better to me now.

02

Bob

That is because of the diaper be the oring colour of the two Players that have these colours in the current version: one Player is brown (main body) and the other is pink (face, hands and feet) that overlap/oring in there to have a light pink that seems to be the lightest one luminance E (14).

To have diaper white then it should be one Player and the other still brown and the overlap would be this way on face, hand and feet but you'll get a lightes brown luminance E (14) that is too light and in my opinion better the pink and its lightest luminance isn't all that bad and at some distance 'fool the eyes' to seem a white.

[+darryl1970]

I'm not sure how the colors are laid out or shared, but how come Donkey Kong jr.'s diaper/bib are now sort of pinkish instead of white. That at least is one thing that doesn't look better to me now.

 

Bob

It's funny you mentioned that, because I just noticed it before checking out the forum.

It didn't look like that on my work monitor.

 

I DID, however, notice that the white of his eye was kind of missing.

I have changed the color back for the final release.

 

Good catch!

[+darryl1970]

That is because of the diaper be the oring colour of the two Players that have these colours in the current version: one Player is brown (main body) and the other is pink (face, hands and feet) that overlap/oring in there to have a light pink that seems to be the lightest one luminance E (14).

To have diaper white then it should be one Player and the other still brown and the overlap would be this way on face, hand and feet but you'll get a lightes brown luminance E (14) that is too light and in my opinion better the pink and its lightest luminance isn't all that bad and at some distance 'fool the eyes' to seem a white.

Yes. I just bumped the luminance down a notch on Jr's brown, and it affected the white. His brown was more arcade-like, but the result was lost of his eyes in the side view.

[+darryl1970]

Donkey Kong Jr Arcade (Beta_v13 & Alternate Girder)

Here's a beta release

 

I think this is a candidate for release. Changes are:

1. Animated water (Thanks to Playsoft)
2. Trimmed a little fat off of Juniors front pose.
3. Corrected Jr,'s colors back to the original brown (fixed white eye and overly pink suit)
4. Created Alternate version that has girders. (For Kiwilove) I used the Donkey Kong girders, because I had a compliment on and earlier use of them. I can change. Harvey, let me know if you prefer more of a yellow block type as you suggested. I thought I'd try this to see if you like this too.

 

Tep392, do you think it is possible to limit the red snapjaws to the bottom of the vines. They seem to hang off one character past the vine, before turning around.

On the arcade game, Junior will not die if he is holding onto the very bottom tip of the vine. I don't know if this will fix that, but it will at least look better.

 

Arcade Jungle floors Girder type floors (borrowed from DK) Alternate Girder type

 

DkJrArcade_V13.xex

 

DkJr_V13(AltGirders).xex

 

DkJr_V13(Alt Girders2).xex

[Jetboot Jack]

Wow - nice improvements!

 

I get some odd colour variations on the three versions - DkJrArcade_V13 - DK has pale purple face, hands and chest rather than pale brown.

 

And the lower platforms on all versions are quite yellow rather than green on screen one - but most pronounced yellow on the DkJrArcade_V13 version.

 

I like the birds on DkJrArcade_V13(AltGirders) and DkJrArcade_V13(AltGirders2) best - and prefer the platforms on both those versions over the more authentic ones in DkJrArcade_V13

 

I am running on PAL 800XL and NTSC XEGS hardware BTW...

 

sTeVE

 

P.S. I tried on Atari800MacX and had similar colour issues - I tried with several palettes and they all exhibited the same colour shifts - on Altirra I do not see the pale purple at the top of the first stage, but the lower platforms are yellowish rather than green..

[Jinroh]

Wow that water is a neat effect.

 

I like the #1 version girders, but maybe just because it's the original.

 

So awesome guys!

[McKong]

It's nice to see this game getting some love. Having played the new C64 and arcade versions for the first time recently I realised how poor the A8 version looked in comparison.

Great job. I played v10 and v12 up to Level 7 or so and I was pleased to see that it still played pretty much like the original.

 

Another good thing is that it made me spend some time adjusting my TV settings as I realised how crap my picture looked when I began looking closely at the changes you'd made!

[+darryl1970]

Wow - nice improvements!

 

I get some odd colour variations on the three versions - DkJrArcade_V13 - DK has pale purple face, hands and chest rather than pale brown.

 

And the lower platforms on all versions are quite yellow rather than green on screen one - but most pronounced yellow on the DkJrArcade_V13 version.

 

I like the birds on DkJrArcade_V13(AltGirders) and DkJrArcade_V13(AltGirders2) best - and prefer the platforms on both those versions over the more authentic ones in DkJrArcade_V13

 

I am running on PAL 800XL and NTSC XEGS hardware BTW...

 

sTeVE

 

P.S. I tried on Atari800MacX and had similar colour issues - I tried with several palettes and they all exhibited the same colour shifts - on Altirra I do not see the pale purple at the top of the first stage, but the lower platforms are yellowish rather than green..

I can't get the same effect on Altirra 2.7. I've tried setting it in PAL mode and trying different settings.

Maybe somebody else who is more familiar with this could throw out some suggestions. I am not sure where to start.

Playsoft tried it on his 1200XL (NTSC), and couldn't reproduce the issue.

 

Weirder yet is that I didn't change the colors between the 3 versions.

Let me know if you find something first.

[+playsoft]

If testing PAL mode in Altirra made no difference, check the palette with System -> Video -> Adjust Colors... Click on Preset and select default PAL. The platforms become pink, as does DK Jr's face, feet and hands and the pads at the bottom are more yellow than green. This is also what I see on my PAL 800. However I am a bit colour blind!

 

So we could have a different version for PAL or modify the program to select the appropriate colours for the type of system it is running on.

[Tempest]

I like the alternate non-DK (third) version of the girders. For some reason they look 'right' to me.

 

Can someone turn this into a .CAR file so I can try it with The!Cart?

[+darryl1970]

I like the alternate non-DK (third) version of the girders. For some reason they look 'right' to me.

 

Can someone turn this into a .CAR file so I can try it with The!Cart?

I personally appreciate the original the most. In part, I think it is because I was going for arcade likeness.

I NEVER saw the floors as girders, so making them girders seems weird to me. To me, they were supposed to be just floors in the jungle, since vines don't grow off of girders.

However, a few people thought they were "ugly girders", so I decided to make them girders.

Personally, I think it alters the imagination of the game. They are supposed to just be floors of sorts.

 

It was fun creating the alternate "girders" though. Glad people like them.