Tiny Toon Adventures 3 + ROM

[Awesome Panda]

Barver

Aug 8 2011, 02:24:08 AM

Oops, my mistake, thought someone said it happens in Squirrel King but now I see no such post..[/quote]I'm pretty sure Squirrel King doesn't have that problem, at least not with the tracks that are actually used.

[Barver]

Just wasted over an hour trying to find a level select cheat, and got one. Besides possibly showing what order they made the levels(or not), I can't find anything unused

Anyone curious, ram position FF000F is where the level value is stored. Numbers 0-24 are all the levels(5 levels, each with four screens and a boss, 5x5=25). FF0037 also controls jump height.

Wish I found something more useful  >_< There could be a way to display the missing text on the fourth screen of the intro story, but I'm not exactly sure how to get a code for that..

[SpaceNinja]

"What's up, Doc"?

[codeman38]

I was just thinking about something last night... TTA3 seems quite poorly developed for the build date of 4 March 1996 shown in the ROM header. It's incredibly buggy; the background music gets out of sync, the music is generally of lower quality than Gamtec's usual, the gameplay is much clumsier than Squirrel King, and so on.

And meanwhile, Chuanpu-- known to share programmers with Gamtec-- released some games in the same year or earlier which were far better in quality. Barver Battle Saga has a hidden copyright notice of 1995, and Yase Chuanshuo is specifically shown on its title screen to be from 1995.

Even Gamtec 'proper' had long gotten rid of the Shikinjoh sound engine by that point, too. Their older games used it, yes, but they had switched to the Wonderboy sound engine before 1996-- many of the games in the GM-95 series, which were released in 1995, used the Wonderboy engine. Only one of the GM-95 games (Super Magican/Elf Wor) still used the Shikinjoh engine.

It's like this game was developed by the dregs of Gamtec's staff while everyone else had moved on to the Chuanpu team. Or something.

[Awesome Panda]

1996? I thought this was one of Gamtec's first games. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the graphics seem to be similar in style and quality to their other Mega Drive games (albeit some of them being stolen if I remember correctly) but there's no question that the gameplay and sound is inferior to their other games. I'm guessing that their staff were leaving the company for whatever reason so Gamtec had to hire some inexperienced programmers to make it, much like those "ex-Hummer Team" games.

[taizou]

Maybe it was developed by a small group of people who split off from Gamtec? That'd explain the "XXXXXX Ltd", they might have started it at Gamtec and removed the name after they left.

There's another game with something similar going on, Link Dragon, credited to Songtly & Jumbo Team - it's also kind of buggy and low quality, one of the levels is shaped like Gamtec's Chinese name but two others spell out "OIC" and "TEC". I always thought it'd make more sense for the "OIC" level to say "GAM", maybe it originally did but it was changed? I can't tell what sound engine it uses because the sound doesn't work in emulators (I'm assuming it *has* sound here because Hanmin Liao is credited with it, but you never know), but another Jumbo Team game, Ghost Hunter, uses the Shikinjoh one.

But strangely the credits in Link Dragon, apart from Liao, are mostly people who worked on AV Artisan/Realtec's games (and I'm still no closer to figuring out how those companies fit into all this, lol) and the credits in Ghost Hunter are completely different.

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Aug 9 2011, 12:30:12 PM

1996? I thought this was one of Gamtec's first games. Anyway, as far as I can tell, the graphics seem to be similar in style and quality to their other Mega Drive games (albeit some of them being stolen if I remember correctly) but there's no question that the gameplay and sound is inferior to their other games. I'm guessing that their staff were leaving the company for whatever reason so Gamtec had to hire some inexperienced programmers to make it, much like those "ex-Hummer Team" games.[/quote]Yeah, I was thinking it was one of Gamtec's first games, too! But the ROM header specifically says: "Date:03/04/1996"

Maybe it was a later build of a game from '93 or so? <_< But even Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan kept its hidden 1996 copyright date in the ROM, even when the title screen was changed...

[Awesome Panda]

taizou

Aug 9 2011, 12:33:09 PM

There's another game with something similar going on, Link Dragon, credited to Songtly & Jumbo Team - it's also kind of buggy and low quality, one of the levels is shaped like Gamtec's Chinese name but two others spell out "OIC" and "TEC". I always thought it'd make more sense for the "OIC" level to say "GAM", maybe it originally did but it was changed? I can't tell what sound engine it uses because the sound doesn't work in emulators (I'm assuming it *has* sound here because Hanmin Liao is credited with it, but you never know), but another Jumbo Team game, Ghost Hunter, uses the Shikinjoh one.

But strangely the credits in Link Dragon, apart from Liao, are mostly people who worked on AV Artisan/Realtec's games (and I'm still no closer to figuring out how those companies fit into all this, lol) and the credits in Ghost Hunter are completely different.[/quote]Are you sure it wasn't supposed to say "Realtec" originally? I'm sure they could've fit that into a snake game.

codeman38

 

Yeah, I was thinking it was one of Gamtec's first games, too! But the ROM header specifically says: "Date:03/04/1996"

Maybe it was a later build of a game from '93 or so? <_< But even Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan kept its hidden 1996 copyright date in the ROM, even when the title screen was changed...[/quote]I think it's more probable that Gamtec hired some inexperienced programmers. I'm guessing that if it was from the early 90's, they'd have left the date as it was.

[Barver]

Well, this game came before Squirrel King and Lion King II evidently, and before it Gamtec made Bomboy and Thunderbolt II I think, games that didn't exactly look amazing either. Seems about right, especially since it's their first platformer so they were still getting into things I suppose.

[Awesome Panda]

Yeah, but if I remember correctly those games were generally better as well. I'd check, but I can't find the ROMs of either of them. :\

[Barver]

Neither is dumped. I've got Bomboy now but supposedly someone else dumped it but just isn't sharing. Still gotta message him to see if it's true. Thunderbolt II has copy protection or something and can't be dumped, and this is from TmEE who's a wiz at all things MD so I trust it must be pretty difficult protection.

I still say the quality is due to it being their first platformer

[Awesome Panda]

Barver

Aug 10 2011, 06:58:18 AM

I still say the quality is due to it being their first platformer [/quote]Well considering that Somari was Hummer Team's first platformer, that kind of makes sense I guess. Then again, I don't think Gamtec were porting anything.

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Aug 10 2011, 03:51:46 AM

Yeah, but if I remember correctly those games were generally better as well. I'd check, but I can't find the ROMs of either of them. :\[/quote]And both of them had music that actually stays in sync.

No ROMs, as mentioned previously, but here are YouTube clips, where you can hear how much better they sound:

Bomboy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jaQBO8AXp8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmuBKbfOv8Y

Thunderbolt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkCmjcqzLtA

Bomboy is perhaps the best-sounding game of theirs that uses the Shikinjoh sound engine (there are instruments in there that aren't even used in TTA3!), while Thunderbolt had already switched to the Wonderboy sound engine.

[Awesome Panda]

I just noticed something, TTA3 doesn't even use the PC Paint fonts that appear in Gamtec's other games. :huh: (Well, not unless they used some different ones that I don't remember)

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Aug 10 2011, 12:17:17 PM

I just noticed something, TTA3 doesn't even use the PC Paint fonts that appear in Gamtec's other games. :huh: (Well, not unless they used some different ones that I don't remember)[/quote]The font used in the intro and on the score screen is from PC Paint - it's just not the "Special" font.

(In fact, it's the same font from my user icon over there...heh...)

Edit: Also, during the demo, "DEMO" is written in the "Special" font.