NES RoboCop with Arcade sprites

[WingMantis]

The split HUD looks good, more movie like.

Does the game use select button? If you want to do jumping, if you hack the control mappings maybe you can use start as a jump button and select to pause?

Otherwise I just saw something about adapters that let you use snes controller on NES but you have to hack the game to use the extra buttons for things

[edwinmusic]

    Hello, my mouth was open! your work has been really amazing! congratulations! I always follow your demos! I am a fan of this Game, I have it in Cartridge for 30 years. You have surpassed NIntendo himself, 30 years ago and NIntendo would have hired you! The only personal details that I saw was the number of shots from the Shoot Gun, I believe that 15 is too many and gives the player a lot of advantage, the original version gives a touch of challenge due to its limited number, and makes the machine gun almost Useless. On the other hand in the end, On the other hand when RObocop kills the last man who falls through the building. The NES version is much better, I do not know the images of the Arcade Version but he is wrong, this one needs to improve. and my question is why is it called TEXAS VERSION? It has made me very curious. A hug and hope that you continue with what you are passionate about! By the way I am an apprentice to hack roms, I have already learned to use the YYCHR I have made very good polishes to several hacks personally, and I am going to translate to Spanish which is my language. My regards, brother!! Thanks a lot!

[stevebarn]

Hello,
It's been a long time I Followed this project and I encourage to continue, it's a very very high quality fangame we have here!
The render has nothing to do with the original game, and he's so far from it, we cannot recognize it, you made a fantastic work on this!
The last update 1.8 have several great improvements! I noticed a bug however in this last update who was not present in the 1.7 version
when you try to block a hit with SELECT button, the Robocop sprite seems to make a jump but stay high as long as you press the button.

thank you for all your fantastic work, keep going on, we are all behind you!

[SomeOldGuy]

It's possible.

Awesome!... will you help me figure out how to do it?      I'm guessing it'll require editing the height of all of the sprites.



CaptainHIT, just trying to do my best.  This has been a really fun project, hope others out there in the RHDN community enjoy it!



WingMantis, I'm really liking the look of the split HUD too, just hope I can pull it off, may need some expert help though (Cyneprepou4uk?).

The game does use the selece button as a block which could probably be use for jump instead.  The problem with using select is... well... it's kinda clunky.  It worked for PunchOut, not so sure about RoboCop.  If I had the ability, I'd make B = Punch/Fire Weapon and A = Jump like the arcade game.

As the game is now, there is really no need for jumping.  I'd love to change this fact and make the levels more arcade like.   



Hey Edwinmusic,  I still have my copy from way back then too!  Yeah, 15 shots with the cobra gun may be too many.  This is what the arcade game gives you on pickup but on the other hand the arcade game doesn't let you switch between weapons. 

As far as the ending... well... I'm trying to make it more like the arcade game. 

The ending may be one of the things the NES version got right.    I realize that it's not as dramatic as seeing the bad guy fall backwards after getting shot but will probably keep the arcade ending... or maybe do a custom animation.   

Why is it called Texas Edition? 

I didn't want to call it RoboCop Re-drawn or Re-mastered, Re-envisioned, Re-skinned, Re-loaded, Re-stored, etc...  just a personal decision really.  If you look, there are a few references to Texas scattered through the game.  Also, a bit of trivia, most of the first movie was filmed in Dallas, Texas.

I hope to see some of your hacks soon.  Maybe one day you can translate this hack for all the Spanish speakers out there! 



Hey stevebarn,  glad you like the changes!  The bug you mentioned is something I did intentionally.  I wanted to see what RoboCop's jump animation would look like in the game but just never took it out.  It will probably be replaced with the block animation in the next release... unless I forget again.   

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[Flaviogames]

this game is great, but if in the future he jumps and climbs stairs easily and also when he stops walking he has a fixed pose, it would be perfect

[SomeOldGuy]

I'll see what I can do.   

[Cyneprepou4uk]

Awesome!... will you help me figure out how to do it?      I'm guessing it'll require editing the height of all of the sprites.

This requires some code editing. But since you don't know how to do that, I don't see a reason to go into details. Basically you need to setup several IRQ triggers with different scroll and nametable positions.

Yes, you will need to change Y for all sprites. Or you can add nesessary offset to sprite position calculation code, this will affect all sprites at once, but it can also result in a bit of slowdown.

[SomeOldGuy]

This requires some code editing. But since you don't know how to do that, I don't see a reason to go into details.

I have a lot to learn but have done a little bit of code editing.      

For example, I figured out how to load the pattern tables I needed and draw the beginning cut scenes the way I wanted them.  I was also able to load 3 additional palettes for the scene pictured below.  For some reason the programmers only used the first palette. Trying to save space maybe? 

Point is, I can do it, just need a little coaching.

Basically you need to setup several IRQ triggers with different scroll and nametable positions.

This sounds like I'd need to change the coordinates of where the background/level starts/stops being drawn to the screen.  If that's the case, it doesn't seem too hard.  How do you go about finding the IRQ triggers?

[Cyneprepou4uk]

How do you go about finding the IRQ triggers?

IRQ vector is at FFFE-FFFF. You can find IRQ registers at nesdev, depending on your mapper.

[SomeOldGuy]

So, looking at FFFE FFFF in Ram we see this. 



If we right click and select "Go Here In ROM File" it takes to the following.  95 C1 and BE C1 are pointers to 3C1A5 and 3C1CE.



This is the code at those locations.



Editing 95 C1 seems to affect/corrupt the background, editing BE C1 seems to affect/corrupt the HUD.

Is this the code I need to edit Cyneprepou4uk?  If not, am I at least close?   

[Cyneprepou4uk]

Yeah, it is the code you need to edit.

[edwinmusic]

Hello brother, well if the end of the game is very reasonable, the idea is that it resembles the Aracade, but regarding the number of shots it would be good if you did two patches, you know to please the fans who have followed you From the beginning of the project as in my case heheheheee, the truth is that with 15 shots the gameplay of the game is damaged and it becomes very easy, it loses the essence of the challenge to defeat the bosses. The texas wow thing makes a lot of sense, I think it's very good. I continue to congratulate you for your work and passion, and as I have already mentioned, I am started in this world of rom hack, I already handle the YYCHR very well, just that, I don't know what tools you can recommend, I would take care of learning for my account. And by the way, is this the final version of the game or are you still polishing details?  =) thank you so much! =)

[SomeOldGuy]

Hey edwinmusic,

Glad to hear you're getting into rom modding.   

Some extremely useful tools are:

CAD Editor - Used to edit backgrounds (unless your game has a dedicated background editor)
NES Screen Tool
NES Palette Calculator
Photoshop (or some other similar program)

FCEUX has alot of great tools.  You'll want to learn to use most of the tools in the Debug tab.  There is also a Help tab next to Debug.  There you'll find info on what the tools do and how to use them.  Game Genie codes and Saves States are a huge help as well (you'll be playing through your game alot).           

After almost 2 years, RobboCop is still nowhere near finished.  The more I learn the more I want to modify.  Don't worry, there's a ton of stuff that will be polished before the final release. 

Oh, and to change the number of bullets for the Cobra Gun, just go into the HEX Editor and change the values at the following addresses:

0x3FD04  - Change to 06
0x3FD0D  - Change to 02
0x3FD17  - Change to 02


October 06, 2021, 05:14:27 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Just a minor update.  Simplified the HUD a bit. 

https://www.mediafire.com/file/sn8z1mzuo4902ky/RoboCop+-+Edit+19.ips/file

[edwinmusic]

Thanks brother for valuable collaboration! this will be of great help! very heartfelt for your collaboration! I will try to change the bullets, I think it is necessary to give balance to the gameplay, a lot of the bullets makes it very easy =) I hope you improve as you do! a thousand congratulations!   
October 08, 2021, 03:39:31 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
And about the HUD, I wouldn't know what to tell you, I don't know what the ARCADE one is like, but the one you had is much better, it makes the screen have more life. 

[minucce]

Arcade


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Wip1 for split hud  (patch on top of 19)
https://github.com/minucce/workbox/raw/fe5e6be4c185d1058e19501cef18d8b8bc14b7f8/box3/wip1.ips


Require reports on what's still wrong or tweaking
- Split hud
- Breaking walls screen flicker
- Punching walls screen shake
- Cutscene mouth stays open sometimes?
- Random crash skipping cutscene ...  (probably some irq problem)
- Sprites, bullets repositioned downward
- Corruption when entering ED-209 rooms
- Better scrolling for off-screen elevator ride (Stage 3)
- Resting idle pose reset after walking? (1 frame stops mid-walking)
- Show missing 8 pixels at top of screen
- Entering elevators can use some extra cleanup (Stage 6)
- Climbing those stairs .. not pixel-perfect standing
- Random hud bouncing

I may not do all but minor things still highlighted


Not releasing source until after more things wiped; managing (making) free space to fit VBlank time so things keep getting evicted around.

----

Wip2  (patch on top of 19)
https://github.com/minucce/workbox/raw/58749d3317cce956740f2132f8adb8e467572e07/box3/wip2.ips

[SomeOldGuy]

minucce,

I haven't been able to test wip2 extensively but did notice that 8 pixels are now chopped off the bottom of the screen.  Could this be causing the issue of the bouncing HUD?  The HUD only seems to bounce when using a NES/Ever Dirve but never, if ever, in FCEUX or MESEN. 

I really appreciate you makin' the split HUD a reality and squashing all those other bugs.  Again, Thanks! 

[minucce]

Bottom status bar is bouncing? I can take a guess why if so; chopped 8 pixels I'm not so sure about.


Chopped pixels are hardware and emulator? Did you apply order
- clean rom
- edit19
- wip2
October 18, 2021, 01:49:38 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
Bouncing is partly because switching hud takes time, and RoboCop engine takes more time away from that; aka negative time. I'll have to do an inline rewrite of the vblank engine but you gave me lots of free expansion space so I'll give in.


Zero idea if the chopped pixels will go away (I don't see it on Fceux / Mesen) but hardware has its own undocumented strange things I'm not caring about.

[SomeOldGuy]

Hey minucce, this is what I was referring to in regard to the missing bottom pixels.  It doesn't really bother me and honestly I'd like to repurpose the tiles so no big deal.



Not sure if this will help but, as far as the bouncing HUD, I did what you suggested and started with a fresh rom, then added the 2 patches in order.  Check out the video below, no change.   
 
https://sendvid.com/mx6bvewu

[minucce]

https://github.com/minucce/workbox/raw/94abfa29144ce32bfec03e8a586c84ce88f58afc/box3/wip3.ips


- Cleans up some remaining garbage during cutscene transitions
- Stairs I can't do anything with (detection works in blocks of 8 pixels)
- hud bouncing is likely gone (double irq for stable raster splits)
- added missing cut pixels

Goal?

[SomeOldGuy]

Amazing job, as always, minucce!

No more HUD bounce and the transitions look great.

There does seem to be an issue with real hardware though.  Using an Everdrive/NES there is alot of sprite flicker, not caused by the hardware's 8 sprite limit, that wasn't present in the wip2 patch.  Some of the most noticeable examples are the flame thrower guy, jetpack guy, chainsaw guys (they flicker more than usual).  FCEUX and Mesen both seem to work fine though, even with the 8 sprite limit enabled.       

Any idea what's causing this?

Also, tried to move the power bar up 8 pixels and got the following.  Is there a way to remove that line of garbage pixels?