Topics

1

Personal Projects / Project Rohrleitung Gate(SMB1 Hack) (Update: Alpha Preview Version)

« on: February 28, 2013, 09:30:18 am »

Rohrleitung Gate is a project I started about 4 months ago. Initially I didn't want to make a huge project, but now it's a 100+ KB ROM.
(The project itself is a parody of an anime, so I'm concerned whether this project is actually legal...)

The game is a puzzle-solving game. It's not a maze like Extra Mario Bros. The course is linear, but almost every stage is a puzzle.
Level design is about 90% complete; ASM is about 80%; CHR is half complete and it gets me into trouble.

Current changes include:
-- Forward&backward scrolling within 2 pages.
-- Multi-layer background effect in various stages.
-- Koopa shells can break bricks and bump into hidden blocks, revealing them.
-- Enemies can appear on the first page.
-- Konami code(Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A) can be entered on the title screen, increasing the num of lives to 31 and activating hard mode.
-- 2 endings(Not including Game Over, aka the Engrish phrase 'Dead End').
-- Recomposed soundtrack. What's significant about the soundtrack: SMB only used the 4 traditional channels, but here I've made use of the DPCM and VRC7 channels. A PCM sound effect is also included.
-- More minor effects.

There will be some more planned changes.

Images:

The background I used in a stage. Note that it's actually a multi-layer background: The stars won't move, the hills move at 1/2 speed, others move normally.
(It's not raster scroll of course, it's done by changing the CHR tiles. The limitation is that the background gets repetitive. If a part of the background doesn't use the multi-layer effect, that part can be completely user-defined.)
I'm not a good graphics designer, so your suggestions(or help) are welcome(I'm desperate for them!)

The infamous fake wall.(This is not a new effect.)

A puzzle-solving stage. The pipe shown is the exit, but it's blocked. (Things are not so simple here... Currently, this is the best stage I've designed in this project.)

Update: Here's an alpha preview version. Any ideas are more than welcome. Levels of world 1 and 2 are complete; I have some levels for World 3 and 4 but I probably need more. Use the Konami code to get access to World 4.
http://www.bwass.org/bucket/RGAlpha.zip

2

Script Help and Language Discussion / German --> Japanese translation(transliteration?)

« on: February 12, 2013, 07:56:24 am »

OK I don't know the term for 'translating' in this way, I'll just call it 'transliteration' here.
We got games like Super Mario Bros, Dragon Quest, and their names in Japanese are Suupaa Mario, Doragon Kuesuto, respectively.
Now suppose the German word 'Rohrleitung' is in the name of a game, how should this word be translated in this way?
(The game I'm talking about is one of my projects. I have the title screen coded in a different way, so I want to finish it now and leave it unchanged.)

3

Programming / Need tech support, about VRC7(IRQ & emulation related??) stuff.

« on: January 22, 2013, 09:15:41 am »

OK, I don't know the answer to the spambot question on the NESDEV forum register form, so Mr.Bot is trying to look for an answer here.

Some time ago I did a simple experiment on the Super Mario Bros (JU) ROM--changing the mapper number from 0 to 85(VRC7 mp). Emulation on different emulators varied. On some emulators like VirtuaNES, NNNesterJ, all was well; on some others like Nestopia, it couldn't run. On FCEUX, emulation was OK, but when a savestate was loaded it started glitching.

This puzzles me. Truly, different mappers have different bank sys, IRQ sys etc. But this problem was beyond my explanation although seemingly simple. The SMB ROM sets the I flag at the very beginning and leaves it on. But when FCEUX loads a state, an IRQ is generated, and the IRQ routine(in SMB1 the routine is an infinite loop) is called, and the CHR banks are in a mess. I tried coding IRQ routines and handling(disabling) IRQs in different ways, but eventually I reached wit's end.

'It appears as if' loading the savestate in FCEUX sets some things which should have remained their own values. But this is highly impossible. The other explanation I can think of is that there are some settings which should be set in the reset routine, but if so, what are these settings? This is not related to VRC7 audio of course.

Waiting for a genius...

4

ROM Hacking Discussion / Newcomer post which doesn't belong to the newbie section. About SMB Hacking.

« on: December 11, 2012, 12:21:42 am »

Hiya folks. I'm w7n here, and I already have a hack submission and a doc submission at RHDN. I've been active in the Baidu SMB Bar(a Chinese community) since 2 years ago, but ever since the admin there banned the distribution of the 'spike' IPS, the community went into chaos, so I'll try to stay active here.

Some time ago I learned ASM and I have some ASM projects and unfinished WIPs here. A complete project named 'Lost Mario' can be found at my home page. One unfinished project is an action-puzzle game, which includes both left&right scrolling within 2 pages, and koopa shell breaking bricks and hitting hidden blocks, and tunes which use DPCM samples. Only the levels and the 'Game Clear' BGM are unfinished now. I have another unfinished project, meant to be huge, but currently I have only expanded another 32KB into the ROM, and only <10KB has been used. The WIP of the latter project includes auto scrolling(that's ATA's patch), a 7-level Mario upgrade(6 complete), and various other patches. The expanded part only includes Mario's 'Let's go!' voice at the world intro screen, and a VRC7 music processing system(incomplete, and cannot run for the time being). All BGM are composed, though.

What I'm going to talk about here is the latter unfinished project. Personally speaking, no better project than Extra Mario Bros has been released since 2005. Has anyone had the idea to create a real advanced project? Consider making use of expanded memory($6000-). Consider a cutscene system based on the original system. Consider cancelling the gravity routine for hammers, and design 'spell cards' using hammers. Consider a VRC7 music processing system(and simply change the value in $FB to choose which BGM to play, if required by the cutscene system).

I'm not trying to find someone and then leave the project to him, seriously. I'm just providing an idea, and also looking for ideas and information. If anyone wants to join, I'm honoured. I have been working on this, but progress has been slow and continually delayed since I'm a sophomore.

PS: Are there simple ways to contact other members?

5

ROM Hacking Discussion / About the x.dmc file. I'll be very grateful if you know the answer!!

« on: December 29, 2011, 07:30:25 am »

I'm found numerous tutorials on how to convert x.wav files to x.dmc files. However, I haven't found any tutorial that tells me how to finally put this sound into the NES.
Can anyone tell me what part of data means what in a x.dmc file? How should I give values to the CPU Addr $4010, $4011, $4012, $4013, so that this sound can be heard?

6

ROM Hacking Discussion / Anyone got, or can help rip Mario's voice?

« on: December 25, 2011, 09:25:08 pm »

Anyone got Mario's 'Let's go!' and 'Oh, Mamamia!' sound (e.g. in Super Mario Advance 2)? Or can anyone help me rip them, I don't know how to rip these.
If you've got Luigi's sound, it'll be better.
File type better be 'x.wav'.

If you can help, submit the files to mariohackereng.ys168.com. Thanks a lot!

7

Programming / OK, starting 6502 work but really puzzled... need help.

« on: October 12, 2011, 10:58:08 am »

Well, trying to work on Super Mario Bros. 1... Got 3 questions:
1. The 6502 asm is, of course, very different from languages such as C, Pascal, etc. Though I can understand the meanings of commands, I hardly know what the values in WRAM and others mean. What should I do if I want to know what a specific value mean? I'm completely all thumbs...
2. Well I just figured out that a nonsense series of 'commands' are usually data instead of commands. Of course I need some more experience, so anyone can share some?
3. I'm using a debugger called NO$NES, but I don't know if it's the best. My computer is a million years old, so it cannot survive the attack from FCEUX. Any good debuggers u know?

Thank you Mario, but our #1(How do you call it?) is in another country... So are there English mistakes in the words above? If yes, also tell me.

8

Script Help and Language Discussion / Japanese translation problem.

« on: August 29, 2011, 01:33:24 am »

2 sentences needed to be translated:
'Go into [the world which has appeared before]!'
'Let's [hoot]!'
The words in [] are actually names of 2 songs. I know that the Japanese name for the first song is 'また巡り逢えた世界', but I can't find the Japanese name for the second.

I need translations which can represent the meanings, and also indicate these songs. Can anyone help? Thanks.
(Is there a Japanese 'sone'...?)

9

Newcomer's Board / Real newbie and wacky problem, about uploading hacks...

« on: August 23, 2011, 12:23:22 am »

Well, I have a complete and quite good(at least I think) hack here, and I want to upload the hack into Romhacking.net's hack database.
However, 'thanks' to the GREAT FIREWALL (All Hail Communist Party of China!!), I can not visit website like youtube, facebook etc. in the regular way. Once I used a software called freegate, and I found that I could go to these websites, but I couldn't visit Chinese websites. So I really doubt if Chinese URLs work here.

I think most other people will tell me the answer to that question. Just check the link here(This is not the hack I mentioned), and tell me whether it works. Thanks. And I'm sorry if this question is really silly.

[ROM link removed]

10

ROM Hacking Discussion / Some help needed on a new hack rom.

« on: August 09, 2011, 06:14:02 am »

(My English is bad, forgive me...)
2 days ago, my project [YoonA 1.00] is complete. It's a SMB1 hack, which changes the map and the BGM completely. I also did some changes in GFX(Oops, is there a plural form...?) and 'GFX links'(well, direct transl from Chinese...). I'm planning to work on a new project [YoonA 2], and now I need some help, about both YoonA 1&2.

Q1. Although the players in YoonA 1 are Sunny and Yuri, the GFX is merely Peach(without a crown) from SMB2(USA). Why didn't I design the GFX myself? The reason is, I always make terrible GFX drawings. Anyone have some advice on that? Maybe in YoonA 1.01, I will use GFX that seem(s?) real.
Q2. Is it legal to change the BGM in SMB1 to various Girls' Generation songs?
Q3. In YoonA 2, I want to use some real NES 6502 programming instead of searching for hex values, guessing their meanings, and change them. Is there a good tutorial about 6502? Are there NES debuggers?

Thanks a lot, I think there must be a lot of ROM hackers here who make perfect hacks.