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Ralph escribió:Eteream escribió:
Soy consciente de que no hay ahora mismo un término medio que ayude a comprender a los "novatos" a entender que está pasando (quizás cuando domine todo esto pueda hacerlo yo mismo, sin tener que adueñarme del trabajo de los demás), pero para los que comprenden bien ensamblador, les vendrá bien la documentación sobre la SNES, que es lo que les falta para saber programar para esta maquina. No es que no sepa organizarme, es que simplemente he empezado por donde he podido... de hecho, sigo un poco perdido, no soy ningún experto.
...de todos modos, se agradece el detalle de la crítica, porque sin esto, uno nunca sabe si mejora, o empeora. Lo de los conceptos basicos y "machacados", era en un principio la prioridad, pero como digo, es que he empezado por donde he podido. Esto va para largo, así que ya llegará el día en que todo esté muy bien ordenado y explicado.
Ralph escribió:Cada vez que ponemos (PUSH) agregamos un valor en el stack, el puntero del stack subirá bajando de índice, pero el stack (como espacio) disminuye.
Ralph escribió:Al contrario, si sacamos (POP) valores del stack, el stack se incrementa desde el punto de vista de espacio, pero el puntero se decrementa ya que baja.
Eteream escribió:Ralph escribió:Cada vez que ponemos (PUSH) agregamos un valor en el stack, el puntero del stack subirá bajando de índice, pero el stack (como espacio) disminuye.
El espacio de stack es el que es, no dismuniye. Disminuye el espacio vacio disponible.
Push = apilar, en jerga: hacer push
Eteream escribió:Ralph escribió:Al contrario, si sacamos (POP) valores del stack, el stack se incrementa desde el punto de vista de espacio, pero el puntero se decrementa ya que baja.
Lo mismo. Y el puntero se incrementa ya que ´sube´.
Pop = desapilar, en jerga: hacer pop
-Esta es la lista de juegos que no funcionan en el SNES Power pak [Link!]. Al principio de la lista podemos ver que aparece el comanche, cuando se supone que no pasó del E3 de 1995, ¿Es que existe la rom, o algún prototipo? o_O
¿Se sabe cuanto puede ocupar descomprimido el Street fighter 2 Alpha, teniendo en cuenta que se trata de un cartucho de 32 megas?. ¿Existen datos, o documentación sobre el chip S-DD1?.
no estaba emulado se utilizaban unos parches en la rom con unos complementos.
ChepoXX escribió:tengo entendido que que hay una versión beta o demo pero no del juego en si sino del motor en un espacio abierto, hay unos videos en youtube
ChepoXX escribió:descomprimido creo que no se puede jugar descomprimido a diferencia del star ocean, ya que si es descomprimido no funciona en el power pack........ por otro lado cuando no estaba emulado se utilizaban unos parches en la rom con unos complementos.
socram8888 escribió:El canal PCM en ese juego está controlado por el Z80, que tiene 8 veces menos RAM (8kB vs 64kB) que el SPC700 de la SNES, así que probablemente será por problemas de espacio
Pero a mi me parece vaguería, porque teniendo el 68000 acceso directo a los registros del YM2612, ya me dirás porqué no se encargó la CPU principal del sonido...
ChepoXX escribió:mmm ahor que lo pienso eran como desempaquetados y pesaba el rom mas packs como 6 megas de pc no de consola jjee no se si lo tenga por ahí todavía.
Osea, que realmente no llega a los 48 megas, ¿no?, porque parte de la rom tiene los datos comprimidos que ya están descomprimidos en el resto del pack. ¿Realmente es así?, ¿se puede demostrar?.
magno escribió:Para el S-DD1 hay una documentación muy buena hecha por mi amigo Andreas Naive, una fiera de los algoritmos y de la ingeniería inversa que vive aquí en Madrid pero que no he tenido la oportunidad de conocer. La documentación que aportó la tengo por ahí, incluso imprimida en papel porque es realmente buena.
magno escribió:Los ratios de compresión que puede alcanzar el chip son muy buenos, y se estiman que están en torno a 2:1; así, el Star Ocean con el parche para que se pueda jugar sin el chip ocupa 96 megas (tiene 48 de ROM), y el SF2A estaría en torno a los 64 megas.
magno escribió:Sí que es posible aplicar el mismo principio que para SO con el SF2A: consiste en trazar en el código ensamblador TODAS las escrituras al registro $4800, comprobar a qué direcciones se refiere como origen comprimido y destino de RAM descomprimido, y entonces hacer una llamada a una rutina que te crees que simplemente copie el correspondiente chunk de datos ya descomprimidos al destino correcto. Es un curro de la hostia, pero se podría hacer...
Chepoxx escribió:Si quieres te paso la rom para que la estudies, eso si no estoy seguro de ternerla ya la tuve un tiempo por tenerla y lusgo me baje larom normal sin parches cuando el snesX9 emuló el chip de compresión
· Taloon's Mystery Dungeon
· Targa
· Tarzan
· Thunder in Paradise
· Time Killer(s)
· Tinhead
· Tom and Jerry 2
· Toxic Crusaders
· Turbo Toons
· Tweety and Sylvester
· Ultrabots: Sanction Earth
· Undercover Cops
· Universal Soldier
· Warrior of Rome III
· Wile E's Revenge (Road Runner 2)
· Wrestlerage
· Zoo Ball
Little is known about this prototype of Taloon's Mystery Dungeon. According to hydr0x, this prototype came from a German age ratings organization. It would have been a port of Torneco no Daibouken, a spinoff of Dragon Quest 4, featuring the pudgy merchant, Taloon. It's unique semi-action rpg elements may have made it considered for the European market, much like Terranigma was.
Targa went unreleased in Europe and North America. It is a hybrid between an R-type-style shooter and a Contra-style action game. It went on to be released in Japan as Rendering Ranger R2. In this article, we will have a look at this rare gem, complete with some notes from developer Manfred Trenz. Thanks goes out to Fire-WSP, who provided the screenshots, and Manfred Trenz for answering my questions.
Rendering Ranger R2 is a title that bears some significance in the Super NES/ Super Famicom collecting scene. It happens to be one of the most rare games ever released for the system, with a total production run of a few thousand copies at most. Copies show up every now and then on eBay, and fetch well over $100 US each. This game also happens to be developed by Manfred Trenz, who created the excellent Turrican series.
The game starts off with a Contra style action sequence. There is no story, the player merely moves forward and start shooting. You start off with a choice of a rapid fire spread gun or a focused laser gun. These can be upgraded with power ups. Later in the game, rebound and multi-directional pulse guns become available. The controls allows you to easily aim and shoot the enemies that appear above and below.
The level design in the action sequences is straightforward. In the first level, the main issue is avoiding pits. In subsequent action levels, there is a bit more exploration, but there are no brain teasing puzzles. Enemies swarm you and show no mercy, so it is best to turn on the auto-fire option so you can focus on aiming. If you die, the weapon system only downgrades the currently selected weapon, so the best strategy is to switch to the weakest weapon in your arsenal if you are on the verge of death.
In the third stage, you are treated to an R-Type style shooter. These sequences really show off the amazing pre-rendered graphics (think Donkey Kong Country) as well as the smooth frame rate that is not seen in many Super NES games. The ship uses the same weapons as in the action sequences, and the same strategy to keep the weapons applies. The only unique power ups in the shooting levels are these pods that increase the amount of shots your ship shoots. You can collect up to two of them, and they are positioned above and below the ship (see the picture on the left).
At times, the entire screen fills up with your shots, which can just barely keep up with the screen fulls of enemies. At times, there is upwards of 20 enemies coming after you at a time. It is quite awe-inspiring to see, even when compared to modern consoles. It really shows that the snes could handle a lot of sprites and not have slowdown.
Rendering Ranger is well known due to its boss battles. The bosses are huge, sometimes encompassing an area larger than the screen! The first few levels have one boss at the end, but further into the game it almost gets to the point where you only fight bosses. Each boss has a particular weak point, and it takes a lot of shooting to kill them off.
If there is one weakness to this game, it is the extreme difficulty. Even with passwords, only expert players will reach the end of the game. I played on the easiest difficulty level with the maximum amount of lives, and I could barely pass the first level. The biggest problem is that it takes a lot of hits to kill off even the weakest enemies. If you lose your weapon power ups by dying, then you can almost kiss your chances of beating a boss goodbye. To remedy this issue so that I could make this article, I created two Pro Action Replay codes:
7E051507 - Infinite lives
7E06BC05 - Infinite health
The sound in the game is what you would expect from a futuristic action game. The pounding snes-rock/techno suit this game, though throughout most of the game, all you will hear is the constant shooting of your weapon. The enemies don't make any noise except when you destroy them. There are appropriate buzzing noises for things like lasers.
I had the opportunity to ask Manfred Trenz, the designer of Targa/ Rendering Ranger some questions:Snes Central: Why was Targa released in Japan and not in other regions?
Manfred Trenz: Softgold, which was the publisher at this time, said nobody was really interested in this game except Virgin Japan. To be honest, I never believed this.
SC: Why was the Targa renamed Rendering Ranger R2 in Japan?
MT: The first version of Targa used old school hand drawn graphics. Since Donkey Kong came out on the SNES using rendered graphics, one (person) at Softgold came to the conclusion that this is a must for Targa too. This is where this name comes from. Simply while using rendered graphics.
Rendering Ranger -> RR -> R2
I still have a version with the original graphic set.
SC: Slowdown hampered many Super NES games, such as Gradius III. How did you manage to overcome this in Rendering Ranger?
MT: Very very tricky assembly programming.
SC: What differences are there between Targa and Rendering Ranger?
MT: The entire graphics as well as some design changes.
SC: How long did it take to develop Targa?
MT: Almost 3 years
SC: Why did you make Targa have both space shooting and platform action sequences, instead of focusing on one or the other? Why did you decide to develop Targa instead of Super Turrican 3?
MT: At the first place Targa was intended to be a space shooting game. But Softgold was not't sure if this is enough to make big sales and decided to bring in the successful jump'n'shoot Turrican elements. This is why Targa became a mixture of both.
To finish off, here is a series of comparison shots of Rendering Ranger and Targa. The space shooter levels appear to be identical in both versions.
More Screenshots:
Tarzan is an unreleased game in development by Gametek.
Tarzan was mentioned to be in development by Gametek in the June 1993 issue of Nintendo Power. Clayton Kauzlaric, a developer of the game (and the source of the image, see bibliography for link) says that the game was within months of completion. He says that it was canceled due to the fact that you kill off endangered species, and the fact the game wasn't that fun.
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch, Publication date: June 1993, Volume: 49, Pages: 113
· Blog by developer Clayton Kauzlaric regarding this game. (link)
Thunder in Paradise was an unreleased game based on the TV series featuring Hulk Hogan. It was in development by Software Toolworks. Scans courtesy of KingMike.
Thunder In Paradise was a short lived action series featuring Hulk Hogan. The premise of the show was two ex-Navy Seals (one played by Hogan) travelling around the world in their hi-tech boat fighting crime. As one might expect, the series only lasted one season. In addition to this unreleased SNES game, there was also an unrelated interactive FMV game released on the CD-i.
The Super NES game was previewed in the October 1994 issue of EGM. The screenshots show there were going to be at least three gameplay modes: shooting from the boat, side scrolling action, and overhead action. The graphics do not look too bad, but the side scrolling level looks more incomplete than the boat and overhead levels. The show was cancelled in late 1994, ending any chance this game had for release.
Scans
Bibliography:
Time Killer was shown at the 1993 Summer CES by T*HQ. I have a feeling this could have been a working title for the 1994 game Time Trax (which was published by subsidary Malibu Games). Time Killers was a violent fighting game, which eventually got published in 1996 on the Genesis, but a SNES version was never released.
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - Summer CES, Publication date: August 1993, Volume: 51, Pages: 113
Tinhead was an unreleased game, intended for a 1994 release. It was cancelled after developer MicroProse ran out of money. A completed ROM image of the game exists, and it was released commercially in the US on the Genesis.
Tinhead was one of the many action platform games planned for release on 16-bit systems. The game was in production at the UK development studio, MicroProse. Unlike Boo!, a game in development at about the same time as Tinhead, this game was completed. It was in development for the SNES, Genesis and Amiga. The Genesis version was released in the US by Accolade and Spectrum Holobyte, though remained unreleased on the SNES for unknown reasons. According to game producer Stuart Whyte, the Amiga version was in development but never finished (Stuart Whyte is the current executive producer at Lionhead studios, responsible for the Fable series). The game was never released by MicroProse due to the game maker running out of money. A working title for this game was Waldo.
ROM Image
A ROM image of the unreleased SNES version of Tinhead exists, though its source is unknown. If I were to guess, this game was leaked out onto USENET during the 90s. Another possibility is that the ROM image came directly from Stuart Whyte's website, though considering the .smc extension, I would bet against that. Also, the ROM image is PAL, so if you try playing this in a flash cart on an NTSC SNES (which is all the rage now a days), the game will run too fast. Aside from the extra speed, I did not notice any glitches when I played it on my NTSC SNES. Believe me when I say this will hamper any efforts to pass this game. The game itself appears to be finished.
The Game
Tinhead was complete, but I have to rank this as a second rate platformer, among the Zools, Bubsys and Aero The Acrobats of the 16-bit platforming realm (though Aero the Acrobat 2 is freaking awesome). With the glut of platformers out there, surely this game would have been buried among them. Perhaps the competition on the Genesis was less, making it justifiable for release on that platform. Whatever the reason it was not released on the SNES, we may never know.
The story behind Tinhead is some intergalactic goblin, known as Grim Squidge, has stolen all of the stars in the galaxy by sucking them up in his vacuum cart and scattering them elsewhere. Tinhead, the protector who guards the edge of the galaxy gets a distress signal and goes to rescue the stars. Not exactly an inspiring story, but then again, what platformer from the early 90s had one?
The game is a platformer, with a strong shooter aspect to it. The game has more in common with Super Mario than Contra, though. There are four levels in the game, each broken up into three "sectors", and further split up into two sub-sectors. This means each level has six parts. After each sector, you get a password to save your progress. At the end of each level, there is an end boss. This game is a collect-o-thon, though the main things to look for are batteries (which increase Tinhead's health) and tin balls (which increase the amount of shots you can fire simultaneously). One annoying aspect is that the orange capsules that contain the powerups must be touched before the powerup can be collected. In tight spots, this can require making a tricky jump twice if you need the powerup.
Tinhead is a cute looking platformer with nice (if simple) graphics. There isn't a lot of variety in the levels, with only five or six enemy types per stage. The level graphics are basic, sort of reminiscent of the original Sonic the Hedgehog. The graphics are very colourful and smooth, and would have appealed to the demographics of those who played video games at the time. There is nothing that makes it stand out from other 16-bit platformers, though.
I really liked the music in this game, but after listening to the same tune for six straight stages, it gets old. In particular, I liked the music from the second level, which starts off nice and cheery, then gets manic. Having more variety would help the game go by easier, as deaths and level restarts are rampant. The sound effects are generic blips and bloops.
As for gameplay, the controls work well. It suffers from what I refer to as "Mega Man Collection Gamecube Syndrome", where the jump button is mapped to the "Y" button rather than the "B" button like virtually every other platform game released on the SNES. Luckily, the designers have four different button configurations, so you are not stuck with the default scheme. There are three different shot types: fully horizontal, shot upwards at a 45 degree angle, and lobbed to bounce around on the ground. Each shot type is mapped to its own button. If you use control style "3", the horizontal shot is mapped to the Y button, which is likely optimal for most gamers. The game limits the amount of shots you can fire simultaneously until you gather powerups to increase your capacity, which can lead to slow progress. Jumping is done without difficulty, though if you hit a ceiling while jumping, you lose all your momentum. Realistic, maybe, but it is downright frustrating in parts.
Lessons In Platform Game Level Design
The part of the game that makes it sub-par is not the simplistic graphics or repetitive music: the level design is very poor. A lot of the problems likely would be resolved if the view wasn't so narrow. At any rate, here are eight rules of designing platform games.
Rule 1: When making a platform game, never put in a spot where you have to make a jump that is pretty much impossible to achieve without getting hit. The example above shows a point in the first part of the third sector in level one where you have to get through this gap that has spikes above and below you. Jump too high, and you get a spikes to the head, and you will most likely miss the platform as your momentum gets killed. Jump too low, and you miss the platform and get hit by the spikes from below. It is lose-lose all around unless you get very lucky (after probably 20 attempts, I still couldn't do it).
Rule 2: When making a platform game, never force the player to go back to the start of the level unnecessarily. In level one, there are various chutes that transport you to different parts of the stage. However, there is little indication to suggest whether or not the chutes will progress you through the level or send you backwards. In one stage, I was about halfway through, and went through one of these chutes, and I was sent to start of the stage. I would have been just as well off to have perished!
Rule 3: On a similar note, when making a platform game with very large levels, it is always a good idea to have midpoint saves so that when you die, you don't have to restart from the beginning of the level! The stages in this game are incredibly long, which is not a bad thing on its own, but if you are near the end of the level and you die, you have to start over again. I found myself dying a lot, so this made the game much more frustrating than it would have otherwise been. There really isn't any excuse for it, considering that the concept of the midway save point has been around since Super Mario Bros. for the NES (and the levels in that game are much shorter than the ones in this game).
Rule 4: Variety is the spice of life, so they say, and there isn't much of it in this game. The graphics in all six stages for the levels do not change. The simple graphics are fine, but after seeing the same scenery and listening to the same level music for six stages, it gets pretty old. When designing a platform game, change things up every couple of levels or so!
Rule 5: When making a platform game, do not place a powerup directly over a bunch of spikes that you can't avoid because you fall straight down after getting the powerup. I never was able to get the powerup above without getting hit.
Rule 6: When making a platform game where you have things like fans that blow you to great heights, there are a couple of rules. Number 1: If there are spikes to avoid, make sure they are visible before jumping on the fan! In the example above, there are three fans, with two that are directly underneath spikes of death that you cannot see at fan level. Number 2: Ensure that the fan blows you to where you need to go. The screen above shows me in a position where I am completely stuck. The fan doesn't blow me up to the platform I need to get to, nor is there any way to go down. This is essentially forces you to hit restart. Mind you, it is a pretty uncommon occurrence to be in this position, but it happened to me more than once in this spot. Terrible, but perhaps an indication that this game was not 100% finished.
Rule 7: You know, I love slopes. I thought that the slopes in Super Mario Bros. 3 were a real treat and made for some interesting levels. Tinhead uses slopes, but makes them so that they seem like they are covered in some sort of low viscosity fluid. You slide down these hills rapidly, and for whatever reason, you walk up them just as fast. This makes fighting enemies on slopes, or at the bottom of slopes nearly impossible without taking damage. When designing a platform game, don't make the character slide down slopes too fast!
Rule 8: The last point I would like to make on level design is what I call "the unseen threat". In Super Mario World, you could press L and R to scroll the screen to the left or right to get a view of what was ahead, though it was not entirely necessary as you could always see threats as they came. In Tinhead, you can also do this, but you soon find that it becomes a necessity to constantly hold down the scroll button. The level graphics are nice and large in this game, but the zoomed-in view serves as a handicap when it comes to the actual gameplay. If you play this game, you will run into many points where you make a jump to a new platform, and immediately run into an enemy that takes more than one hit to kill, giving you no recourse but to take a hit. Sure, there are tons of health powerups in this game, but the real problem is that you lose one of your simultaneous shots every time you get hit. This makes it a slow affair to tackle parts of the level not yet explored. Not only that, but there are many points where you must make a leap of faith, and when falling not know what is below (often there are spikes and enemies!). When designing a platform game, make sure that the player can see enemies and other dangers before making a leap!
Comparison with the Genesis version
The Genesis version of Tinhead is pretty much exactly the same as the Super NES version. Some of the powerup graphics are different (for example the star you need to collect before you can complete a level). The sound in the Genesis is inferior to the SNES version. In particular, the sound effects and music sound tinny compared to the SNES version. The controls are much different than the SNES version due to the lower amount of buttons on a standard Genesis controller. There are no buttons for manual scrolling of the screen. Also, there is only one button for shooting: to switch between the different types of shots you have to press the A button. The game also plays fast, almost as if they didn't bother to optimize it for a NTSC console. Due to the wider resolution of the Genesis, there are somewhat fewer problems with "the unseen threat". As you can see from the screenshot comparison, the problems with level layout still exist. Which version of this game you play is a matter of preference, I suppose.
Developer's goodies
On Stuart Whyte's webpage on Tinhead, there is a zip file full of raw graphics used during the development of the game. I converted these graphics from Amiga bitmap to PNG for your viewing pleasure (see the screenshots section). The graphics appear to come from both the SNES and Genesis versions of the game. I can't comment on the amount of unused tiles for the game, but as you can see from the image on the right, there are instances of graphical changes during the development of the game. There are many images that are identical, but have different pallets. There also are several images showing different models for the Tinhead character itself.
Another interesting developer bit is this document on sound design. This particular document is for the Mega Drive version of the game (I would assume the game was in development for the Mega Drive/Genesis before porting to the SNES). It is interesting because it gives insight on how music and sound effects were planned for the game. Things of interest include the fact that this game was designed for the PAL version first, with compensation to make sure the sound effects do not go too far out of sync in the NTSC conversion. As an example of how the sound was designed, here is a description of the first level music:The Level One music should be a fast paced, cheerful tune, in a similar style to the main theme music (hardcore rave meets Kylie Minogue) but with a different tune and without the cartoon sound effects. Emphasis should be placed on conveying a sense of urgency, and there should perhaps be echoes of 'chase scene' music. The piece of music should be two minutes long, and should loop.
Codes
There are several codes for the game. All are taken off Stuart Whyte's page.Level 1-2 - LAMBDA
Level 1-3 - SARTRE
Level 2-1 - QUANTA
Level 2-2 - MESONS
Level 2-3 - TENSOR
Level 3-1 - LEPTON
Level 3-2 - GORGON
Level 3-3 - BOSONS
Level 4-1 - BARYON
Level 4-2 - GIBSON
Level 4-3 - NEUMAN
BALROG - password to send you to the final boss, I assume
CAMELS - The only thing I could see affected by this code is that it sets your shots to max, and that your shots don't decrease when you get hit.
Summary
Tinhead, whether on the released Genesis version or the unreleased Super NES version, is a sub-par platform game. I found it to be very frustrating, and I never even bothered attempting to get past the second level. In fact, at times I wished I was playing Batman: Revenge of the Joker! The graphics and sounds in this game are nice, but the poor level design and zoomed in playing field drove me nuts. With the plethora of platform games available on the Super NES, this game would have been lost in the shuffle to far superior games in the genre. The game's brutal difficulty makes this one a hardcore-only affair. It is really no wonder no publisher bothered to pick this game up for the SNES.
Scans
(Click in the image to enalrge)
Bibliography:
Tom & Jerry 2 was being developed by Hi Tech, and published by Allan. It appears different that the Genesis game, Frantic Antics. One can only speculate as to why it was canceled. It probably found the same fate as other Hi Tech games like Bobby's world, in which the market was too saturated for platformers based on cartoons.
Scans
(Click in the image to enlarge)
Preview from Nintendo Fun Vision (issue 16)
Toxic Crusaders was an unreleased game in development by Bandai. There is a mention that it was in development in the September 1991 issue of Nintendo Power. There was apparently an article for it in the 39th issue of EGM (see the link to Unseen 64). It appears to be a side-scrolling platform action game.
From unseen64.net:
Toxic Crusaders is an animated series based on the Toxic Avenger films. It features Toxie, the lead character of the films leading a trio of misfit superheroes who combat pollution. Video games based on Toxic Crusaders were also produced by Bandai and Sega, which were released on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, and Sega Genesis.[Info from Wikipedia]
A Super Nintendo version was in development by Bandai, but it was never released in the end. It looked different from the Genesis version, that was developed by Sega. Some screens of the SNES version can be seen in the issue 39 of EGM.
Images:
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - Gossip Galore (mention of development), Publication date: September 1992, Volume: 40, Pages: 113
· Info on Unseen 64 (link)
Turbo Toons is an overhead racing game that is somewhat similar to Off Road. It features many of Hanna Barbara's second class cartoon characters, like Yogi Bear. The game was released in Europe. The game was perhaps finished for US release, as it is listed by the ESRB.
Tweety and Sylvester was an unreleased game based on the popular Warner Bros characters by TecMagik.
Tweety and Sylvester was an unreleased game by TecMagik that was apparently completely unrelated to the unreleased game by Sunsoft called Sylvester and Tweety that was in development around the same time. The graphics do look different. I can only guess as to why there would be two Sylvester and Tweety games in development by different companies at the same time. Since the Sunsoft one was in development for much longer, I guess this version was not released due to this conflict. Or maybe it is because TecMagik went out of the 16-bit business (they only released three SNES games)?
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch Update, Publication date: December 1993, Volume: 55, Pages: 112
Thanks to Maik Wiechmann for some of the info on this page.
This game was in development by NovaLogic, and was going to be published by Data East. The game was supposed to have a first person view from inside the mech, and the gameplay was supposed to be a simulation. There was a preview of the game at the 1992 Winter CES, and Nintendo Power said it looked "promising". The April 1992 issue of Nintendo Power had a further preview, which stated that the game was supposed to run at 16 FPS, and have the ability to control six battle robots. They mentioned it was supposed to be released in summer of that year. Ultrabots (or Xenobots in Europe) was released as a DOS game in 1995 by Electronic Arts.
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - Super Rumors, Publication date: September 1991, Volume: 28, Pages: 97
· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch (mention of development), Publication date: February 1992, Volume: 33, Pages: 111
· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - CES Special, Publication date: March 1992, Volume: 34, Pages: 112-113
· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch, Publication date: April 1992, Volume: 35, Pages: 109
· Nintendo Power, Poster, Publication date: June 1993, Volume: 37, Pages: -
· Nintendo Power, Summer CES Special, Publication date: August 1992, Volume: 39, Pages: 58-61
· Ultrabots at Moby Games (link)
Undercover Cops was released in Japan, but the serial code, SNS-AUCJ-JPN does not match this game. Odd. Anyways, the game is a typical snes-era brawler.
Serial Code: SNS-UV-USA
Universal Soldier was in development by a company called Carolco and was to be published by Accolade. The game was actually a sequel to the Manfred Trentz game, Turrican, but the character sprite was changed so that it could be rebranded as a movie tie-in. A rom of what appears to be the complete version of this game exists. The enemies and gameplay closely match Turrican, as to be expected. It is unknown why this game was canceled. Genesis and Game Boy versions of this game were released, and Turrican 2 was released on various computer platforms. Nintendo Power commented in the October 1992 issue that it was similar to Contra, but complained about the poor controls.
From unseen64.net:
Turrican was released in 1989 for the Commodore 64 and 1990 for the Amiga and Atari ST. It was Programmed by Rainbow Arts and Factor 5. Then Accolade made a port to the Sega Genesis, GameBoy, and Turbo Graphix 16. The Accolade Ports were a huge disaster. However, Accolade wanted to do the same thing with Turrican 2, which is known to be the best Turrican game and in general one of the best games ever made. They screwed up a classic and they wanted to screw up another.
However, the members of Accolade wanted to make their new port into a game based off of Universal Soldier to make more money. Universal Soldier was released for the Sega Genesis and Game Boy and was given horrible reviews. It’s a shame they took such a great game and turned it into a mess. There was going to be a Super Nintendo version but Nintendo didn’t license it despite the message on the title screen.
The Super Nintendo version was even worse than all of Accolade’s previous ports! The controls are messed up, the music sounds good at first but it becomes a mess. For example, one of the best songs in Turrican 2 is “The Wall” but in the SNES Universal Soldier version you can’t even hear the song because the beat is too loud. The Sound effects are annoying, the graphics are obviously ripped from Turrican, and the collision detection is beyond terrible.
If it was released, it would probably be called one of the worst games ever made. If you want to try this disaster a ROM of it was leaked on the internet.
Youtube links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKX6m_xo ... r_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWh-vuBw ... r_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7bGrTgJ ... r_embedded
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Summer CES Special, Publication date: August 1992, Volume: 39, Pages: 58-61
· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch, Publication date: October 1992, Volume: 41, Pages: 111
· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch (mentions that Accolade was going to release Turrican as Universal Soldier), Publication date: April 1993, Volume: 47, Pages: 109
· Wikipedia info on the Turrican series (link)
Warrior of Rome III was being developed for both the Genesis and the Snes, but was cancelled for both. The prequels were released on the Genesis. It was likely going to be a strategy game. It was going to be published by short lived Extreme, and was shown at the 1993 Summer CES.
Serial Code: SNS-35-USA
Bibliography:· Nintendo Power, Pak Watch - Summer CES, Publication date: August 1993, Volume: 51, Pages: 112
Wile E's Revenge was the sequel to Road Runner's Death Valley Rally. In this game, you took the role of Wile E Coyote, and chased the Road Runner through various locations in the United States. According to Rene Boutin, the producer of the game at Sunsoft of America, the game was about half done before being canceled.
Road Runner's Death Valley Rally was an awkward platform game. The logical step for the sequel would be to have you control Wile E. Coyote as he pursued the Road Runner. The development duties went to Software Creations, who created games like Plok and Blaster Master 2 for the Genesis. The game is sort of a 2.5D game, where Wile E Coyote can move up and down to take different paths.
A rom exists of an early version of the game, though it appears to be in more primitive form. For instance the splash logo:
Later beta (Courtesy of Rene Boutin)
Earlier beta version
As you can see, the rom version has a 90 degree rotation of the logo. The first level seems pretty much complete. To complete the level, you chase after the Road Runner and break open various boxes. There are various traps that are straight from the cartoon, such as the infamous rubber band trick. Unfortunately, the game crashes after the first level in the rom.
The graphics are simple, though it is pretty faithful to the style of the cartoons. In the rom, the sound effects were pretty standard fare, and the music was extremely muted. The play control was down pat, though. I'm sure if this game were finished, it would have been one of the better licenced platform games in the snes era.
Rene Boutin, producer of this game gives a synopsis of development and overview of the game:The high level concept of the game was that the player got to be "the bad guy" (Coyote) for once. You'd speed through a level collecting parts to a contraption, and meanwhile being antagonized by the Road Runner. Then the next level, you'd have your contraption built and you'd be using it.
Now Warner Bros would NEVER allow Coyote to actually catch RR, so in the game every time you got within a few pixels of RR, he takes off. I think once players would catch on to the futility of trying to chase RR, they'd probably ignore him altogether. And this was one of the big flaws in the overall design of the game (Which I readily admit to having had a big responsibility in}.
The other angle to the gameplay was for a game with lots of fast running along really long levels. A kind of fervent fast racing type of gameplay with SOME elements of platformers. But that just wasn't panning out by this stage in the project. Something was seriously lacking. In hindsight we could have had a sort of meter that the player would have to keep full by staying real close to the Road Runner as much as possible, while hunting for the parts to his contraption. But instead, the best we could come up with at the time was good old "collecting stuff" (bleah!). Trying to co-design a game with a team that was half-way across the globe didn't help either. Ideally a designer needs to be working hand in hand with a programmer. Ah what a decade+ of wisdom and game experience can do, huh?
Last info I want to share with you is the reasons for the cancellation. Although I've conveyed here that the game lacked depth by that point, the big event was Sunsoft's closure for bankruptcy.
Images:
Before Battletoads, there was Wrestlerage; on the SNES, at least. This 1991 side-viewed grapple-fest aimed to capitalise on the success of the two NES wrestling titles previously produced by Rare, but also to break away from the restrictive ring-based play of the licensed games by taking the action out into the streets / parks / fairgrounds / building sites / anywhere else with a bit of free space.
Starring a cast of eight fictitious brawlers ranging from Mr. Mangler through to the Silver Bullet, Wrestlerage was set to transpose the best elements of the popular wrestling game onto a Double Dragon-style scrolling urban background, each of the fighting arenas around three screens in length. The traditional attacks of such games (both unarmed and weapons-based) would be joined by dropkicks, pins, grapples and unique attacks such as carrying your opponents bodily around the screen and even, if the mood took you, bouncing their heads off various pieces of background scenery. A mode of play was even planned where all the contenders jumped into one big on-screen free-for-all rather than slugging it out head-to-head.
But these ambitions were to remain unrealised when, at around 60% complete, the lack of a licence or an already successful version which the marketers could use as a core selling point finally sealed Wrestlerage’s fate. In a tricky period for the console market, with punters becoming more cautious than ever about how their money was spent, the sad fact was that none of the potential distributors were willing to take on board the risk of an original game. And so the way was left clear for the Battletoads conversions instead to become RARE’s first SNES outings… [Source: rareware.com]
Zoo Ball is an unreleased game planned for release in the US by American Technos. The game was going to be a localization of Dolucky no Kusayakiu. Thanks to KingMike for the scans.
Zoo Ball is an unreleased baseball game featuring animal characters as players. The game was going to be published by American Technos, though the Japanese game was released by Imagineer and Zoom (as Dolucky no Kusayakiu). Why American Technos decided to localize this is unknown, though maybe they figured it would appeal to younger players. The screenshots found in the April 1994 issue of EGM clearly shows the Japanese version of this game. They described the animation of the game as "cute" and the sound as "funny".
Images
As you can see from the pictures above, the screenshots from the EGM preview probably came from the final version of the Japanese game. There appears to be a lot of shilling for Coca-Cola in this game. One would assume that it would have been very cheap to localize this with their logo plastered everywhere in the game. Perhaps that was another reason for its demise?
Scans
(Click in the image to enlarge)
Bibliography:· Electronic Gaming Monthly, Preview, Publication date: April 1994, Volume: 57, Pages: 136
FFantasy6 escribió:Esto es interesante.
Una rom para testear las SNES'es
http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=146537
Ralph escribió:No acabo de verle la utilidad.
Ralph escribió:...
socram8888 escribió:Si, podrían trabajar ambos a la vez
No sé si de forma nativa, pero sí usando cualquiera de estos dos métodos:
- El 68000 le pide el bus (pone el Z80 en HALT, es decir, para su funcionamiento) al Z80 y entonces escribe el valor del PCM, y luego le devuelve el control.
- El Z80 reserva por ejemplo 1KB para PCM. Entonces el 68000 transmite un bloque de 1KB de PCM a la RAM del Z80 y le escribe un valor en la RAM para indicarle que tiene que reproducir esos datos. Cuando acabe el Z80, escribe otro valor en su RAM, que el 68000 leerá, y en ese momento escribirá el siguiente bloque de audio PCM.
No sé si ambos pueden operar a la vez, pero estas dos alternativas son bastante buena idea para sobrepasar el límite de los 8kB de su RAM
socram8888 escribió:Yo creo que lo de los 7000 Hz es más bien para ahorrar espacio en la RAM del Z80, ya que un PCM a 7000 Hz ocupa menos que uno a 22050 Hz, por ejemplo
socram8888 escribió:Hombre, es que poner tres palabras a 7000Hz o a 22050 no creo que tenga mucha repercusión en el tamaño final
Ralph escribió:socram8888 escribió:Hombre, es que poner tres palabras a 7000Hz o a 22050 no creo que tenga mucha repercusión en el tamaño final
No me has entendido, en megadrive usan el canal PCM, como tu dices, para 4 palabras mal contadas (y encima a 700h0z), mientras que el resto usa los canales normales, usando un sonido que no ocupa tanto. En SNES, las voces, efectos, y musicas, usan canales PCM, y por lo que se ve, a todo trapo.
...¿Por qué ambos cartuchos pesan lo mismo?.
Ley Nº 1 de la programación en ASM:
“Las Tiles o Fuentes a mostrar por Pantalla se deben meter en ROM o RAM y luego pasarla a la VRAM, ya que así y solo así se podrá ver en pantalla. No hay otra forma.” Magno.
ZIDEVS escribió:1988, Super Nintendo entra en escena
John Torrijas escribió:Había muchas diferencias entre ese prototipo de Super nintendo y lo que finalmente vimos? A nivel técnico, digo.
John Torrijas escribió:Las malas lenguas decían que los de Nintendo empezaron a trabajar en su consola tras el lanzamiento en Japón de Mega drive...pero la fecha del reportaje (noviembre de 1988, un mes después del lanzamiento de la Mega) y las capturas de pilotwings me llevan a pensar que llevaban trabajando en ella bastante más tiempo.
John Torrijas escribió:Había algún cacharro por 1988 que permitiese rotar sprites?
Ralph escribió:Como la noche y el día. Lo comento en el articulo sobre el chip super FX, en la sección "hardware". Echale un vistazo, porque te vas a sorprender seguro
Ralph escribió:Puede que algún ordenador de la epoca, pero consolas, ninguna. AES permitía escalar sprites, pero no rotarlos... creo que hasta la llegada del chip SFX (super mario world 2), ninguna consola rotó nunca un solo sprite (en SNES se trataba siempre de fondos tratados con modo 7).
John Torrijas escribió:
El bichejo ese, cuando te lo cargas...no se acerca a la pantalla dando vueltas? no es un sprite?
John Torrijas escribió:Ralph escribió:Como la noche y el día. Lo comento en el articulo sobre el chip super FX, en la sección "hardware". Echale un vistazo, porque te vas a sorprender seguro
Vaya, vaya...un 68000 y un FX "de serie"...
Un S-DD1 integrado ya habría sido el no va más: juegos más baratos, el doble de grandes, cartuchos con casi 100 megabytes... [...]
socram8888 escribió:John Torrijas escribió:Ralph escribió:Como la noche y el día. Lo comento en el articulo sobre el chip super FX, en la sección "hardware". Echale un vistazo, porque te vas a sorprender seguro
Vaya, vaya...un 68000 y un FX "de serie"...
Un S-DD1 integrado ya habría sido el no va más: juegos más baratos, el doble de grandes, cartuchos con casi 100 megabytes... [...]
Yo creo que eso hubiera encarecido la consola (ya que en el momento del lanzamiento de las SFC, ya que imagino que esa tecnología aún no estaba del todo implementada) y habría retrasado mucho el lanzamiento de la consola, cosa que Ninty no quería a fin de que Sega no tomara el control de los 16-bits
John Torrijas escribió:Un S-DD1 integrado ya habría sido el no va más: juegos más baratos, el doble de grandes, cartuchos con casi 100 megabytes...
John Torrijas escribió:Es un sprite mientras está en ese tamaño y te lo tienes que cargar... cuando ya lo has hecho, se convierte en un BG con modo 7 y se rota...
socram8888 escribió:Yo creo que eso hubiera encarecido la consola (ya que en el momento del lanzamiento de las SFC, ya que imagino que esa tecnología aún no estaba del todo implementada) y habría retrasado mucho el lanzamiento de la consola, cosa que Ninty no quería a fin de que Sega no tomara el control de los 16-bits
sgonzalez escribió:Qué manía le habéis cogido a la cpu de la SNES. La Turbografx/Pc-Engine tiene una CPU menos potente que la de MD/SNES y nadie dice nada.
sgonzalez escribió:Pienso que Nintendo intentaría hacer la mejor elección calidad/precio para la época. Si hubieran puesto un 68000 a lo mejor el coste de fabricar la consola hubiera sido muy superior.
Ralph escribió:Star ocean lleva un cartucho de 48 megas, y un S-DD1. Creo que es el cartucho con mayor contenido de todo el catalogo (Street fighter alpha 2 le debe rondar los 64 megas en total: 32 megas + S-DD1).
YuushaDai escribió:Ralph escribió:Star ocean lleva un cartucho de 48 megas, y un S-DD1. Creo que es el cartucho con mayor contenido de todo el catalogo (Street fighter alpha 2 le debe rondar los 64 megas en total: 32 megas + S-DD1).
O el Star Ocean o el Tengai Makyou creo que era un cartucho de 40 megas pero llevaba el chip SPC7110 de Epson y no se ya, pero creo que el ratio de compresion era mayor.
No sé si es correcto esto, pero un grupo de traducción sacó un descompresor de graficos para jugarlo en el zsnes hace tiempo, que aplicado a la rom, sacaba archivos.bin, y en total, el juego pasaba a ocupar descomprimido unos 23 Megabytes esto es en bits 184 megas. Es posible que el Tengai Makyou ocupara esta cifra?
Ralph escribió:Tengo una pregunta:
Si cuando usas un fondo como un objeto, el fondo se queda en negro, ¿por qué no se puede usar otro fondo, y hay que dibujarlo con sprites?(si se quiere, sino, se queda negro)... ¿no permite la SNES 4 fondos por hardware? (uno sería el fondo, al cual se le puede aplicar modo 7... otro sería el propio escenario, osea, el suelo... otro sería, por decirlo de alguna manera, el "HUD"... ¿que queda?, ¿no podría este ser usado también como fondo, mientras que el otro plano se está usando como si fuera un objeto?).
magno escribió:Ralph escribió:Tengo una pregunta:
Si cuando usas un fondo como un objeto, el fondo se queda en negro, ¿por qué no se puede usar otro fondo, y hay que dibujarlo con sprites?(si se quiere, sino, se queda negro)... ¿no permite la SNES 4 fondos por hardware? (uno sería el fondo, al cual se le puede aplicar modo 7... otro sería el propio escenario, osea, el suelo... otro sería, por decirlo de alguna manera, el "HUD"... ¿que queda?, ¿no podría este ser usado también como fondo, mientras que el otro plano se está usando como si fuera un objeto?).
No he entendido a qué te refieres, ¿quizá a los fondos animados? Porque un fondo no es un objeto (es decir, no es un sprite). Si no se dibuja un fondo es porque se ha desactivado expresamente, y por tanto no está ni a negro ni a ningún color. Y si está activo no puede estar "sin nada", puesto que siempre habrá algo de contenido en la memoria VRAM.
Ralph escribió:Mi pregunta es, ¿mientras se usa el fondo para dibujar el avión, se puede usar otro fondo para dibujarlo, en vez de usar sprites?. Usando sprites para dinujar el fondo, queda mas simple... y digo yo, si se consiguen varios planos de scroll en muchos juegos, ¿no podría ser posible colocar un fondo mientras que aparece el avión?... o lo mas probable es que el fondo elegido se comporte igual que el avión, y haga un zoom junto con el.
Ralph escribió:Usando sprites para dinujar el fondo, queda mas simple...
magno escribió:Si hacemos cuentas tenemos:
* Bancos $FF - $C0 -> 64 bancos x 64 kbytes/banco = 4 Megabytes = 32 Megabits (zona HiROM)
magno escribió:* Bancos $BF - $80 -> sólo se usa de ellos la parte alta y es la zona "shadow ROM" de la parte alta de los bancos $FF a $C0, es decir, que es exactamente la misma zona del chip de ROM del cartucho a la que estaríamos accediendo, por lo que esta zona no cuenta para el total
magno escribió:* Bancos $7F y $7E -> Es la memoria RAM, que no cuenta tampoco para el total.
magno escribió:* Bancos $7D - $40 -> 62 bancos x 64 Kbytes/banco = 3.875 Megabytes = 31 Megabits (zona HiROM)
magno escribió:* Bancos $3F y $3E -> son 2 bancos a los que sólo se puede acceder a la parte alta, así que esto suma unos despreciables 64 Kbytes
magno escribió:* Bancos $3D - $00 -> sólo se usa de ellos la parte alta y es la zona "shadow ROM" de la parte alta de los bancos $7D a $00, es decir, que es exactamente la misma zona del chip de ROM del cartucho a la que estaríamos accediendo, por lo que esta zona no cuenta para el total
magno escribió:Así que los cálculos dan un maravilloso total de................ ¿¿¿63 MEGABIT(más esos miserables 64 Kytes)???
magno escribió:Pues sí, así es, éste es el tamaño máximo que Nintendo fijó para sus PCBs, de modo que no vendió ninguna que permitiera más capacidad porque el decodificador de direcciones implementado en el MAD-1 y MAD-2 no permitía direccionar más memoria
magno escribió:él era el responsable de esa "Shadow ROM" de la que hablaba. Pero si ahora cogéis esas mismas dos zonas y pensáis que sí se pueden direccionar desde la SNES, tenemos que añadir al total de 63 megabits que habíamos calculado:
magno escribió:* Bancos $BF - $80 -> 64 bancos de 32 Kbytes/banco = 2 Megabytes = 16 Megabits (zona LoROM)
* Bancos $3F - $00 -> 64 bancos de 32 Kbytes/banco = 2 Megabytes = 16 Megabits (zona LoROM)
magno escribió:Por tanto, si no usáramos un mapper de los que da Nintendo y nos hacemos una PCB casera nosotros mismos con el decodificador de direcciones, tenemos un total de ¡¡¡95 MEGABIT!!!
magno escribió:Como decía en mi otro post, fondo no es igual a sprite, son cosas opuestas diametralmente: el fondo son tiles que cubren la pantalla formando un mosaico, es plano totalmente
magno escribió:el sprite más básico es una tile 8x8 que tiene unas propiedades determinadas y que se puede situar en cualquier punto de la pantalla
magno escribió:El plano se ha de construir poniendo una tile tras otra ocupando todo los huecos (lo que se llama "BG map"), mientras que el sprite es como un "objeto de programación": tiene unas propiedades como tamaño, posición, giro y tile que se dibuja en esa posición (es decir, un struct de C).
magno escribió:deja de tener sentido, puesto que para dibujar el fondo se usan tiles en un BG, no sprites; un fondo (BG) no puede estar formado por sprites. De todas formas, si se pudiera hacer lo que dices, gastarías el máximo número de sprites que puede tener en pantalla a la vez la SNES.
magno escribió:En la escena que dices, sólo las bombas, las chispas de fuego que salen cuando caen y los personajes son sprites; el resto de cosas son BGs (el avión en concreto es BG0).
Y de hecho, sí se pueden poner más cosas en los fondos a parte del avión, mientras tengas capas para llenar sí. Lo que pasa es que ahí entra la pericia del programador, ya que en ese caso concreto del Probotector, el fuego que aparece en el suelo es una capa entera y ya existe antes de que aparezca el avión; podrían haber usado esa capa para poner un fondo, y luego transferir la capa completa con el fuego cuando ya ha pasado el avión, pero no lo han hecho así porque no se habrán querido comer la cabeza más de la cuenta.
magno escribió:Por cierto, que he visto el video y he jugado ese trozo del Probotector y no veo en ninguno de los casos que el fondo se sustituya por otro más sencillo... está el fondo que los programadores han creído que tenía que estar, pero no creo que sea más sencillo porque tuviera que pasar el avión en concreto.
Ralph escribió:magno escribió:Ralph escribió:Tengo una pregunta:
...
Es sencillo. En el Super probotector, en la parte de la primera pantalla en la que un avión se acerca desde el fondo, y bombardea la zona, vemos como habilmente se ha sustituido el fondo, por otro mas simple... este, está formado por sprites.
Aquí el video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfCHuftlwlE
...vemos como el fondo está dibujado, y después de atravesar algunos edificios, el fondo ya no está, hay otro mas simple, que es cuando aparece el avión.
Mi pregunta es, ¿mientras se usa el fondo para dibujar el avión, se puede usar otro fondo para dibujarlo, en vez de usar sprites?. Usando sprites para dinujar el fondo, queda mas simple... y digo yo, si se consiguen varios planos de scroll en muchos juegos, ¿no podría ser posible colocar un fondo mientras que aparece el avión?... o lo mas probable es que el fondo elegido se comporte igual que el avión, y haga un zoom junto con el.
sgonzales escribió:la teoría de que sólo puede haber un plano con fondo negro cuando hay zoom o rotaciones queda un poco coja.
magno escribió:El resto de cosas del post, que aún no sé si están relacionadas con este mismo tema, te las responderé en 1 semana, que tengo un vuelo que sale en unas horas y no me da tiempo a todo!!
HASTA LA VUELTA!!! (ME VOY DE VACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!)
ryumarquez escribió:No estoy de acuerdo para nada con el analisis hecho en este foro.... no se xq desmerita el apartado del audio, en mi mas humilde opinion considero este apartado es uno de los mejores para algun juego hecho para esta consola....
Only16bits escribió:Este hilo tiene muchisima información interesante pero sobretodo para gente que le va esto de la programación, para el resto nos va más la práctica que es hablar de los juegos jeje