Author Topic: Super Pitfall NES (improvements) (Read 97139 times)

macbee · « **Reply #260 on:** August 11, 2016, 11:07:39 pm »

Quote from: FCandChill on August 11, 2016, 11:04:47 pm

The game has many loading issues... When you press start at the title screen ... the screen goes black and takes a long time to load new CHR banks ... it's bad...

Welcome to the world of Micronics!

FreightMan71 · « **Reply #261 on:** August 12, 2016, 04:12:42 pm »

@nesrocks

Really, really good stuff man.

I remember Super Pitfall being a favorite of mine back in the day....bugs, glitches and all...the whole idea of Pitfall being expanded to cover tons of screens on the superior NES (compared to the 2600 and Colecovision anyways) just blew me away.

I even put up with the "finding the items in weird places" thing, I enjoyed the game so much.

The graphical and animation work you have put into this is second to none and the game just looks simply fantastic.
If the sound can get redone, ok, but if not, no big deal....however, (and I didn't read every single post in this thread, so please forgive if I am posting a redundancy), if the bugs n glitches (falling through platforms, collision detection) can be fixed, you will have made this game damn near an ultimate version of Pitfall.

Keep up the good work and am very much looking forward to this.
In fact, I'm gonna go play through the original game a bit over the next couple weeks so that when I FINALLY play yours, I will feel like a kid who just got a new game under the Christmas tree all over again!!

Cheers!
FM71

nesrocks · « **Reply #262 on:** August 16, 2016, 10:42:56 am »

So, not much of an update (I have been fixing some bugs and adjusting some stuff), but I've discovered something interesting:

The original game duplicates every frame. I've noticed this on day one but I never had an idea why it did that. So today I was debugging it and I got to a compare that loops to itself. This one:

07:C3C5:A5 49 LDA $0049 = #$00
07:C3C7:C9 02 CMP #$02
07:C3C9:90 FA BCC $C3C5

I turned it off and the game started running on every frame with no problem at all (aside from some things moving too fast, but that's adjustable). Then I lost a life and it went to the lives screen normally. Then when it went back to the game the graphics were all messed up. Even the palettes didn't load correctly.

Turns out they made that hack solution to give time for the graphics to load, but they didn't care that the whole game would be running at half fps. Maybe I can give it a condition that it only does that during loads and then goes back to running normally (instead of fixing the graphics loading). Would still need to adjust every object's speed in the game because they'd be moving too fast, so it isn't a trivial modification. If there's enough time left before release I might try that (would also need further testing to see if no other problems appear). I still think trying to fix the d-pad is a priority.

Satoshi_Matrix · « **Reply #263 on:** August 17, 2016, 03:29:04 am »

I'm eager to play this. You're doing fantastic work here.

cospefogo · « **Reply #264 on:** August 18, 2016, 06:20:32 am »

NesRocks,

This one is for you!

More here:

http://videogamesdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/149092824100/the-sega-digitizer-system-a-tool-used-by-graphic

Cosme.

nesrocks · « **Reply #265 on:** August 19, 2016, 12:36:46 am »

I wish I was there, cospefogo!

So, I've managed to change a few things:

I killed the ability to duck. This is the compromise I could do to avoid half the problem with the d-pad bug. The uglier half, at that. The one that even if you're holding right or left (no diagonals), Harry would stay locked on the ducking position until the d-pad was let go for at least 1 frame. This change drastically improved the gameplay, imo. The not so ugly bug still exists that 2 of the 4 diagonals stops movement, but as soon as left or right (no diagonal) is pressed, Harry starts moving normally.
Now whenever falling from a ledge you will fall as if you had jumped, so you can still control Harry in mid air (this is not the case when caught by a waterfall, when spawning in midair or when the balloon pops). This also drastically improved the gameplay, imo.
I changed the sprite used for Harry when riding the balloon to one of his swimming frames. It looks fitting. And I made it so when the balloon pops he changes his pose while falling.
The camera more closely follows Harry when going up or down ladders. Another gameplay improvement as he doesn't get so close to the edge of the screen as before.

Da_GPer · « **Reply #266 on:** August 19, 2016, 02:36:42 am »

Ya know, I dont ever remember ducking to even be useful in this game at all, so nothing of value was lost.

cospefogo · « **Reply #267 on:** August 19, 2016, 07:00:13 am »

Quote from: nesrocks on August 19, 2016, 12:36:46 am

I wish I was there, cospefogo!

So, I've managed to change a few things:
I killed the ability to duck. This is the compromise I could do to avoid half the problem with the d-pad bug. The uglier half, at that. The one that even if you're holding right or left (no diagonals), Harry would stay locked on the ducking position until the d-pad was let go for at least 1 frame. This change drastically improved the gameplay, imo. The not so ugly bug still exists that 2 of the 4 diagonals stops movement, but as soon as left or right (no diagonal) is pressed, Harry starts moving normally.
Now whenever falling from a ledge you will fall as if you had jumped, so you can still control Harry in mid air (this is not the case when caught by a waterfall, when spawning in midair or when the balloon pops). This also drastically improved the gameplay, imo.
I changed the sprite used for Harry when riding the balloon to one of his swimming frames. It looks fitting. And I made it so when the balloon pops he changes his pose while falling.
The camera more closely follows Harry when going up or down ladders. Another gameplay improvement as he doesn't get so close to the edge of the screen as before.

Fantastic!
Nice job on killing the duck.
We can roast it now.

protomank · « **Reply #268 on:** August 19, 2016, 07:35:13 am »

Removing ducking but fixing Harry stopping when you press some diagonals is a very nice trade

nesrocks · « **Reply #269 on:** August 19, 2016, 10:37:35 pm »

Another update:

- I have managed to break my limits again in loading sounds/songs from bank 5! I learned how to switch banks in this game and I used that to store all sounds and songs on bank 5 instead of 6 and 7. Bank 5 is originally 60% empty, so it is a lot of space. This also freed a big void in empty space on bank 7 (where the sounds were originally stored), so that can be used in the future for fresh code to be inserted if need be. The good thing is that bank 7 is always loaded, so it's really convenient for new code.
- I have also inserted the new pitfall 2 theme that FCandChill arranged based on rockmanx2002's ftm.
- Songs now can use 4 channels (the original game only had 3 channels on songs, square 2 was missing). Songs that will benefit from this: Pitfall 2 theme (already working), Overworld 2 theme (FCandChill's "island" song), the new Balloon theme (based on rockmanx2002 ftm version) and a new DarkWorld theme by FCandChill.

Thanks for all the help FCandChill, it is greatly improving the quality of the hack!

- Separatelly, I decided that every 5 treasure collected = 1 extra life. This completely changed the value of collecting treasure, and it is now a good idea to get them even if not going for the 100 treasure ending.

Da_GPer · « **Reply #270 on:** August 20, 2016, 03:36:45 am »

Yay! I really am glad to know that the new music is in the game and the horrible ear bleeder has been removed. Is there a way we could hear the Pitfall II theme song? Is it better sounding then the awesome Atari 2600 version?

John Enigma · « **Reply #271 on:** August 20, 2016, 10:33:33 am »

One question about the changes you mentioned above, @NESRocks: ducking in the game was never important right?

M-Tee · « **Reply #272 on:** August 20, 2016, 10:41:02 am »

I'm sure that if it had ever been important, he'd take care of that and compensate for it.

However, for a game of this caliber, I wouldn't at all be surprised if it had just been added (because SMB did it, so it was expected) without it being a gameplay-specific requirement.

nesrocks · « **Reply #273 on:** August 20, 2016, 11:49:17 am »

Quote from: Da_GPer on August 20, 2016, 03:36:45 am

Is there a way we could hear the Pitfall II theme song?

Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKlvTCSFU04

Ducking was nearly useless. It could be used sometimes to dodge a flying bat, but on the other hand it made you think you could duck and shoot. Very deceiving. The game plays a lot more fluidly now.

Da_GPer · « **Reply #274 on:** August 20, 2016, 09:25:19 pm »

Quote from: nesrocks on August 20, 2016, 11:49:17 am

Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKlvTCSFU04

Ducking was nearly useless. It could be used sometimes to dodge a flying bat, but on the other hand it made you think you could duck and shoot. Very deceiving. The game plays a lot more fluidly now.

OMG! That was awesome! Its like a combo of both the Atari 2600 version of Pitfall II and the Tandy CoCo version of Super Pitfall mixed in one! I love it! Whoever made that song is a genius and should be recommended for other projects in the future.

FCandChill · « **Reply #275 on:** August 20, 2016, 09:58:19 pm »

Comment removed because reasons...

nesrocks · « **Reply #276 on:** August 20, 2016, 10:42:17 pm »

The new Balloon theme (already added to the game, tested and working):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNYLEuj3sx4

FCandChill: I've changed it a bit, I hope you don't mind! I've set the speed to be somewhat inbetween the atari version and the nes version.

FCandChill · « **Reply #277 on:** August 20, 2016, 11:35:56 pm »

Comment removed because reasons...

nesrocks · « **Reply #278 on:** August 20, 2016, 11:50:19 pm »

It took me some time to understand what you meant (I'm bad at reading). So, whenever both square 1 and square 2 play the same note at the same time? You're right, that happens twice on this version. I'll change it.

edit: removed old balloon video, re-uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da9SSxRnEkI

TCgamerboy2002 · « **Reply #279 on:** August 21, 2016, 02:24:44 am »

Man, you're making this game so much better than the original version. And I mean MUCH better!