TIX Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 (edited) Hey, time to dust off another old favorite of mine.. I'm currently investigating the rom to see what's possible (so the following sprites are not necessarily doable), ideally I would like to change all moving things, and hopefully to reinstate the castle (instead of the apartment building ?) in the background ! I'd appreciate any help regarding the bitmap display mode the game uses.. Edited November 18, 2021 by TIX 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 Do you ever take a break?! I hope you have as much success and interest as you did with Moon Patrol! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 A great game with "meh" graphics that I always wished had a "makeover" even back in the day. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 much appreciated, i really like your resprite jobs ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 Wish I could help re your question TIX, sorry, but thank you for trying to jazz up an old favourite of mine, there's just something addictive despite it being quite samey, I guess we all like sticking it to Satan Good luck, I'm sure it will be as brilliant as the rest of your work.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 One of my favorites in the arcade BITD. Definitely excited to see how you'll approach improving this version. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIX Posted November 18, 2021 Author Share Posted November 18, 2021 It was a long-shot but.. I located the castle chars in Omvivore ? as far as I can tell, only one of them is repeated, so it should be possible to draw a slightly better castle out of them.. will see 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 The 8bit port of this game is pretty good - all except the graphics - this is a great candidate for a TIX refresh! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cjherr Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 Agreed. This is going to be outstanding! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 I ripped the sprites from MAME. Maybe you can get some use from them. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 18, 2021 Share Posted November 18, 2021 Addictive game always loved to play. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 Very cool! The Atari 8-bit version could use a makever! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted November 19, 2021 Share Posted November 19, 2021 And who better to do it than our Greek Graphics Genius, the 3G man.. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted November 22, 2021 Share Posted November 22, 2021 I must say, this game is indeed very cool to play. I never noticed the poor graphics, until now. So I hope you can make it more beautiful. Greet stuff M. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIX Posted November 23, 2021 Author Share Posted November 23, 2021 Hey, I managed to get some work done, I have successfully changed most moving objects (except those bellow ↓) still working on the devils heads.. I have located the "castle" chars so I can change it, but I must find a design that blends well with the hideous backdrop colors.. Still can't find the explosion and Satan's breath, also the rightmost piece of the shield.. see below ☹️ any help locating these ?? So far so good.. "B" group is mine 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted November 23, 2021 Share Posted November 23, 2021 Amazing! That is so much better! Crossing my fingers the background graphics can be improved. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cjherr Posted November 23, 2021 Share Posted November 23, 2021 Beautiful! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted November 23, 2021 Share Posted November 23, 2021 (edited) I only found out about this game when I was into collecting arcade cabs, and only then I found the A8 version which actually is a prettyngoodmconversion but hell (ahahaha) yeah the graphics could use an upgrade ! I’m pretty sure that Satans breath is two Player missiles (same as the Satan) and it looks like it might be “randomly” (within certain rules) calculated/drawn on the fly. just some wild guessing…..the explosions look similar. I was pretty impressed by the “breathe”, I really like the effect. Better actually than the apparent individual, defined sprites that seem to make up the breathe in the arcade and C64 version. By the way, would love to see some nice arcade artwork title screen and some recreation of the arcade intro/instructions screen…….and of course music and sound effects could be improved but I know, I know….I always start wanting for more improvements….. Edited November 24, 2021 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIX Posted November 24, 2021 Author Share Posted November 24, 2021 8 hours ago, Level42 said: I’m pretty sure that Satans breath is two Player missiles (same as the Satan) and it looks like it might be “randomly” (within certain rules) calculated/drawn on the fly. just some wild guessing…..the explosions look similar. bummer about the breath and explosion.. luckily I have found Satans heads clearly defined in hackomatic, so I can edit them ! 8 hours ago, Level42 said: By the way, would love to see some nice arcade artwork title screen and some recreation of the arcade intro/instructions screen…….and of course music and sound effects could be improved but I know, I know….I always start wanting for more improvements….. out of my league I'm afraid.. in fact I'm struggling even hacking-in the easy stuff ? I wish we had the hacking tools NES have.. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 man I love to play again the game with TIX making-over... can not count how often I have played it back those days. it has that "just another go" we all love of the early arcade games... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 OK, let's be honest: everyone raise hand for not knowing that you had to build the bridge...... I didn't know either when I first played it a few times, thought it was just a shooter.... then I noticed the little thingies sometimes hanging under "me"....happened by accident..... then I figured it out I had to do something with them 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 3 hours ago, TIX said: bummer about the breath and explosion.. luckily I have found Satans heads clearly defined in hackomatic, so I can edit them ! out of my league I'm afraid.. in fact I'm struggling even hacking-in the easy stuff ? I wish we had the hacking tools NES have.. No worries, your improvements already make a huge difference and we all really appreciate the time you invest ! Maybe some smart coders can come up with the intro screens... IMHO the breathe is actually pretty cool as it is and doesn't really need improvement, unless you want to be "arcade true", but that would require placing a lot of bitmaps very fast....and totally change the games programming to replace the PM graphics. I find the randomness of the A8's Satan's Breathe more impressive than the arcade version which uses bitmaps/sprites: (bitmaps obviously copied in mirror repeatedly): One request: I play the Joy2B version of Satan's Hollow because it allows the use of a Mega Drive joypad and you can use two buttons (second button is shield and pretty often needed in the game), hopefully your graphics improvements can end up in the Joy2B version as well (there is no technical reason for it not to IMHO). You can find the Joy2B version here: https://github.com/ascrnet/Joy2Bplus/tree/master/games 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TIX Posted November 24, 2021 Author Share Posted November 24, 2021 Taking some wild guesses I managed to restore the "lake", it looked more like a hill to me, obviously it's the wrong color, but.. it's hell so it can be a lake of shit ! Also slightly improved flame river on the right.. Sloooowly working my way to the castle, currently trying to figure out those black pillars. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 On 11/23/2021 at 7:08 AM, TIX said: Still can't find the explosion and Satan's breath, also the rightmost piece of the shield.. see below ☹️ any help locating these ?? I found the red part of the flame. It's built out of two PM's side by side. So, the whole thing is cut in half down the middle. It's a repeated pattern (in the narrow section), which just gets shifted up and down. The part of the flame that hits the ground is oriented in the file as seen in the game; but for some reason, the narrow part is inverted in the file. This is probably why you were having a problem finding it. IDK which binary or ROM you're working from, but in this one it goes from $16A7 - $16D5. Be careful, though; some of the data within that section is code. Satan's Hollow.xex 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+-^CrossBow^- Posted November 24, 2021 Share Posted November 24, 2021 In regards to the background colors and trying to make things look better against it, do keep in mind as you progress the background gets darker and darker until there is almost nothing being shown. I'm assuming this is to indicate a day/night cycle. I'm pretty sure the 8-bit version does this just like the arcade but on the 8-bit version it is even more difficult to make out enemy sprites and some other details in the darker levels. So the castle being a light grey might be the best color that can be used so it can always been seen. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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