DKC Atlas Forum

This topic popped up at the DK Vine forums last night. Made me recall that in 2005 or 2006, I was playing DKC on the original SNES and after a while my game glitched up & started playing the Hot Head Bop theme from DKC2. I mean, I could've simply imagined it or dreamed it (as this was 6-7 years ago) but I remember posting it in back when it happened...the response was to that was something like "Hot Head Bop is indeed in the DKC Rom, but it's inaccessible during normal gameplay"

Then last night, I figured out that the lava levels were probably originally intended to be used in DKC's Chimp Caverns based on a number of reasons. This made me wonder: has anyone, when hacking DKC, ever discovered the Hot Head Bop tune and managed to get it to play (or even extract it from the ROM)?

Evidence or it didn't happen.

In my search through the DKC ROM, I never found a track even remotely resembling the lava level music. However, an early version of the boss theme did turn up, as well as early versions of some of the other tunes used in the game. The instrument values are incorrect in all of these, so it's likely that instruments were added/removed at different points in development. I had to manually correct them in the aforementioned boss theme in order for it to not sound like a mess.

Here are the ROM locations of these tracks:

Code: Select all

017560 - 017EBC DK Island Swing
13F56A - 13FFB4 Simian Segue
1FF03D - 1FF664 The Credits Concerto
1FF9D3 - 1FFFFA The Credits Concerto
29F724 - 29FFD8 Bad Boss Boogie

EDIT: In response to what Highway you posted about the entrances and exits in the topic you linked, DKC2's jungle, forest, wasp nest, castle, and ice cavern levels also have visible entrances and exits. In fact, the terrain of the forest levels looks very similar to that found in DKC's Jungle levels.

Yeah, I'm Highway. I just think it's really odd how the lava levels have an entrance (the only one you can interact with, to boot) but absolutely no exit. There's absolutely no reason for them to even have an entrance to begin with (given the Kongs don't run out of an entrance like in DKC).

I found the thread that I posted in 6 years ago (as Arich Boss):
http://www.dkvine.com/interactive/forum ... topic=3457

Truth be told, I'm not exactly sure that it happened (I can't readily remember, looking back) but I don't know why I'd deliberately lie about something like that. Heck, maybe I did lie and just got lucky with the factual information. I honestly don't know, but what I do know is if you haven't found it in the ROM then it's probably not in there.

Billy Dee's post about Loveday saying the lava levels didn't make it in due to time constraints is pretty damn interesting, though.

More in response to this post by XD375 at the DK Vine Forum:

That "chimpified" music code is actually just forcing a value into a RAM address that is used for assigning instruments to the music, which bugs the game out and causes most of the audio channels to use the incorrect sample (which just so happens to be the chimp sound). It's obvious that this is a glitch: Disable the code, enter another area with different music, and you'll notice that the music doesn't return to normal. This is because there is a global set of samples that doesn't get reloaded when a different music track is loaded.

Remember, there's plenty of releases of the SNES version to choose from.

I looked in the earliest version of the game: The 1.0 US version. This was proven to be the earliest one, as there are bugs in it which don't exist in any other version. Also, as my search for unused sprites have proven, US v1.0 has some that other versions do not. It wouldn't make sense to add unused content to a later revision.

Still, even if there is no data in the ROM for them, we know from a credible source that lava levels were intended for DKC.

I was playing Donkey Kong Country with ZSNES and zbattle with an old friend of mine once, and the moment I tried to play a level the screen went black and played the Krematoa Koncerto map music from Donkey Kong Country 3. I can't quite remember how long ago that was but I remember encountering this as it is similar to what Highway encountered.

Is there a way to debug what codes get called whenever they're used? For example, King Brett's situation. One cause of the song playing may be due to the two ROM files existing in the same folder, and for some inexplicable reason, the other file gets called by mistake, playing that file's song instead.

I remember one time when I did the map corners glitch in DKC1. Normally, the glitch warps you to the end of Orang-u-tang Gang. Instead, I was warped to the point of the arrow sign in Reptile Rumble. Simion considered my situation a freak accident. ZSNES is capable of making such mistakes.

Haha, speaking of "freak accidents", this happened in DKC GBA about 7-8 years ago:

I was playing Tanked-Up Trouble normally (or it could've been Trick Track Trek... it was a "ride a platform in the mines" level for sure) then I got into the bonus.... but instead of it being like you'd expect, I was warped to one of the snow levels' bonuses. It was really strange.

@King Brett: Some game crashes can result in garbage data being sent to the sound processor, which is still outputted by the speakers. In my numerous failed attempts at hacking DKC, I have experienced crashes where screen went black and the rhythm of the music messed up. Maybe this just happened to sound similar to Krematoa Concerto in your case?

VideoViking wrote:Is there a way to debug what codes get called whenever they're used?

Yes, any emulator with a debugger can do that. Geiger's SNES9x Debugger and BSNES Debugger (a.k.a. Laevateinn) are two examples.

One cause of the song playing may be due to the two ROM files existing in the same folder, and for some inexplicable reason, the other file gets called by mistake, playing that file's song instead.

ROMs aren't capable of executing code or reading data from other ROMs. That's like saying a cartridge being played on my Super Nintendo can read data from another cartridge sitting in a case on my shelf. Even if the data was copied into the ROM, DKC3's music format is different enough from DKC's that getting either game to play unaltered data from the other would likely result in a SPC700 stall.

I have experienced bugs in ZSNES where areas of RAM weren't cleared when switching to a new game, resulting in graphics from the last game played showing up in unoccupied areas of VRAM. Graphics from Super Mario World appeared in Super Mario All-Stars when I was tinkering with the tile value settings for the Mario coin at the very beginning of the game.

VideoViking wrote:I was warped to the point of the arrow sign in Reptile Rumble.

That's weird, because such a warp doesn't even exist in the game. It is, however, possible to warp to a point near the arrow sign in Ropey Rampage (via the first corner of the path connecting Cranky's Cabin and Reptile Rumble).

@Cody: That doesn't surprise me in the least bit, given how buggy the GBA ports were.

Matt is absolutely right. When hacking dkc and in particular, bouncy bonanza, if there are too many objects the tune is similar and creepier. The tones change but tune is similar. Give it a try sometime highway Cody heh.

Oh, and once the music bugs, it stays bugged for all other levels and overworld music until reset providing a similar variation to the tune that is supposed to be playing. So you could say you've made your own music. Congrats original composer of hot head bop heh.

I'm still confused how someone could confuse Life in the Mines with Hot Head Hop.

Here's Life in the Mines, with the so-called "Hot Head Hop" song from the Choir of Monkeys thing.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ryv2gpeztvp5oie

Now, Icy Guy (on DKVine) claimed that the song was indeed in the game.

So tell me... why in God's name has NO ONE actually got any proof? The only 'proof' is simply the words "It's in the game". There's no actual proof. No one's ripped it. No one's uploaded it to YouTube. If they have, post a link.