DKC Atlas Forum

[Mattrizzle]

All menu screens have been coded. A few more odds and ends, and this should be ready for release.

In other news, yet another minor bug fix has been made to DKC2 Brigand Barrage:

• In All Bosses mode, the new record sound would play in the results screen if a player got a game over against a boss with no record. This would also write an invisible time to SRAM.

@VideoViking: In the latest release, levels will load when using DKCRE's AutoLaunch feature, but the timer will be glitched. In the revision, I've already added a mechanism to prevent the editor from being able to AutoLaunch levels.

[Simion32]

Let me guess. Something involving crashing the game?
You can't do anything outside of the SNES emulator.

EDIT: Oh I think I know what you did. Cause the level loader routine to redirect to the start screen or something like that if a certain RAM configuration happens, or if you try to access a non-boss level.


...and why exactly is it that you feel that you must prevent DKCRE from being able to load and work with your hacks, at all costs?

[doug kong]

amazing ...
every time I see the screenshots of your hack I wonder if you would not be able to create a complete hack enimigos putting new sprites and editing of scenarios
when i see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHcxBmCxLGQ&list=PLA1D1FF02254693EE&index=2
I am even more impressed with what you are doing covers

[Qyzbud]

Brilliant work, Mattrizzle! I can't wait to get my hands on this much-improved update.

Now that I've finally got things under control here with the forum security update (no more spam account sign-up attempts to sift through!), I'll see what I can do about setting up dedicated project pages for each of your boss rush hacks, as well as the other great projects listed on the Atlas Projects page... in addition to writing up the news report I've been meaning to do months now.

why exactly is it that you feel that you must prevent DKCRE from being able to load and work with your hacks

I'd assume this is for quality assurance; if the DKCRE doesn't work properly when used with these hacks, it could give the impression that the hacks, or the DKCRE (or both) are poorly coded, when that is far from true. This might be a good idea, especially since these projects will all be hosted and promoted here on the Atlas; users might expect compatibility, or at the very least, they could run into compatibility issues if they accidentally open a patched ROM. A better option (DKCRE supporting notable custom ROMs, perhaps) could be better still, but Matt's method is not a bad idea in the meantime.

[Simion32]

I'm not going to have DKCRE locking hacks from being opened, but I suppose it would be useful for RE to set a flag somewhere in the savestate (unused RAM area) that signifies the game is being loaded from RE's Level AutoLaunch feature.

I won't provide a bit for Game AutoLaunch though, since there is no sense in responding to that for any reason - Game AutoLaunch is the equivalent of opening the ROM in ZSNES from a double-click.


Of course, there's also my hypothesis that the AutoLaunch savestate isn't from the correct ASM address and it doesn't load Mattrizzle's timer properly because they get mistakenly bypassed (the state being used in the loader hack is from Slipslide Ride).

[Mattrizzle]

I'd assume this is for quality assurance; if the DKCRE doesn't work properly when used with these hacks, it could give the impression that the hacks, or the DKCRE (or both) are poorly coded, when that is far from true.

Yes, though it's more about Boss Blitz (and my own paranoia) than DKCRE, to be honest. The biggest reason all of these checks are being put into place is to prevent others from hacking it (eventually Brigand Barrage and the hypothetical DKC3 boss rush as well) and releasing their own "custom" versions. If someone were to do a sub-par job, it could reflect badly upon me, and people could blame the wrong person for bugs that are the fault of another. One rule of mine: If I've altered the title screen and "Mattrizzle" or "Mattress87" appears while playing the game, don't modify it. This doesn't apply to the other smaller DKC patches--those were made to be used as base hacks.

@ Simion32: You are right, it is incorrect. The program counter is 0x88 bytes past where the start of the subroutine is. Fixing this still won't fix the bugs that DKCRE causes in the hack, as another custom subroutine is called prior to this one which initializes the RAM addresses needed.

Game AutoLaunch is the equivalent of opening the ROM in ZSNES from a double-click.

...except the temporary copy of the ROM that DKCRE generates and runs has an altered name and different text strings in the unused vector pointers--even if those parts of the header have previously been modified by other means.

Here's the last update you probably see on this for a while, as university has begun for me again. A few sprites and animations have been altered:

1, 2. Diddy's odd stances when jumping and standing while holding an object have been fixed.
3. His turning sprites have been ported from DKC2.
4, 5. Both Kongs' mouths in all of their sprites have been altered to use shades of their fur instead of their clothing colors. With the palettes selected in these images, Diddy originally would have a light blue mouth and D.K. would have a white mouth.
6. Slippa's defeated animation is different; it now uses the unused sprites found by Simion32. The animation used when they are launched by the Mini Drums (or whatever the basic enemy versions of Dumb Drum are called) hasn't changed, but you won't see it in this hack.

In addition to what is seen in these screen captures, missing frames have been added to a few of the animations (e.g. D.K. walking holding an object and DIddy's victory animation).

The sprite and animation changes are already part of a stand-alone hack started years ago, around the time I registered here, if I remember correctly. However, several of the animations aren't finished (Diddy's animation while idling on Rambi and Krusha's laugh are two examples), so it isn't ready to be released yet.

[Mattrizzle]

I guess I should make this clearer...

Development of this hack is on a temporary hiatus until either Spring or Summer Break... (most likely the latter)

[Mattrizzle]

I've been on Summer Break since April 27, so development has continued!


The pause menu has been added, along with all of its functionality. You can also see in this screenshot that I've adjusted the vertical scroll values for the single screen boss room. In the normal game, these were set 8 pixels higher than they should be, resulting in the tops of the two tallest piles of bananas appearing cut-off.

In addition to those changes:

• I've implemented a check which stops the clock based on the active Kong's actions, meaning the clock stops when:
  
  • ...the Kongs are automatically running onto the screen at the beginning of a battle,
  • ...you die, and
  • ...the game is waiting for the other player to press B or Y after one of the players is hit in Two Player Team mode.
• The Steel Keg sound sample is now loaded with the Lost Life music, so that the sound when Dumb Drum slams continues to be played correctly. See this post for more information: Re: Tanked Up Trouble Platform SFX oddity

[Cyclone]

Great hacking skills Mattrizzle. What else do you have in the works?

[Mattrizzle]

Nothing currently, though I've been messing with Super Bomberman 2.

...and thanks.

[Qyzbud]

Huzzah! Great to know you're back on the case.

Besides the new features and gameplay options, I'm always impressed with your attention to the little details (graphic/sound issues, etc.) that got overlooked during DKC's development...

[Super Luigi!]

Whatever you decided to do next, Mattrizzle, I'm sure it wil be done with spectacular effort and results. Keep up the good work! (Or do you consider it play?)

[Mattrizzle]

In case you were wondering what's been going on with the updated version of Boss Blitz, I got tired of messing with it and resumed work on another unfinished project, until I got hooked on Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

[Qyzbud]

I totally understand. It's meant to be a labour of love, so there's no point forcing yourself to make progress if you're tired of what you're doing. Happens to me all the time, but I never stay away for long.

I'm also taking a mini game-break... StarCraft II is a worthy distraction.

[spaceman2028]

Well in case you DO come back to this...
"I'll have to give myself, and all the other DKC3 characters a..." *puts on sunglasses* "PRRRRROOOMOOTION!"

[Mattrizzle]

I've actually been working on something else related to the original DKC trilogy. It's not ready to be revealed just yet...

[spaceman2028]

Bumping this topic with an idea of mine. When you defeat Kaptain K Rool in Brigand Barrage, instead of DK turning around, he and the other kongs head to the right side of the flying krock battle area to see the defeated K Rool flying through the sky and turning into a star. Afterwards he does the turning around animation while Diddy and Dixie do their victory animations. Donkey Kong's boombox also falls down and DK himself starts dancing like in the intro to DKC.

[n4ru]

This is easily one of the best things I've ever seen.

A couple questions:

In the first Boss Rush, the music continues uninterrupted until the K. Rool fight. But in the second game, the music restarts after every boss. Is it possible to fix this?

I want to put the Boss Rush games into an arcade cabinet. Is there a way to disable the options screen and default to 1P, regular color, ALL bosses and Timer ON? And maybe have the title screen scroll to the 'Best Bouts' screen occasionally.

Not sure if this is even watched by OP, but I'm sure the above is achievable with ASM hacks. Is there a place I can start reading up to make the above changes to this ROM possible? Cheers.

[VideoViking]

I want to put the Boss Rush games into an arcade cabinet.

Now that's interesting. I don't think it's possible to turn a console ROM into an arcade ROM, with the actual "insert coin" message and coin chamber triggers. Is there?

[n4ru]

I want to put the Boss Rush games into an arcade cabinet.

Now that's interesting. I don't think it's possible to turn a console ROM into an arcade ROM, with the actual "insert coin" message and coin chamber triggers. Is there?

Modifying a string is fairly trivial, as would be "triggering" a coin inserted, if not by the ROM itself, then by an extra software layer that would activate the game via memory.

[Mattrizzle]

@n4ru: As for your first question, in DKC1, the sound effects used by all of the bosses are always loaded. In DKC2, there are several more sound effects. Since there isn't enough space in SPC RAM for all of them to be loaded simultaneously, music track-specific sound effects were introduced.

There are actually two copies of Boss Bossanova in the game's music track table. Each one loads a different set of sound effects and BRR samples. The first only has Krow, Kudgel, and Kreepy Krow's sounds, while the second only has Kleever and King Zing's. Due to a limitation of the music engine, the music has to be reloaded to load different sound effects, even though the music is identical. This is why it starts over at the beginning of each battle.

[Raccoon Sam]

I want to put the Boss Rush games into an arcade cabinet.

Now that's interesting. I don't think it's possible to turn a console ROM into an arcade ROM, with the actual "insert coin" message and coin chamber triggers. Is there?

Modifying a string is fairly trivial, as would be "triggering" a coin inserted, if not by the ROM itself, then by an extra software layer that would activate the game via memory.

Not necessarily. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the SNES controller have unused input methods? You could have the game hacked so that when the phantom button is pressed, the game starts – just have the arcade cabinet be like so when you drop a coin to the chamber, it hits a switch which is hooked to the normally unused button.

[Cody]

Interesting to hear about the two variations of Boss Bossanova. Do you know if the aforementioned DKC3 Boss Rush hack will have the same results with Boss Boogie?

[Mattrizzle]

@Cody: Yes, the same is true for DKC3, except there are three variations of Boss Boogie:
0C: Boss Boogie (Arich/Bleak sound effects)
1F: Boss Boogie (Belcha/Barbos sound effects)
28: Boss Boogie (Squirt/KAOS sound effects)

There are also two variations of Big Boss Blues:
1A: Big Boss Blues (Knautilus sound effects)
27: Big Boss Blues (Kastle KAOS sound effects)

[Mattrizzle]

I released the update to Boss Blitz in July, but somehow failed to update this thread. So, without further ado, here is the download link:

DKC - Boss Blitz (R1.5).zip - 114 KB

Note: As with the previous version, this patch is to be applied to the U version 1.0 Donkey Kong Country ROM, without a header.

I will update the original post of this topic shortly.

Season's Greetings and Happy New Year!

[VideoViking]

Happy Holidays and New Years, Matt! Are there plans to do a DKC3 Boss Blitz?

[Super Luigi!]

Thank you for the update, Sir Mattrizzle. I certainly appreciate it. Please continue to succeed greatly and be a hero to children everywhere!