Miner 2049er Changes

[Baby Blue Azure]

Hi Fans,

 

Sometimes Miner changes can be Major! I just changed gears and now working on Miner 2049er - one of my old time favorites. Spent 3 days building a raw disassembly, and today started the arduous task to find anything that makes any sense. Initially, as with Crystal Castles, I can't find how lives are determined on Miner either. How is this done?

 

Does anyone have a version of this that actually works [on an emulator]? The countdown clock has been blacked out on every version I find. So I fixed that in this attached version. But that wasn't enough, the clock runs out too fast for me - sometimes. Then found a way to set the clock at its highest value: 9900. The bonus for us here is the time remaining bonus exceeds the 10,000 points you need to earn a bonus life at Station 1! The radioactive mutants kill me all the time, so I deleted a couple in Stations 1 and 2, but this doesn't work beyond those stages.

 

Now I wonder if anyone has worked on this game prior to me, so I can avoid duplication of effort. Now that the clock has been adjusted, there are 4 other things I'd like to figure out.

1) As mentioned above, how number of lives are determined.

2) How to disable the death collisions with the radioactive mutants.

3) How to be able to jump from anywhere without dying.

4) Find a way to warp to higher levels.

Pls contact me here or at atari78in84@yahoo.com if you're not here.

 

This photo shows the start of Zone 1, Station 1 with the clock enabled:

 

MINER2049er NTSC with countdown clock enabled, using Doctorclu's AS01 new Sprite Edition of 09152018:

MINER2049_AS01mod.bin

 

Enjoy!

[Atari Nut]

That's odd. The countdown clock works fine on my versions. It has a blue background...not black like your screenshot.

[Baby Blue Azure]

Agreed, it is odd. I am using the JUM52 emulator, cuz it's quick and easy. But I kind of like the box black, so I'll keep it for now. I happened by this "fix" while I was looking for the lives counter.

 

Now I got another one. I know how to clear the screen of Mutants, but that's not what I want, so I'm not sharing that one at this point as it's boring. This one, you can kill the Mutants as many times as you want and get bonus scoring for it as well. This is how it works: You pick up the bonus 'fruit' (pac-man terminology) and the Mutant turns green. Before he starts flashing you touch him and you get 90 points. He doesn't disappear and flashes a different color than the normal radioactive color. So you touch him again. Another 90 points, but he still hangs around. As long as you don't touch another bonus 'fruit' you can continue to touch him and grab 90 points. Once you grab another bonus 'fruit' you have to touch any Mutant while he's green and the process starts all over again. It changes the strategy of the game, sort of. Still not what I'm looking for. I want to be able to touch the Mutants without dying and get the 90 points and the Mutant dies.

 

Now you can try this:

MINER2049ER_muxMutants.bin

[Baby Blue Azure]

Now time for another update. A lot of progress happened this weekend, although most of the result wasn't exactly what I was looking to do. This code is a beast to read so doing what I want is done indirectly instead of directly.

 

CAUTION: THIS IS A WIP (work in progress), so just play it on your emulator. DO NOT BUILD A CART with this code, as it's unknown what it does to real hardware. That said, here's the update:

 

Now I know the spare lives counter is $B9. But they used $BD to do something to $B9 so it doesn't do what I want. Maybe $BD is player 2, but not sure about that yet. In fact it looks like player 2 lives uses the same code that creates player 1 lives. So I couldn't change the starting with 3 lives, but when you get a bonus life I now give you 5 instead of just 1. It appears the code only gives a bonus at 10,000 points and that's it. On Mutant invincibility, I did find something but I don't know why/how it works. You're mostly invincible with the Mutants until Station 5. At Stations 3 and 4 when you touch one Mutant it clears all Mutants with the bonus points displayed. Cute effect. In Station 5, stay away from that martini glass. You touch that and you have a fatal error and you must reset your machine and start over. Pick up another prize and touch the Mutant at the bottom and it will clear all of the Mutants simultaneously. Notice how this game has the Mutants always displaying a smile on their faces. They have no idea that Bob is mostly invincible in this game.

 

On Bounty Bob jumping... Well first I found a way to have Bob walk off any ledge and he lives to talk about it ! Sweet! That was trick to do that, probably spent a half hour on that one. The problem is jumping. You can jump from anywhere and probably survive. But you'll be looking at a pinball game of Bob bouncing all over the place. So obviously there will need to be another solution for that to get a smooth and soft landing. With these new features I'm finally able to get past Station 3 as I can jump from the right side to tumble onto elevator 3. So last night I was able to see Station 4 and 5 for the first time. Obviously I'm a novice at this game, but love it even more now. And I share it for other novices to further enjoy this game as well!

 

I am still using JUM52 although I have KAT5200 here somewhere. My concern is JUM may be giving me different results than you see. For instance the JUM run game starts with the maze with Bob revealing the company name, address and phone number. I found a way to have it start with the BIG 5 screen and it prompts to press start to begin. Not sure if the other emulators or the 5200 itself runs this code an alternate way. In found many other hidden features as well. Even to jump to Zone 246 and everything that moves - moves much faster!

 

This is an example of how the new game clears all Mutants simultaneously:

 

Station 4 with seven spare lives and 9900 timer:

 

Station 5 with seven spare lives and 9900 timer:

 

The AS01 2nd mod BIN:

MINER2049er_AS01mod2.bin

 

Although I'm running out of time to work this task, I can still see more improvements coming!

 

Enjoy!

 

[doctorclu]

I find it hilarious you ask this when working on copy of MIner Tix and I graphically worked on.

 

All the same, cool to see the game getting some more love.

 

 

Now I wonder if anyone has worked on this game prior to me...

[Baby Blue Azure]

Yoh DrClu, Glad you were amused by my question, of course I knew that you and Tix worked on Miner as I cited sprite credit to you in my update. What I meant was if anyone dove into the mechanics of the game to determine how lives count is determined; possible maze path changes; moving the 'old miner possessions' to alternative locations - which by now I know how to do that; how to make Bob jump higher - he only jumps 15 lines and now I know to alter that up to 30 lines, but 20 lines seems to be optimum. I wonder if the 'Donald Duck' sprite set was ever completed - I'd love to have a copy of that and I can add features to that. Thx, BBA

[doctorclu]

In various searches for Miner 2049er the other day I did see this thread with the cool progress, one where a Miner 2049er title screen is loaded, and this one with other solutions and hacking being done...

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/226457-miner-2049er-solution-after-32-years/?hl=+miner%20+2049er%20+faster

[Hank Rearden]

So what is the ultimate goal here? Playing thru all the levels isn't that difficult at the early stages. Higher stages the mutants move too fast. I tried it at the hardest setting a few times and cannot figure out how to beat the first board without dying. It's been a while but it's one of my favorite 5200 games.

[Baby Blue Azure]

True, Hank, at higher stages the mutants are faster, unless you disable them, or erase them entirely. I cut into the games to see how I change them, and then share them for amusement. The ultimate goal? Just finding new ways to change the game I guess. I was never very good at the game so I need all the help I can get with jumping higher, and jumping from anywhere without dying, et al. Of course the original game stands as one of my favorites as well. And almost 40 years later we're still talking about it. /BBA