Super Pitfall NES (improvements)

[Da_GPer]

I just realized how accurate the sprites you made are to the old Saturday Supercade show of Pitfall. They are almost spot on!

Heres a video of the title screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaB0K__xma4

And to show the characters better, I found a pic of them too!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/1b/c0/b4/1bc0b49982e635983d0a999dd0a1c769.jpg

[nesrocks]

You got me, I looked that up . Macbee told me about the existence of that cartoon.

[Da_GPer]

I grew up in the 80s and watched that show as well as the others when I was little. I just thought of looking up info on it out of curiosity and noticed the similarities. I love that you are using it as a base for your sprites. Maybe you can make the sprites look just like the cartoon ones, if possible.

EDIT: Maybe we should call this the Saturday Supercade version of Super Pitfall.

[releasethedogs]

I played this game a ton when I was a kid. I thought the goal was to get gold and I thought the bugs were intentional to make it harder. lol
I had a totally rosy nostalgic feeling toward it and was shocked to find out it was put in the same room with Hydlide and Action 52. I'm pretty excited for these patches!

also, bring back the scorpion on the title screen!

[Da_GPer]

Now, before I say anything more, I should mention that I have no skills in programming or creating NES games or even able to make music and was just tinkering around. Anyways, I went and downloaded both the original and NSF version of FamiTracker and a NSF of the music for Super Pitfall. After converting the NSF to a FTM so FamiTracker can use it, I looked at two songs on there. One was the main theme you hear over and over again while playing and the other was the balloon song. I noticed that the main theme didnt use the second music track at all while the balloon did. I decided to add notes to the second track on the main theme and play it. It played the notes along with the original song. I think that you dont need a new music program in the game, you just need someone to edit the song to add more notes and use the second track to fill in the empty space to make the song sound better. If my guessing is correct, you may be able to do that by using FamiTracker to edit the song, save it back as a NSF, and then find the location its at in the ROM and paste it in. Remember, Im not someone who knows this stuff and just guessing and stuff, but if it works, then youll be able to have better music in the game.

[M-Tee]

I have no problems with the original water overlapping the rocks. The new palette looks better, but having the waterline cut across the rocks is unique and looks good.

Also, that jeep looks amazing. Is that original or did you pull it from something?

Everything's looking great so far. My only complaint would be the lava? It's really busy with all the horizontal black lines.

[mrrichard999]

This has progressed real nice! Good work! 


You thought about giving it a new font also?

[nesrocks]

The jeep is 100% original. I have improved it a bit:

The jeep is background like everything else, so I had to do some tricks to get it working. Like, its lower half is kind of a block while the upper isn't, but the upper half has the same palette as the lake.

Yeah, the lava still has graphics from when I was testing editting the graphics. I'll revisit it sometime.

About the music hopefully that works, but I think the main problem is how short it is. There is a lot of free space in the ROM, but if bank switching is a problem I'd even settle with killing the balloon music and using that space to extend the main song's length. Do you want to help me do some tests? I have no music skills at all. Ultimately I'd like to include whatever song you create in the final patch, if you're up to it.

I think I have a solution for the water. I'll create some new graphics for it.

[dougeff]

using FamiTracker to edit the song, save it back as a NSF, and then find the location its at in the ROM and paste it in.

So...I know that some homebrewers have used NSF files for music in their games, but that's because they have very simple games with tons of blank space.

Just to be clear, the game has its own music programming, and data set. Every game does this differently.
NSF is a sound format that is unrelated to the game's programming. It is an uncompressed format, that will not easily be 'pasted' into a game.

If you are able to locate the music data, try corrupting it in FCEUXs Hex Editor. Even without understanding the programming, you might be able to identify the pattern of it, and decode it like a puzzle.

See my YouTube page on using FCEUXs debug tools.

[Da_GPer]

The jeep is 100% original. I have improved it a bit:

The jeep is background like everything else, so I had to do some tricks to get it working. Like, its lower half is kind of a block while the upper isn't, but the upper half has the same palette as the lake.

Yeah, the lava still has graphics from when I was testing editting the graphics. I'll revisit it sometime.

About the music hopefully that works, but I think the main problem is how short it is. There is a lot of free space in the ROM, but if bank switching is a problem I'd even settle with killing the balloon music and using that space to extend the main song's length. Do you want to help me do some tests? I have no music skills at all. Ultimately I'd like to include whatever song you create in the final patch, if you're up to it.

I think I have a solution for the water. I'll create some new graphics for it.

I dont know how to make music. I cant even play a real instrument, though I would love to learn to play an ocarina. Zelda jokes aside, I can try to see if I can hopefully create something that may sound like a song and send you it, if your willing to accept having blood pour out of your ears.

[cospefogo]

Nesrocks!

The progress so far is fantastic!
Absolutely amazing!
Woow!

C.

[John Enigma]

What happened? Did I miss something cool?

[cospefogo]

What happened? Did I miss something cool?

I don't know...
But I did.
I was away from the topic for so many days!

[John Enigma]

I don't know...
But I did.
I was away from the topic for so many days!

Me too!

And I don't see a summary of ALL the things Nesrocks has done with this hack in a post.

[nesrocks]

I'll compile a list of everything that was changed when I release it. Here's the new lava. It uses the same amount of tiles as old lava:


And about the font I forgot to mention that I'm using the font from arkanoid on it.

About the music nevermind then, we'll have to wait for someone with a better understanding of asm and music than me. I have managed to change a few notes but I have no idea exactly how. Reverse engineering it by tinkering with the values is difficult for me because I don't know much about music theory.

[FCandChill]

 Comment removed because reasons...

[releasethedogs]

Hello, I signed up to give you this song. Press the blue download button and nothing else: http://www.file-upload.net/download-11629881/SuperPitfallMusic.zip.html

The song is very simple so it should be easy to insert without making a new music engine. In addition, it's short (30 seconds) and small in size.

Tell me if you like it.

Plays nicely in my NSF player. I like it.

[nesrocks]

I really like it too! It is amazing, thanks! I think it fits the new style nicely.

I'll see what I can do myself, but I doubt I can put it in the game. As dougeff said it is not trivial. Can someone with experience on this help?

Also, the lion (using the cartoon concept)

[FCandChill]

 Comment removed because reasons...

[nesrocks]

I think the main song is in 0x19CBD-0x19D8A. This:

Code Select Expand

03 28 FF 52 42 0C 0F 18 42 0C 0F 0C B1 0C 12 0C 42 0C 0F 18 42 0C 42 0C 42 0C F6 8F B1 18 0F 0C F6 28 91 0C 12 0C 0F 0C 91 0C A1 0C 22 0C 0F 0C A1 0C B1 0C 32 0C 0F 0C 32 0C 0F 0C 62 0C B1 18 42 0C 0F 18 42 0C 0F 0C B1 0C 12 0C 42 0C 0F 18 42 0C 42 0C 42 0C F6 8F B1 18 0F 0C F6 28 91 0C 12 0C 0F 0C 91 0C A1 0C 22 0C 0F 0C A1 0C 42 0C B1 0C 32 0C F6 8F 42 18 0F 0C F6 28 0F 18 F0 04 80 FF FF 42 0C E0 0C 72 0C 42 0C E0 0C 42 0C 72 0C 42 0C 42 0C E0 0C 72 0C 42 0C 72 0C F6 04 53 0C F6 40 78 06 78 06 F6 80 E0 0C 42 0C E0 0C 72 0C 42 0C E0 18 72 0C 42 0C 42 0C 72 0C E0 0C 72 0C 53 0C 43 0C F6 40 53 0C F6 80 E0 0C F0

Some sound fx:
$19B1C-$19B26   extra life
$19B50-$19B5A   grab item
$19B74-$19B7E   shot sound
$19B9C-$19BA6   jump sound

Luckly the balloon music is immediately before it at 0x19BF4 - 0x19CBC.