Tempest Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Has anyone attempted to look through Thwocker's code and see if the game can be made playable? At the moment you can't complete a level as touching the Exit doesn't work. Someone (Thomas?) had looked through the code years back thought there may be more to it, but I don't recall if that ever went anywhere or not. http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/thwocker/thwocker.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted February 22, 2017 Share Posted February 22, 2017 Was Thwocker the actual name of the proto? Seems like an odd name for a music themed game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 22, 2017 Author Share Posted February 22, 2017 Yes there's a prototype with that name on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 I take it you've never actually talked to Charlie Heath about this game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 No I haven't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted February 24, 2017 Share Posted February 24, 2017 Might do some good to track him down. While we're on the subject of Activision prototypes... After all this time, how have we still not identified the two unknown prototypes? Activision was not that big of a company, and all their 2600 games were done in-house, so someone must know something about these or at least who was working on them. Crane, Kitchen, et al have appeared at CGE and such over the years. Has anyone ever asked them about these? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 24, 2017 Author Share Posted February 24, 2017 You'd think. I personally haven't talked to any programmer in a while. Too many other people are tracking these guys down and doing great interviews so I figure I'll leave it to them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 I vaguely remember, that I looked through the code back then. Maybe, if I find the time I will have another look to check if it can fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 I went through my old mails again. Back then, I created a dirty hack which allows moving to the next level after you collected all notes. Around 2003/2004 there were some plans to release the game, but it is much less complete than it may seem. There would be quite a lot of work involved to make it really playable. And we would have to make assumptions about the game play. E.g. How was the scoring planned after you collected all required notes? What would give you how many points? What happens when the music ends? Do you have to reach the exist before? If not, do you loose a life? Do you still progress to the next level? Any chance for extra lives? Was any kind of difficulty selection planned? How should we fill in the missing sounds and music? The level design also only seems only preliminary. So basically we have a prototype, which demonstrates the general game play idea, but lacks most detailing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 BTW: Inside the prototype ROM I found the following unused graphics. They probably don't belong to Thwocker but to a completely different game (not necessarily Atari 2600!). Can anyone identify those? X X X X X X X X X XX X XX XXXX XX X X X X XX XX X X X X X X X X X X X XXXX XXXX X XX X X X XXX XX X X X X X X X X X X XXXX XXXXX X XXXXX X X XX X X X X X X X X X X X XX XX XXXX X XX X X X X XX XX X X X X X X X X X X X XXXX X XXXX X XX XXX X X XX X X X X X X X X X X X XXXX X XXXXX XXXXX X X XX X X X XX XX X X XX XXXX XX X X X X X X X X X X XX XX X X X X XX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XX X X X X X X X X XX XX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XX XXX XXX X X XX XX XX XX XXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXX XX XX XX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXX XXX XX XX XX XX XX XX XXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX X X X X XXXX X XXX X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X XXX X X X XXXXXXXX X X X X XXXXXXXX X X XX XXXX XXXX XX X X XXX X XX X X X XX X X X XXX X XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XX X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XX X XX X X X XX X X X XX X X X XXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX XX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 I went through my old mails again. Back then, I created a dirty hack which allows moving to the next level after you collected all notes. Around 2003/2004 there were some plans to release the game, but it is much less complete than it may seem. There would be quite a lot of work involved to make it really playable. And we would have to make assumptions about the game play. E.g. How was the scoring planned after you collected all required notes? What would give you how many points? What happens when the music ends? Do you have to reach the exist before? If not, do you loose a life? Do you still progress to the next level? Any chance for extra lives? Was any kind of difficulty selection planned? How should we fill in the missing sounds and music? The level design also only seems only preliminary. So basically we have a prototype, which demonstrates the general game play idea, but lacks most detailing. From playing Thwocker and other games of the era my theories: 1. No idea, but I'm sure an educated guess could be made 2. I always assumed you had to reach the exit before the music ended or you lost a life and had to start the level over. I suppose you might have just had to recollect the notes and try again without losing a life, but that seems too easy. 3. Yes. Activision games generally allowed for extra lives 4. Yes. There are 16 variations selectable from the title screen so I assume some of these are difficultly changes 5. No idea, but I'm sure an educated guess could be made 6. Do they? I guess I never noticed. Honestly most of these are minor issues to me. But if you're trying to actually finish the game then I can see how you'd want to know the answers. All I really want to know is: 1 .Why you can't finish a level in the current prototype (bug or missing gameplay feature) 2. What else was planned from a gameplay perspective (are there still missing features? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 To answer your questions: missing gameplay feature (no code) no idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 To answer your questions: missing gameplay feature (no code) Ah that was what I was afraid of. Oh well, your quick and dirty hack works well enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 Actually I just tried your hack in the Harmony cart and it didn't work. Is there anything special about it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 IIRC the code works only when the ROM starts at the 1st bank. For Stella this works, for Harmony the start bank is AFAIK random. You should try loading multiple times, maybe it will work every 2nd time (on average). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 25, 2017 Author Share Posted February 25, 2017 I just tried it several times and it just shows a black screen with a nasty tone playing constantly. The unhacked proto seems to start up ok though. Maybe I have a bad rom? Can you post the hacked one again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4ever2600 Posted February 25, 2017 Share Posted February 25, 2017 (edited) As for the unused graphics, some of them look like ones from 20th Century Fox Turmoil. That's my guess... could be wrong though... Edited February 25, 2017 by 4ever2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted February 28, 2017 Share Posted February 28, 2017 BTW: Inside the prototype ROM I found the following unused graphics. They probably don't belong to Thwocker but to a completely different game (not necessarily Atari 2600!). Can anyone identify those?Most of the graphics is identical to Explorer (prorotype of Pastfinder) for the Atari 8-bit computers. (Pastfinder is similar as well, but to a lesser degree.) In fact there are more similarities; compare the following areas: Explorer Thwocker $2736-$274E $0753-$076B $28F8-$29A8 $084A-$08FA $29AB-$2E88 $0919-$0DF6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 28, 2017 Author Share Posted February 28, 2017 Now that's interesting. Were they just reusing EPROMs and something didn't get erased? Why else would there be 8-bit game graphics in a 2600 game? There's no way they were planning a 2600 version of Pastfinder, it's too complex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 28, 2017 Share Posted February 28, 2017 Were they just reusing EPROMs and something didn't get erased? Yup, that's how it works. You can find a lot of garbage in ROM in unused areas. Sometimes compiled code/graphics from other games, sometimes remains of the development system or source code etc. I have a blog entry for the latter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 28, 2017 Author Share Posted February 28, 2017 @Thomas: Can you repost your fixed Thwocker rom? The one I have won't work on my Harmony cart for some reason (I tried several times and the original works just fine). @Kr0tki: Have you ever compared Explorer to Pastfinder? That's another game I need to get to, but it's pretty complex so finding differences is hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 28, 2017 Share Posted February 28, 2017 Most of the graphics is identical to Explorer (prorotype of Pastfinder) for the Atari 8-bit computers. (Pastfinder is similar as well, but to a lesser degree. Yup, that's the game. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted March 19, 2017 Share Posted March 19, 2017 Now that's interesting. Were they just reusing EPROMs and something didn't get erased? Why else would there be 8-bit game graphics in a 2600 game?Well, the games have some similarities, both being vertical scrollers; maybe they were trying to reuse Pastfinder's sprite routines in Thwocker? Ans copied the routines together with the graphics? @Kr0tki: Have you ever compared Explorer to Pastfinder? That's another game I need to get to, but it's pretty complex so finding differences is hard. Here are disassemblies of Pastfinder and Explorer. Compare the files and read the comments in code for details. The differences are: - Title change, obviously; - Copy protection that writes to ROM area has been removed (not in all places though); - a few bytes added for padding, not used in game though. Overall, the only meaningful change in the prototype is the title. Considering that the copy-protection in Explorer has been removed on purpose (as in, replaced by NOP instructions as opposed to simply not being there), I have some doubts if the known Explorer ROM dump is really a 100% unmodified copy of the prototype cartridge. Explorer.asm Pastfinder.asm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 19, 2017 Share Posted March 19, 2017 Well, the games have some similarities, both being vertical scrollers; maybe they were trying to reuse Pastfinder's sprite routines in Thwocker? Ans copied the routines together with the graphics?Nope. The same EPROMs where simply used by completely independent development teams. Those artifacts of other games can be found in a lot of games, especially inside prototypes, because those usually do not utilize all space. Often you just cannot identify the origin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted March 19, 2017 Share Posted March 19, 2017 You can't program EPROM's, that are not erased ($FF). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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