Bootleg Games Central Forum
Pirate Discussion => Famicom/NES => Topic started by: forgotusername on November 05, 2023, 06:21:31 PM
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I've ended up with a rather large selection of random NES files that I haven't released anywhere, generally obtained from hack testing and whatnot. Since I've never really found a place to put these, I figured making a miscellaneous thread here could be a good way to distribute them.
To start, here are three hacks obtained from some quite obscure multicarts. Down Deep (a Dig Dug hack) was unplayable within the multicart itself, while Route-16 Moto (hack of Route-16 Turbo) was on a plug & play thing that I couldn't get to emulate properly (it's somewhere on Clusterrr's website...) Dungeon Escape was playable on the multicart iirc, though it's a very obscure game variant regardless.
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I have a massive folder of NROM and MMC3 conversions (that's mappers 0 and 4 in iNES header-speak), which are generally bootleg in origin. I'm not sure how much interest people have in mapper conversions these days (I mainly use them for the purposes of rom hacking), though I may as well publish them here. The folders are as follows:
*MMC3 conversions - CoolX-Lite: a set of very elaborate conversions, designed for a customizable multicart developed in Ukraine. while most are pure MMC3, some are based on the "CoolX" mapper itself, which i don't think exists in the iNES 2.0 database yet. there was a giant github page for these which seems to have been taken down, so this moreso serves as a mirror for them. about 100 games in here.
*MMC3 conversions - multicart rips: conversions which i've ripped from various multicarts and plug & plays; many of these are CNROM (or CNROM-like) games. quality control greatly varies with these, some work perfectly while others do not (for example, buggy popper crashes at level 4). 113 games here.
*NROM conversions - misc: anything NROM-based. a few of these are likely available elsewhere, though they can be difficult to find. some of these (including everything in the "plug & play" folder) are my own conversions, with some being created as a "basis" for my previous rom hacks. around 50 games here.
I skipped the other directories I have, as those files can generally be found elsewhere (GoodNES, romhacking.net, clusterrr's website, etc).
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I'm interested in mapper conversions, as it can make the ROMs more accessible, such as Virtual Console imports, so converting to a common mapper is definitely appreciated. Thank you!
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No problem. :)
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I remember asking before about some tool that converts from bootleg mapper to common one, but from what I've heard it has to be done manually & with expertise in ROM hacking
I don't know what mapper is used by Donkey Kong Country 4 from Hummer Team, but from what I recall, it was not a common mapper.
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Recently, I did a large study on "educational computer" Famiclones. As part of this research, I ripped many ROMs from various educational computer systems and cartridges.
Many years ago, I attempted to rip some of the educational computer games as standalone ROMs; though I dubbed almost all of them "bad roms", as they would display glitchy graphics in every emulator. As it turns out, however, I simply...didn't understand how the coding of the games worked. On almost every educational computer device, the internal programs read all graphic data off of the PRG rather than using an additional CHR chip. In my older extracts, I had unknowingly copied decoded graphic data to the games as separate CHR data, which FCEUX places as additional (often incomplete) code in its hex editor. With this in mind, I was now able to extract the ROMs without issue.
It is still rather obtuse to run some of these via single-rom extracts, given the multitude of different inputs required between programs. Most games use a Subor keyboard and either a "3x8-bit mouse" or a "24-bit mouse". Fully 24-bit mouse-based games also work with standard NES controllers, but often have an issue where the cursor will dart to the top-left corner of the screen; I'm unsure what causes this, though it's an issue with the educational bootlegs in general rather than these extracts. Additionally, many ROMs have a second program (or more) built into them; in some cases I was able to separate both games from the file, while in others I could not. Some games also had to be physically decoded to run as separate extracts.
There are around 175 ROMs here total, including variations. These are mostly English and Spanish-language programs, with a handful of Russian ones; Chinese programs are much more difficult to rip (mainly as they use ~224k of data just for the font), though I did rip a few for testing. As a side note, I retained all documentation for this process, but I didn't include it here (as it's kind of a giant mess...); I can provide it if that's something people want.
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As
further torture a bonus, here is a set of NROM conversions of most of the Action 52 games. Additionally, I have a custom sprite hack of sorts here that requires a bit of explanation.
A couple attempts of Action 52 rips have been done before; though generally, they run on the native Action 52 "mapper 228", due to each game using one extra sprite bank for text screens (menus, score counters, etc). As with the aforementioned educational computer programs, Action 52 often combines two or three games into one file; however, the Action 52 code is quite well documented by this point, so decoding every game was trivial. However, due to how resourceful the Action 52 code is - with enough hacking - 46 of the 52 games can run as standard mapper 0 files, without the need for the extra sprite bank. Absolutely no visible sprites have been removed in these conversions; with the sole exception of the copyright notice on Ooze, which was removed for space. I also ripped a "prototype" copy of French Baker, and a modified ROM of Ooze starting on an unused "Level 8".
Now comes the more intriguing part. In 2011, a crappy little reproduction cart called "Cheetahmen: The Creation" was released. This literally $200 USD cartridge is a badly cut-up copy of an otherwise-undumped Action 52 prototype build, which featured a different game at slot #52. However, half of this ROM is some other scrapped Action 52 game, which is not accessible through the Cheetahmen: The Creation cart whatsoever. Of course, since it is from that overpriced abomination, the graphic data for this unused game is not present; though you can get a general idea of how the game plays with some junk data in its place.
I previously released the unaltered, unused game ROM on The Cutting Room Floor, though I have also mirrored it here. In addition, I have created a simple hack called "Here & Hare" with custom graphics; which almost certainly looks nothing like the game was supposed to, though it makes it much more playable.
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Excellent work again, thank you!
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Recently, I did a large study on "educational computer" Famiclones. As part of this research, I ripped many ROMs from various educational computer systems and cartridges.
(...)
"xue si dian nao (dr. pc jr., unknown input).nes" needs the PS/2 keyboard that the Doctor PC Junior takes. If you want to run it in its native environment, place the attached DRPCJR.BIN into the BIOS subfolder of your NintendulatorNRS folder. Run any normal NROM game, like Super Mario Bros., in NintendulatorNRS, then select Game->Machine Type->Bung->Doctor PC Jr. (*) At the Doctor PC Junior boot screen, insert the attached GAMES.IMA 1.44M disk image via "File->Load 3.5" disk...". Select file TTOK for the typing tutor. Set Scroll Lock so that all keyboard keys register instead of being interpreted as emulator control keys. You will also find the native form of the FC7005 "cartridge".
(*) This treatment as a "plug-through device" may seem awkward but is technically correct, since the Doctor PC Jr. has a cartridge slot, and its BIOS sits between the cartridge slot and the CPU. It only seems awkward because while NintendulatorNRS must have something in its "cartridge slot", a real Doctor PC Jr. will run its BIOS with an empty cartridge slot.
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I see the files on the disk are just custom-headered NES ROMs... the old "Development Page" states that the other programs can't be run on standard NES architecture; is that truly the case, or the result of less information on the NES hardware existing circa 2001? Other disc images seem to use proper computer-like data (with .bin/.dat/.cmd files and whatnot), I assume those can't be compiled into a .nes file?
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There are three execution environments on the Doctor PC Jr.:
- BIOS only: run a "custom-headered NES ROM" from a floppy disk.
- SM-DOS: boot the SM-DOS system disk and run software from DOS-like files.
- MCC-DOS: boot the SM-DOS system disk, then run a Terminate-and-stay-resident program that loads the 256 KiB Hanzi font into CHR RAM from the system disk.
Each piece of software runs in one of the three environments. TTOK runs as BIOS-only, as do pirated commercial NES games. Most Chinese software runs under MCC-DOS, while the BASIC interpreter only needs SM-DOS.
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Here is an attempt at ripping and decoding the games from the "Digital EZ-LG" 15-in-1. The games are encrypted in a somewhat simple way: each game requires bytes #800C-800D to be replaced with the bytes located at #8008-8009. Some of these extracts (particularly Space War) have issues, though the majority of them work fine.
As a side note, there is notable text data in four of the games' code: Perfect Puzzle, Quick Brain, Car Racing, and Cricket. Perfect Puzzle and Quick Brain both begin with what seems to be text for a 3-in-1 menu, with the third game being Car Racing. However, the Car Racing code instead begins with "(C)RAMA..RACE!!!", with Cricket similarly reading "(C)RAMA.CRICKET". Presumably, Rama is the name of the games' developers; they are likely also the creators of two other NES bootlegs, BugTris and Block Puzzle (or perhaps Rama is a 2000s offshoot of that developer).
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Ha! Your Action 52 conversions reminded me of my conversions (some) that I made a long time ago, I attached my collection under the post. Also I had Ninja Assault hack with fixed stage 4.
I'm also pleased with the fact that FDS conversions are still being done. By the way, Boogerman II previously ported Sharpnull. And in games from Ei-Ho Yang, anti-piracy protection is sewn in (I hope you've removed it all, the integrity of the CHR ROM is also checked there).
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I didn't touch much of anything in the "CoolX" mapper hacks in terms of coding, but I would assume anti-piracy measures were disabled. The github page had what seemed to be full decompilations of the ROMs (albeit still in PRG/CHR-like formats, not outright source code); which I unfortunately didn't back up.
I see in your "Streemerz" rip that there's a visible health bar; is that an unused function, or was it custom coded? (I assume the heart graphics themselves are new)
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I didn't touch much of anything in the "CoolX" mapper hacks in terms of coding, but I would assume anti-piracy measures were disabled. The github page had what seemed to be full decompilations of the ROMs (albeit still in PRG/CHR-like formats, not outright source code); which I unfortunately didn't back up.
I see in your "Streemerz" rip that there's a visible health bar; is that an unused function, or was it custom coded? (I assume the heart graphics themselves are new)
Are you talking about a complete decompilation of all Action 52 games? Is there a link?
Maybe there are still saves on the web archive?
With regard to Streemerz, all games were supposed to have a life bar and a score counter, since the games were made on the principle of a conveyor and have an identical design. But in a number of games, some functions are disabled, and in some cases it was possible to turn platformers into flying games like Micro Mike (I did that once with Haunted Hills) or vice versa. The heart icon is taken from the first Chip and Dale.
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The "decompilation" was referring to CoolX, which pertains to the other games you mentioned (Boogerman II, FDS ports etc.). The Action 52 rips I mostly re-coded myself, and are unrelated to CoolX; there is no full decompiling of Action 52 AFAIK.
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The "decompilation" was referring to CoolX, which pertains to the other games you mentioned (Boogerman II, FDS ports etc.). The Action 52 rips I mostly re-coded myself, and are unrelated to CoolX; there is no full decompiling of Action 52 AFAIK.
Clear.
I once set out to improve the first Cheetahmen, but it didn't go beyond small edits. There is a port of this game on MMC1, I also rewrote the intro for the game based on the intro from the sequel (so that you can skip it and go to the menu with a pause), but the music from the intro of the second part remains in it ("Bossa Nova", if you know).
I also planned to insert an intro at the end of the game so that after the last boss there would be a screens with frames from the Action 52 advertisement, as well as rework the characters and enemies under the 8x16 sprite mode to insert the sprites of the Sega version, but I lack the help of a person who understands machine code or assembler.
By the way. I have trimmed to 48 kilobytes the famous dump of Cheetahmen: The Creation.
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Here are MMC3 conversions of the two Ocean-published Bubble Bobble games: Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars. Note that these were PAL-exclusive releases originally, and have slight graphics issues on later levels if run as NTSC (which isn't a result of the mapper hack).
The method in which I was able to convert these games is quite bizarre. I found that four Ocean releases - Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars, The Addams Family, and Cool World - feature near-identical opcodes and code structure. There is a fan-made Addams Family MMC3 port by "infidelity" which included documentation, so I used that as reference for Rainbow Islands/Parasol Stars; alongside some code from a bootleg Cool World conversion.
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Dragon Ball Z 5 - CHR ROM Optimized by me (Reduced to 256 kilobytes). ROM mapper is still the same.
I also saw a lot of unused empty space in the PRG ROM (more than 20000 bytes) to reduce the PRG size to 128 kilobytes, but for this it's necessary to disassemble the game in order to rebuild the ROM.
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The game already runs as mapper 4 submapper 4. I made a small change to the IRQ code to run it as regular MMC3. I only checked the initial screens, however.
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The game already runs as mapper 4 submapper 4. I made a small change to the IRQ code to run it as regular MMC3. I only checked the initial screens, however.
Ha, it was unexpected) :)
I also have some work on San Guo Zhi - Chi Bi Zhi Zhan by Asder, which I wanted to make more closer to the arcade original, optimizing the CHR data along the way. This game has already been ported by Sharpnull to the MMC3 mapper (see attachment).
But I have problems with text output (it's better to convert it to a standard output type) and in some places (in cutscenes with text) the graphics banks don't want to change, only with banks located nearby.
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Deerstalking from Nice Code Software - MMC3 port by Sharpnull:
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I don't believe I've run into Sharpnull before (first I've heard of the name), but I found that he created more elaborate decodes of the Digital EZ-LG games; I've attached them here, as they should probably supersede my attempt posted here previously.
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Here are five of the "Super" hacks seen on some early 90s multicarts - Super Donkey Kong 3, Super Galaxian, Super Pac-Man, Super Pooyan, and Super Star Soldier. These are pretty simple hacks conceptually; Super Pac-Man greatly increases Pac-Man's speed (similar to the arcade "speed-up chip" hack), while the other three just increase the player's bullet speed/power. Some multicarts also feature a "Super Star Force", though I haven't included it here for the simple reason that I can't figure out what it actually changes (outside of some nasty title screen coloring...)
Normally, these games are built into the original versions in code (i.e. unhacked Pac-Man runs on the same file as Super Pac-Man); I wasn't able to rip them for the longest time because of this. However, I came across a couple multicarts which run the "Super" games separately from the originals, allowing them to be extracted.
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I still like the nasty colors
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Posted here in case anyone doesn't have a rom of this game:
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Puzzle game from Asder educational Famicom cartridge:
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Thank you, I was unable to rip Puzzle and Xin Ji Zhan Jiang previously (outside of some of the hacked variants).
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It would be great to see these games in a separate form and without binding to the keyboard:
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Mini collection of The Cheetahmen games (standalone The Cheetahmen on 228 and MMC1 mapper also included):
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I wonder if there is a MMC3 mapper haсk of the game San Guo Zhi 4 - Chi Bi Feng Yun?
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No, and creating one would be difficult, as the game uses 8x16 sprites, which make the MMC3's scanline counter act near-inscrutably (https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/MMC3): "When using 8x16 sprites, PPU A12 must be explicitly tracked. The exact time and number of times the counter is clocked will depend on the specific set of sprites present on every scanline. Specific combinations of sprites could cause the counter to decrement up to four times, or the IRQ to be delayed or early by some multiple of 8 pixels."
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No, and creating one would be difficult, as the game uses 8x16 sprites, which make the MMC3's scanline counter act near-inscrutably (https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/MMC3): "When using 8x16 sprites, PPU A12 must be explicitly tracked. The exact time and number of times the counter is clocked will depend on the specific set of sprites present on every scanline. Specific combinations of sprites could cause the counter to decrement up to four times, or the IRQ to be delayed or early by some multiple of 8 pixels."
But after all, some of the Cony Soft games were successfully hacked to MMC3, so it's still possible.
Here's what I learned about the late ports from Cony Soft/Future Media:
"In Crayon Shin-Chan, MMC3 is possible due to the use of CHR banks in PPU $000-7FF and $800-FFF as whole, and in CPU $C000-DFFF banks with garbage and the code is similar at the beginning, so you can only transfer data and change the code. In San Guo Zhi 4 - Chi Bi Feng Yun, at the beginning of the game, CHR banks are also whole, but there are several banks in the CPU $C000-DFFF and they are more complicated, so it's more difficult."
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I don't know that these games were "hacked"; I think Cony at some point recompiled the games themselves one they obtained access to an MMC3 clone that was more affordable than their own custom mapper.
In any case, VRC4 may be an easier target for hacking than MMC3.
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A crappy little plug & play known as "Croaky Karaoke" was just added to MAME. In concept, the game is nothing more than a karaoke video played with some song covers played in that distinct "DDR Famiclone" style. Amusingly, four of the songs were licensed from Sony Music, leading to the console having a licensed NES cover of "Take On Me", of all things.
There's no microphone input or anything on this console, but the menu inexplicably uses a proprietary control setup; so I can't actually navigate the song selection screen in any emulator. As such, I attempted to extract the songs into individual ROMs; to my surprise, this worked perfectly for 13 out of 14 songs (the one exception being "Sing"). Each file has three songs built-in, running dominant as one of them (similar to the educational computer ROMs); however, zeroing out one or two sections of code will run the other song + video. The only caveat with the working files is that they do not emulate the sampled "clapping" sound effect, I am unsure if that's an emulation issue or an extraction issue. Download attached below.
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Does anyone know if there's ever been a conversion of Armadillo/Mario IV to standard mapper 4 (or if one would even be feasible)? AFAIK all dumped multicarts containing the game use weird registers to "mimic" mapper 118 behavior, but aren't outright mapper 4 conversions.
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There is none, and I doubt one can be made without rewriting major parts of the game. One-screen mirroring is such a different way of programming a scrolling routine that the original publisher would rather use different hardware (TLSROM rather than TLROM) instead of just adapting the game for more common hardware.
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This archive contains the original (unmodified) ROM image of the game Fighting Road and an abandoned half-ported to MMC3 mapper (fixed only PRG registers).
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I doubt I'll get an answer for this one, but it's been a lingering question for a while. I was wondering if two FDS games - All 1 and Clox, both part of the Famimaga Disk series - could theoretically be converted to standard NES format. I question this as most of the files on the disk appear to only be splash screens and copyright notices; the actual game data is ~24k in size, with 8k CHR for graphics. If the extra notices were removed, could the games be converted to 40k NROM (with 32k PRG/8k CHR)? I can't find much information on how FDS conversions are done, other than that game conversions using only one disk side seem to be more prevalent.
I've attached unmodified extracts of the (non-splash screen) files in a .nes-like structure; naturally they don't work as-is.
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Some of the multicart-exclusive Hwang Shinwei minigames were just uploaded to NESBBS as extracted ROMs. I've had a few people here ask me about these games before, so I've mirrored the files below.
As I've long suspected (and as with other games in this thread), multiple of the Hwang Shinwei minigames are shared in the same file; seemingly across two 32k PRG banks, with a small amount of bytes changed per decoded ROM (~12 bytes or less). Note that this is on top of considerable protection measures (?) within the Shinwei multicarts themselves, making even regular games difficult to extract. I'm guessing there's a third bank with additional games, which has not been decoded (by whoever ripped these) as of currently.
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Those are my extracts. 8) I had to relocate the music code, which was in a shared bank with the multicart's menu, for a few titles to avoid having to bankswitch all the time in the extracted ROM files.
And they are only the versions and titles from the Golden Game multicarts. I have yet to extract the additional titles, and versions, from the earlier Cartridge Story series.
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They're very elaborate conversions, thank you for extracting them.
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Those are my extracts. 8) I had to relocate the music code, which was in a shared bank with the multicart's menu, for a few titles to avoid having to bankswitch all the time in the extracted ROM files.
And they are only the versions and titles from the Golden Game multicarts. I have yet to extract the additional titles, and versions, from the earlier Cartridge Story series.
Where are the rest of the games from the 90-in-1 Hwang Shinwei multicart? Sky Shot, Guess Numbers, Face Tetris, Black Jack, Soha Poker, Magic Sound?
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What you call "the 90-in-1 multicart" is the Cartridge Story multicart series, which has 72-in-1, 80-in-1 and 90-in-1 members. As I have stated in my last message, I have not started extracting games from them at all. All my previous extracts come from the Golden Game multicart series, which has 100-in-1, 150-in1, 210-in-1 and 260-in-1 members.
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What you call "the 90-in-1 multicart" is the Cartridge Story multicart series, which has 72-in-1, 80-in-1 and 90-in-1 members. As I have stated in my last message, I have not started extracting games from them at all. All my previous extracts come from the Golden Game multicart series, which has 100-in-1, 150-in1, 210-in-1 and 260-in-1 members.
Maybe, in that case, it's worth trying to do it?
PS: A list of Hwang Shinwei mini-games, just in case:
https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Hwang_Shinwei_Minigames
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You may be surprised to find out that the limiting factor is time, not encouragement, such as it were, or whatever it is you are trying to do.
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Here is an attempt of extracting the games from the Pokemon 4-in-1. This also includes the "Pet 4-in-1" variant's games, alongside a few further modified versions.
Unconventionally for a multicart, the Pokemon 4-in-1 is a 256k MMC3 file; as such, the games cannot be extracted in the traditional way. The games' PRG data is still in separate areas of the ROM, though also requires some shared data at the bottom to run (from approx. 1C010 onward). By analyzing some code from the available Pet 4-in-1 ROMs, I was able to get three of the games fully working as standalone files (Pacman, Picaslot, and Picadance). Additionally, I was able to trim the games to much smaller sizes; Picaslot could probably be trimmed further with enough hacking, though I've left its PRG overdumped for now.
For whatever reason, I could not get Picaclick working; despite that it should logically be a simple, one-byte alteration. As a stopgap solution, I've included a partial conversion I made a while back based on the standalone "Funclick" hack of the game. While most animations are ported over properly, a couple aspects are missing (including the running Pikachu on the high score table), as I was unable to locate their code areas; so if anyone knows a better solution, help would be appreciated.
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Great job! Thank you!
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You're welcome, I'm glad to finally have them extracted to some level (I've had many failed attempts over the years...).
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You're welcome, I'm glad to finally have them extracted to some level (I've had many failed attempts over the years...).
Pet Slot works great both as a standard NROM (32 KB PRG) and as an MMC3, the only difference is that it will work correctly in MMC3, it simply doesn't have enough free space in CHR for NROM.
Here are my attempts to make NROM and MC3 (the registers remain the same):
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I see, so Pet Slot works trimmed but Picaslot does not... I must have only checked Picaslot and assumed it to be the case for both. I could probably analyze both games' values to see what the difference is, and potentially trim Picaslot further from there.
Edit: The MMC3 ROM you provided is headered as NROM, and does not seem to actually run if set as mapper 4. Not sure what would cause an issue like that, given the multicart is MMC3-based to begin with.
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I see, so Pet Slot works trimmed but Picaslot does not... I must have only checked Picaslot and assumed it to be the case for both. I could probably analyze both games' values to see what the difference is, and potentially trim Picaslot further from there.
Edit: The MMC3 ROM you provided is headered as NROM, and does not seem to actually run if set as mapper 4. Not sure what would cause an issue like that, given the multicart is MMC3-based to begin with.
I remembered that the Fun Click game came across to me in a separate form on the CNROM (003) mapper.
Try to rewrite the registers for CNROM.
UPD: It's strange, but the Picadance doesn't work correctly at 32 kb PRG. The game starts, the animation plays, but the buttons don't work and there's no sound. This means that more PRGs are involved in the game than 32 kb, although there is a lot of emptiness and unused content in the PRG ROM, it can be reassembled under 32 kb PRG ROM.
And one more thing. It would be great if the controls in the Pet Slot were fixed by replacing the Up/Down button (adding|subtraction credits) with something else. I'm tired of pressing the button every time to gain 999 credits for a quick victory.
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Since we're on the subject, here are some trimmed plug & play ROMs I haven't released previously. It should be noted that these are not the intended file sizes for the games, but rather, the games themselves were weirdly compiled with junk data, such as source code and compiler output. The contents are as follows:
*Across River (Rabbit): Can be shrunk to 64k PRG/64k CHR. Bytes C010-1C00F are junk data, includes some compiler output (~17B3F).
*Space Shuttle Exploration: Over half of the ROM is comprised of source code and junk data, beginning from address 3DFA until the end of the PRG. Cannot be shrunk in file size without hacking, as it still reads from bytes 4000 and 8000; so the included files are only cleaned to demonstrate the unused data areas.
*Underground Mission: Can be shrunk to 64k CHR. The bottom half of the CHR data is a duplicate of the top half, albeit with different "Start" text on the title screen. This is likely a leftover from the (undocumented) Shanghai Paradise version, and connects to some unused Chinese characters in the same code area. I've included ROMs displaying both the used and unused Start font, as well as a corrected version of the unused font (as the color palette causes it to not display correctly).
I also included a trimmed ROM of the Rainbow Brite Coleco (or rather faux-Coleco) tabletop I made a while back, though I don't 100% remember the code structure of the source file. Rainbow Brite is only working on FCEUX currently.
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I find out that the "Bean" or "Pacman" game from 4-in-1 multicart is a standart NROM of the Namco Pacman game, with some changes.
All I did here was just remove the last 8 KB in CHR-ROM and reassemble the title screen. The registers remained intact.
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I can't recall if this was uploaded here already, so here is an NES2.0-headered copy of the Lexibook Junior Noddy plug & play. I believe I didn't upload it here before as it has no sound; I question if it runs audio off of an external, non-NES device. This console is actually a reskin of a "Big Driving" plug & play (which I have only just discovered), which is seemingly among the first consoles ever released by JungleTac (see https://web.archive.org/web/20030427140033/http://www.jungletac.com:8080/product.jsp?Id=9).
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Here is an extracted/trimmed copy of Pac-Man in a Tin; a handheld Famiclone featuring a VT369 hack of Pac-Man. Also attached is a ripped "Press Keys Test" program, which I'm quite certain is completely inaccessible on the actual console.
There are many peculiarities in the coding of this one... Of particular note, there are CHR remnants of Cube Technology's VT03 "Eat Bean" hack of Pac-Man; suggesting a link between the two hacks. More information can be seen at The Cutting Room Floor: https://tcrf.net/Pac-Man_in_a_Tin
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On a semi-related note, here is the Shiru Famiclone port of Tetris, as seen on several recent My Arcade consoles. This specific copy was ripped from the Tetris Pixel Pocket; it extracted with its title screen zeroed-out for whatever reason, so I restored the screen using data from the Tetris "Go Gamer" (DGUNL-7029) console. There is also a separate, earlier version of this game designed for the Retro-Bit "Go Retro Portable" systems, which AFAIK is currently undumped.
I haven't written TCRF pages on these two systems yet, though they also have many oddities. Both of them have many unused games, among other plug & play leftovers. The Go Gamer notably includes the original NES version of Tetris and Nice Code's "Bubbles" (VT03 Tetris clone) unused, as well as the Data East games and Inventor hacks from the 2017 Pixel Player.
I should also add that the Go Gamer contains many previously-undumped games, though they feature PRG protection that I can't 100% figure out (seems to involve 2-to-3 bytes being zeroed-out, with added bytes at the end of the ROMs); so the other games remain unripped for now.
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Here is an attempt at fixing/restoring the flashing ghost behavior of Pac-Man in a Tin. This was done by swapping the CHR coloring between the normal and vulnerable ghost sprites, then adjusting the palette data to match. I don't have access to a proper VT369 palette editor, so the vulnerable ghosts are a lighter shade of blue that flashes brown (best color scheme I could get with HEX-only guesswork). I was also able to trim the ROM down further in size (288k to 160k).
I have also found that the remaining visual glitches were merely the result of a bunch of scribbled tiles being present in the main CHR bank (which are blank in the original Pac-Man ROM). Several graphics were also miscolored via CHR (despite having matching color values), so those sprites have been fixed too. It's absolutely baffling that a licensed retail product would release in this state, but here we are...
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I can't recall if this was uploaded here already, so here is an NES2.0-headered copy of the Lexibook Junior Noddy plug & play. I believe I didn't upload it here before as it has no sound; I question if it runs audio off of an external, non-NES device.
Assuming that I have the correct system (the small wheel-having console), then yes I can confirm 100% that this console at the very least does not seem to use the VT03 APUs and instead plays some sequenced sample-based music. Unfortunately, the only documentation I could find of this thing was from an old YouTube video, presumably casually uploaded by a parent, that prominently features their child using the console (which I ironically found while searching for videos of another bootleg system), so I don't think it would be smart of me to just drop the link in a public space and have the uploader potentially receive unwanted attention. If you want me to PM you the video here, then feel free to reply.
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Here are the two trimmed but otherwise unmodified "in a Tin" game ROMs with a NES 2.0 header that allows them to run in NintendulatorNRS. "Tetris in a Tin" will currently play sound at the wrong pitch unless you disable "VT369 Sound HLE".
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On a semi-related note, here is the Shiru Famiclone port of Tetris, as seen on several recent My Arcade consoles. This specific copy was ripped from the Tetris Pixel Pocket; it extracted with its title screen zeroed-out for whatever reason, so I restored the screen using data from the Tetris "Go Gamer" (DGUNL-7029) console. There is also a separate, earlier version of this game designed for the Retro-Bit "Go Retro Portable" systems, which AFAIK is currently undumped.
I haven't written TCRF pages on these two systems yet, though they also have many oddities. Both of them have many unused games, among other plug & play leftovers. The Go Gamer notably includes the original NES version of Tetris and Nice Code's "Bubbles" (VT03 Tetris clone) unused, as well as the Data East games and Inventor hacks from the 2017 Pixel Player.
I should also add that the Go Gamer contains many previously-undumped games, though they feature PRG protection that I can't 100% figure out (seems to involve 2-to-3 bytes being zeroed-out, with added bytes at the end of the ROMs); so the other games remain unripped for now.
It looks like Tetris has some kind of protection, either in the ROM itself. Unfortunately, I have to admit that the game doesn't work 100% well, the "ghost pieces" don't work at all. I haven't really tested it, everything else seems to work.
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Can DAIKU NO GENSAN 2 convert Mapper 65 to MMC3?
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The Panda Prince CHR Optimized hack. CHR-ROM was halved from 256 kilobytes to 128 kb. Along the way, all animation frames were reassembled for ease of editing.
In theory, I fixed everything that was needed. The only thing is that it's still possible to enable the Chinese version of the game.
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Here is an absolutely bizarre set of games ripped from an "unknown VT3xx-based 270-in-1" (BL-867 PCB03), which was recently dumped for MAME. I was genuinely shocked by some of the things included on here, many of which tie up some loose ends with prior plug & play documentation:
*Two games, Pong and Free Way, are from the "ex-Subor" developers. Pong was previously seen on the "Great Boy" emulation handheld, though unfortunately appears to be a bad ROM; Free Way is a port of the Atari 2600 game (Freeway), and was otherwise undocumented. I'm not sure if these are connected to the Gamezone II arcade ports, but they're very similar conceptually.
*Goal Keeper is an earlier revision featuring Elmo, as well as proper music and sound effects. This effectively confirms my theory that Goal Keeper, alongside River Jump and some similar Nice Code titles, were prototype versions of games designed for the Techno Source "Elmo's World" plug & play.
*A number of "educational computer"-like games are included (Apple Chess, Minesweeper, and Solitaire), which do not match any common or dumped revisions. Link is also included, which was documented but I'm not sure if it was dumped.
*The presumably-original revisions of Airial Hero, Care Bear, and Ghost Ship. Airial Hero had its copyright blanked out, so I restored it using the CHR data from the earlier "Aimless" variant.
*A previously-undumped Falling/Burbles variant titled Denger Zone, and a slightly altered version of the Inventor hack Golfer (seemingly to cover up some VT01 color palettes; it doesn't seem to be the original).
Downloads attached below.
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An addendum to Pong: it appears that the game uses VT02 registers for whatever reason, not running on a standard Famicom/NES. Most emulators do not seem to support VT02 games with a separate CHR file (I don't know if that even exists otherwise...), though NintendulatorNRS does for VT01; so the extracted ROM can be played with some cruddy colors if the header is set to VT01 mode. I imagine a better solution here would be to modify the game to use standard NES registers, though I'm not sure how that would be done.
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Another additional note: the Apple Chess ROM still retains its CHR-RAM code (as is typical of "educational computer" clones), with a faux-CHR file applied to it. Running the game without the CHR attached results in a working screen when pressing the "?" icon, credited to "Colvin of Shenzhen BHD Electronic Co., Ltd". I guess that's another company to research one of these days...
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Apple Chess was originally written for BBK's keyboard famiclones. Attached please find the "BBK Floppy 1" system ROM and a floppy disk image containing the game. After loading the ROM file in the latest NintendulatorNRS build, insert the floppy disk image via File->Load 3.5" disk. It will boot into a demo application; press ESC to exit it, then type "STA" to run the Beijing XKD 3-in-1 game collection (Solitaire, Tetravex, Apple Chess) from floppy disk. Closing the problem shows a nice 1997 credits screen. The program is exclusively controlled via an emulated PS/2 mouse.
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I wanted to reply in a personal message, but, alas, after writing the message, I received this error in response:
User 'NewRisingSun' has blocked your personal message.
So I will answer here.
Unfortunately, I can't give this version of the cartridge version "Fake News Covfefe" ROM, for the reason that I don't own it myself, it has already been finalized by other people, and also published by other people who didn't share the final ROM with me.
If you're not aware, the hack itself was born after someone on NintendoAge wanted to see Trump's head shooting up the Empire State Building. While everyone was discussing how it would look, I just took an idea and made this hack, and people liked it, they wanted to develop the idea to the end. Replacing the final boss is also their idea. They offered, and then I did. I didn't replace the icons in the HUD and the text in the intro.
The only thing left to do in this situation is to find the people involved in completing the hack and ask them to find the final rom. Alternatively, you can watch the walkthrough of the game and manually transfer the different graphics and text. That's all I can offer in this situation.
PS. if anyone is interested, I'm also simultaneously optimizing graphics in the bootleg "The Dragon". Bao Qing Tian has been temporarily postponed.
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I have not consciously blocked you; instead, the strange forum software, which is highly confusing to me in many aspects, was set to "receive messages from Buddies and Administrators only" because of the many spammers that plagued this forum in the past. You would think that a good forum software would warn you that if you send a message to somebody who is not already on your Buddy list, that somebody cannot reply and so that you need to add him, but no. ::) Sorry for the inconvenience, in any case.
Thank you for clarifying the situation regarding the Fake News Covfefe cartridge version. I suppose I will just have to find somebody to obtain the cartridge and dump it, then.
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No problem.
By the way, while I was reassembling the graphics in "The Dragon" bootleg, I noticed some bugs and flaws:
1) After the death of the character, the status in the lower left corner isn't restored. Rather, he tries to recover, but literally immediately jumps to another inscription.
2) In "The Dragon", in battle mode, after the death of a character in PAL mode, the HUD breaks.
3) If at the end of level 1-1, having nunchucks, you defeat the last enemy and immediately sit down, then he will freeze in this position, the music will play to the end, and the stage will softlock.
4) After defeating the last boss, there is no final screen, just a transition to the title screen.
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Here is a custom English translation of Whiz Kid Magic Wand (神童魔棒), a game from the Waixing English CAI 3-in-1 cartridge. Every problem has had its explanation translated at the top of the screen, in addition to menu prompts and a small title logo being added.
Unfortunately, I ran into an issue with the game itself (not as a result of my translation): some of the levels appear to be physically impossible to complete. I was able to verify that at least one puzzle ("Move 6 to make triangles form rhombuses") is broken within the code, going by its mapped-out solution. There are three other layouts that I suspect are unsolvable; though every other level I have verified as beatable. I was unable to find a way to fix or zero-out the broken levels; so if anyone can think of a solution, it would be appreciated.
Download is attached below, alongside information on the broken layouts (with attached FCEUX save states).
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Apple Chess was originally written for BBK's keyboard famiclones. Attached please find the "BBK Floppy 1" system ROM and a floppy disk image containing the game. After loading the ROM file in the latest NintendulatorNRS build, insert the floppy disk image via File->Load 3.5" disk. It will boot into a demo application; press ESC to exit it, then type "STA" to run the Beijing XKD 3-in-1 game collection (Solitaire, Tetravex, Apple Chess) from floppy disk. Closing the problem shows a nice 1997 credits screen. The program is exclusively controlled via an emulated PS/2 mouse.
Interesting to see and know its origin. I had seen those three game revisions before, but not on one of the proper floppy-based systems. Ironically, I recall having a copy of that credits screen as a .nes file conversion, with nothing else attached to it (probably dug out of NonGoodNES or something); so I had no idea who or what it was actually designed to credit...
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I don't see any VT02 register writes in Pong. I do have problems getting the actual gameplay to start. I can reach the gameplay screen by pressing START, but then, some seemingly random combination of START and A is needed to start playing.
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Pong only requires the pressing the A button (after the title screen) to start when run as VTxx. This also applies if the game is loaded in a multicart menu; I attached an example using NES Maker. When run as a standard Famicom/NES game, even spamming the A+Start combination results in the game freezing shortly thereafter on my end. I couldn't actually get the 270-in-1 ROM to run, so I have no idea how it behaves on there.
I previously noticed that some of Pong's CHR data is copied from Ding Dong (the "Y2K" Binary Land hack). Curiously, though, the Minesweeper, Dragon, and Solitaire ROMs also have portions of the Ding Dong CHR data; specifically the Hudson Soft byline at the very bottom of the data (Solitaire and Dragon only have the "K" and "E" letters remaining from it). I'm guessing there's some sort of connection here; maybe the "educational computer"-like software was recompiled by the same ex-Subor team as Pong/Free Way?
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I have now spent (too much) time trying to find out why the controller becomes unresponsive in that situation. The answer: The game reads the controller both in the main game loop and in the NMI handler. In fact, the NMI handler's controller read procedure interrupts the main game loop's controller read procedure. Since the controller is read by writing 1, then 0, to $4016, then reading $4016 eight times to get the result of the eight buttons (four buttons and four D-pad positions, actually), this implies that if a controller read procedure from the main game loop is interrupted by a controller read procedure from the NMI handler, the interrupted controller read procedure will read not the 1st-to-8th bit, but a 9th+ bit, in other words, it's basically a garbage read result. The game commits a logical error by having two controller read routines that can interrupt each other.
Now, why does it still work on VT02, but not on regular NES/Famicom? Actually, in NintendulatorNRS, it works on VT02 and with Dendy timing, but not with NTSC or regular PAL timing. Apart from frame timing, NintendulatorNRS will also emulate the controller behavior of a famiclone in VTxx mode and in Dendy mode, while emulating the Standard Controller behavior of a licensed NES or Famicom in NTSC or regular PAL mode. What is the difference in controller behaviors? The difference is that Nintendo controllers return "1" when a 9th bit and above bit is read, while famiclone controllers return "0" when a 9th and above bit is read. The game, despite being buggy in having two controller read routines that interrupt each other, will still work with famiclone (Dendy or VTxx) behavior because it's not bothered by the "0" bit, but is bothered by Nintendo controller behavior, because it sees the garbage "1" bit as a "phantom" START button press.
Long story short: Run the original extracted ROM in Dendy mode, or use the patched ROM that I created, which fixes the double/interrupting controller read behavior.
Edit: Regarding the full 270-in-1, it does not run unmodified because we lack the dump of a 256-byte serial security ROM. When patching out the security checks, it's not a pretty looker, either, as the attached pictures show. The mock-up screenshots in Amazon's item description (https://www.amazon.com/CULAGEiMi-Handheld-Portable-Rechargeable-Supports/dp/B0CLTT79PF) indicate that my emulated colors are correct.
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Thank you for analyzing and patching it. I didn't think to check it under Dendy mode; I have seen other ROMs that are strictly compatible under Dendy-like emulation, but not in regards to their controls.
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I have uploaded a v2 of the patch to my previous post that corrects the problem of stuttering ball movement as a result of the NMI race condition (https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/NMI#Race_condition).
Edit: I also found out that the unmodified ROM will work if you emulate a NES Four Score, as the 9th+ bits will then come from the third controller.
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Here are a few modified ROMs to fix the questionable music and collision detection in several flavors of Falling and Five Days. What I've hacked here is as follows:
*Falling was intended to use a rendition of the music previously heard in Warrior (a Night Stalker hack); however, it is massively sped up to the point of being indecipherable. This is seemingly due to the same byte being used to control the music speed of both Falling and Five Days; as such, Five Days' title theme sounds slower if run under this fix. Of all things, Penta Base runs the leftover Falling music at its intended speed; so I used the same byte change as that version to fix the music. Almost all variants of Falling retain the glitchy music, so I've attached fixes for every unique version that is not a title hack.
*Penta Base and Strafe - two graphic hacks of Five Days - change the level layouts to resemble an open net. However, they did not bother adjusting the shooting angles to accomodate for this; resulting in shots fired in a top-right angle ending before they hit the border (as a building blocked this path in Five Days). In the below hacks, I changed the angle trajectory to better match the backdrop's enclosure.
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Does anyone have a dump of the Funtime 76000-in-1 (or variants thereof)? I saw that emulator screenshots were added to the Power Racer article on The Cutting Room Floor fairly recently (https://tcrf.net/Power_Racer), but I've never seen a public ROM surface.
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The earlier revision remains undumped.
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Thank you for providing it. This is actually a very late revision from approximately 2010; there are many other scattered revisions that predate it. I'm surprised that it's a mapper 256 ROM, though I guess that explains how they were able to last on the market for so long.
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The earlier revision remains undumped.
Ha ha! Yeah, this is a multicart from the JonTron video!
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Would it be possible to restore the title screens for the VT-based Cube Technology games "Ball Switch" and "Rotation"? The actual titles for the games are Smash Futbol and Catch Copy, respectively; I was able to create full mock-ups of their original titles via the graphic code. Catch Copy also has graphics of a credits screen at the beginning of the ROM (which notably confirms some other instances of developer credits, such as the high-score table in Helli-Mission).
As a side note (which I may have mentioned here before, can't remember...), a few JungleTac games also have unused title graphics that have not currently been found or restored. The most amusing of these is Garden Maze, which was originally titled - and I'm not kidding - "Buy Drug". The others I've analyzed to have unused title logos are Dragon Fire, Fire Fighter, and Transportation.
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actually, that credits screen in Catch Copy occurs when you beat the game.
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Here is a work-in-progress picture.
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I felt like they only renamed it because their clients didn't like having a game where you attempt to flee the police after buying drugs. I wonder what Fire Fighter's title screen looks like.
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Thank you all for the information and help. I don't have full-scale mock-ups for the JungleTac title screens, but I can provide the logos; the Fire Fighter one is seemingly modified from the Fatal Fury logo, for whatever reason.
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And Dragon Fire is literally just the title screen from the game they cloned.
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Thank you all for the information and help. I don't have full-scale mock-ups for the JungleTac title screens, but I can provide the logos; the Fire Fighter one is seemingly modified from the Fatal Fury logo, for whatever reason.
You're welcome!
and i'll hit you with a plenty of other facts or assumptions:
-Maze Ball, Snack Time, Catch Copy and Wave Tiger are found along with some hacks and/or other hidden games in Dvd players for cars of the brand Land Rover (Manual with Games List are in the Attachments)
-Vani is actually Van-1 the Twinbee hack but with changed graphics and an extra Titlescreen.
-Alien Attack may be, thanks to the mechanics being described as "both A Button B Button shoot and throw Bombs", ANY shooting game containing this exact mechanic.
you're welcome and Shoutout to forgotusername for deducing Infos about Games from the Zenex 135 In 1.
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Two restored JungleTac title screens.
Shoutout to NewRisingSun for deducing Infos about Games from the Zenex 135 In 1.
Thank you, I guess, but I don't remember anything about that. What is a Zenex 135-in-1?
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You're mixing us up; I have the Zenex 135-in-1 console and added its information to the wiki (I plan to video record it soon). For context, it has one of the original Cube Tech VT03 games on it, Snack Time, among some other weird things ("Luga Open" hack of Tennis, Waixing VT03 conversion of Hit-Mouse, etc.)
As a heads-up, the game logic seems to be broken in the Fire Fighter ROM, though the title restores themselves look good.
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Third attempt. >:(
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You're mixing us up; I have the Zenex 135-in-1 console and added its information to the wiki (I plan to video record it soon). For context, it has one of the original Cube Tech VT03 games on it, Snack Time, among some other weird things ("Luga Open" hack of Tennis, Waixing VT03 conversion of Hit-Mouse, etc.)
oops! I thought NRS was the one who got the console. Excuse me, My Bad!!!
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Jungletac restorations are difficult. I hope I did not break something again.
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This one was not as difficult as the others.
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This one very much so. In case this game should be too difficult for you, here are the end credits with correct palette as well. The original VT03 game would not have music in-game, so I moved the music to the title screen.
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It's some VT03 Famiclone he bought with the original VT03 versions of Cube's games, and other stuff
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All of the restorations look good, thank you for fixing them. Out of curiosity, what is the incorrect Catch Copy credits palette the result of (assuming the prior screenshot was captured from emulator)? I have observed some other presumed-VTxx to VT369 (as well as VT32) conversions having odd palettes in later parts of the games, I question if it's a related issue.
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This is the last one of the ones that were mentioned.
what is the incorrect Catch Copy credits palette the result of (assuming the prior screenshot was captured from emulator)?
The VT369's compatibility to the VT03 does not extend to the palette. VT03's palette uses the HSV color model, while VT369 uses a 5-5-5 RGB color model, and the VT32 uses a 4-4-4 RGB color model. Each byte must be "translated" or converted, and Cube Tech only bothered to convert those palette bytes that they noticed. They did not bother to convert the palette bytes of the removed title screens, and forgot to convert the palette bytes of the end credits screen. Nice Code usually properly converted all static palette bytes but neglected or forgot to convert the palette bytes used for color cycling, such as the ones used for the waterfall animation in Curly Monkey.
So when I fixed the end credits screen in Catch Copy, I converted the palette bytes from VT03 to VT369 format that Cube Tech forgot, since I had to perform that task anyway for the palette bytes of the restored title screen.
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thank you very much. now i cannot wait for the Video of the Zenex Exclusives by forgotusername.
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Does the vt369 version of Fire Fighter still contain bits from the unused vt03 title screen, or could it be from a new title screen? When I was playing for a bit, the screen glitched out, the background became corrupted, and these "Fire" tiles appeared below the HUD.
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The VT369's compatibility to the VT03 does not extend to the palette. VT03's palette uses the HSV color model, while VT369 uses a 5-5-5 RGB color model, and the VT32 uses a 4-4-4 RGB color model. Each byte must be "translated" or converted, and Cube Tech only bothered to convert those palette bytes that they noticed. They did not bother to convert the palette bytes of the removed title screens, and forgot to convert the palette bytes of the end credits screen. Nice Code usually properly converted all static palette bytes but neglected or forgot to convert the palette bytes used for color cycling, such as the ones used for the waterfall animation in Curly Monkey.
I see, it is interesting that they didn't even bother converting the title screens properly before removing them. I (somehow) hadn't noticed the cruddy waterfall in Curly Monkey before, but I definitely see it when comparing the VT03 and VT32 versions.
Does the vt369 version of Fire Fighter still contain bits from the unused vt03 title screen, or could it be from a new title screen? When I was playing for a bit, the screen glitched out, the background became corrupted, and these "Fire" tiles appeared below the HUD.
It's attached to the HUD like that in the ProjectPNP copy, just in a rather close color shade to the backdrop. I don't see any graphics resembling a title screen otherwise.
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as i went through that Games List of the Car DVD Player, i have sorted out these games, that haven't been covered yet.
nevertheless i will give my assumptions to them:
Match - either a shortening of the IR Genie Game "The Photo Matches" or some other puzzle game
Shark - Unknown Fish game or just the Shark! Shark! Hack by nice code
Space Flight - Unknown Space game
Fighter 2006 - Eventually a Fighting game with YMK's own characters
X Battle - Unknown action game
Alien Attack - The one NES Hack with Both shooting and bombing simultaneously mapped to both buttons
Jester's Ball - Unknown Juggling game
Space Trek - Unknown Spaceship shooter
Magic Ball - VT03 Port of the VT369 Counterpart
In case someone knows anything about these, may respond to that letter of mine.
thank you in advance ;)
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It appears that the descrambling method of the dreamGEAR Wireless Video Game Station (dgun2572) was identified in MAME (https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/d9d53e4ed13d9da6b6c0c2b402c74e3d69a8c0f5 (https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/d9d53e4ed13d9da6b6c0c2b402c74e3d69a8c0f5)); this console is based on the "upscaled" VT369 hardware with the doubled-resolution versions of the Cube Technology hacks. Would anyone be able to post a modified/unscrambled ROM under these specifications? I couldn't determine how to decode it myself.
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Gameplay of the more notable games from the Zenex 135-in-1: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGqmY_QVHIWDypPhoRFb1EpM1D1pAQWr2
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Gameplay of the more notable games from the Zenex 135-in-1: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGqmY_QVHIWDypPhoRFb1EpM1D1pAQWr2
thank you very much! are there any plans on if this console will be dumped to rom format?
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Not currently, I wouldn't really be opposed to dumping it but don't have the means to do so (via shipping it to a dumping group or otherwise). I will add that there is another one for sale right now, if someone does want it for dumping purposes: https://www.ebay.com/itm/126287242337
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It appears that the descrambling method of the dreamGEAR Wireless Video Game Station (dgun2572) was identified in MAME (https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/d9d53e4ed13d9da6b6c0c2b402c74e3d69a8c0f5 (https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/d9d53e4ed13d9da6b6c0c2b402c74e3d69a8c0f5)); this console is based on the "upscaled" VT369 hardware with the doubled-resolution versions of the Cube Technology hacks. Would anyone be able to post a modified/unscrambled ROM under these specifications? I couldn't determine how to decode it myself.
MAME's code has become even less readable than usual ever since they fully embraced C++20 template shenanigans.
The ROM won't work because there is some kind protection feature that is unemulated right now.
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The games do seem to be extractable (I just searched for common text strings such as "NAMCO" to find game data), though emulating them under the current VT369 specifications doesn't display anything. I'm questioning if this is an incomplete dump, as I do not see any of the VT02/03 games that (AFAIK) are included on this console.
If it's of any note, I was able to partially make out graphics data in YYCHR via the "2BPP MSX Screen2" setting (the downscaled versions work under 8BPP SNES Mode7). The graphics display at 8x scale horizontally in this mode, though the true pixel count does appear to be exactly double that of the original graphics (e.g. 32x32 pixels for Pac-Man's sprite).
I attached rips of the Pac-Man and Sqoon hacks below. The coding is similar enough to the lower-resolution versions to where I assume these are complete game extracts.
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I was able to understand how the silly protection device works. The menu still doesn't work, but the Pac-Man and Sqoon extracts at least show high-resolution backgrounds. Now, to get the sprites to display.
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Excited to see it (partly) working, best of luck getting the graphics visible.
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There seemed to be some confusion as to if this hack was dumped, so I've attached an extract of it here (sourced from the "Game 500-in-1" ROM). It's a presumably Funtime-affiliated "Harry Potter" hack of Magic Carpet 1001, predating the common Inventor version. It's probably headered incorrectly here, I couldn't get it to bankswitch.
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Apparently a version of JungleTac’s Frogger port is on a NJ Pocket system. Which I didn’t even know they made more NJ Pockets or even did the VT1682 system at all. It probably isn’t dumped, but I really want to know about this other NJ Pocket and this version of VT03 Frogger.
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Here is an assortment of extracts from the Retro-Bit "Go Retro Portable". I mainly wanted to rip some of the more notable Nice Code variants that I couldn't previously restore by hand; though I've also ripped the Shiru Tetris port (which differs from the My Arcade release) and two unused games, Mega Man and Gargoyle's Quest II. There aren't many mapper hacks included on this console (from what I could tell), though Thunderbolt Fighting Plane is converted to mapper 256; so I've included that ROM as well.
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The game already runs as mapper 4 submapper 4. I made a small change to the IRQ code to run it as regular MMC3. I only checked the initial screens, however.
I didn't have time to press the A button after defeating the level 2 boss, and I had this situation. The music is still playing, the screen is twitching, and you cannot return to the game.
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The original release of Thunderbolt II seems to use the NROM mode of Mapper 115 as some kind of copy protection: the game reads data from the last two 8KB PRG bank after switching to NROM mode, then immediately changes back to MMC3 mode. NOPing out the routine will not spawn any enemies. Does the VT02 hack from Retro-Bit patched out the routine?
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Taizou dumped a lot of previously unknown versions/undumped versions of Waixing VT02 games today from this “R36 Ultra” thing’s SD card.
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Surprised to see these dumped, especially given I had only just learned of the Waixing copyright variants from the Zenex console. A few things of note that might not be obvious:
*It appears that some of the games, despite sharing Waixing titles, were substituted with Nice Code/Power Joy versions; this includes Archery, Backstroke, Goal Keeper, Shudu, Slots Machines, Star, and Triple.
*Could be coincidental, but something about the (previously-undocumented) "Butterfly" and "Play To Shoot" hacks strongly remind me of two other Waixing-derived Nice Code variants, Parkinof and Ranchboy. I think it's the color palettes and overall shoddier-than-usual quality that indicate this to me...
*Close Quarters does appear to have been an alternate copyright revision, but it only reads off of seven characters that are blanked out in the CHR; I can't conclude what it was meant to credit.
*I had previously noticed a discrepancy with the colors of Hitting (Magic Egg hack) between the Play Vision version and the prior-dumped Waixing version. This console seems to use the unaltered Play Vision ROM; showing that, between both versions, they merely swap the CHR color values rather than altering the actual palette. As to why they did this, who knows.
*Plush Dog has the dog-hitting sprite slightly altered, and appears to be a different revision in code otherwise.
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Here is an incomplete attempt of analyzing the encryption seen in recent VT32 systems, namely the My Arcade Tetris systems and the "Retro Racer" 30-in-1 by Orb. I'm at a loss as to what could be done further, so any assistance with interpreting the code and/or ripping the remaining games would be appreciated.
The .zip file below features the code analysis in its .txt file, as well as various extracted ROM examples. I have also separately attached three games which were not dumped previously, two of which were successfully decoded.
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That's not an encryption; it's just that the games were binary-hacked to call a subroutine placed in PRG-RAM at $6000-$7FFF (usually at $6100) that checks the status of the volume button and adjust the main volume if pressed. Since it is the menu that places the respective subroutine into PRG-RAM, the extracts won't find it there, and therefore crash or exhibit other strange behaviors. This was present in many VT32 consoles before; I removed those subroutine calls from the extracted files in Project Plug-and-Play.
For example, in Speed Challenge, I would set a breakpoint on execution between 6000 and 7FFF to find that the JSR address is 6100. I therefore search for the instruction "JSR $6100" (20 00 61) and find it at file offset 20003, which is of course the PRG-ROM's footer. In the debugger, I see it is part of an added routine at FFF0 that consists of a JSR D01B, JSR 6100, and RTS. I therefore replace all instances of 20 F0 FF with 20 1B D0 and clean out the footer at 20000 with FF. Doing that, I arrive at what you called the "decrypted" ROM. So you already did everything correctly; you just attributed it to an incorrect causal explanation. :)
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Understood for the most part. I was able to follow your instructions, but I still could not conclude how to find what the replaced pattern is (in cases where it is not 20 F0 FF). Some of the ROMs read the $6100 instruction in places outside of the footer; Baseball has it at 7DF2 for example. Working off of HEX, I can just search [20 00 61] to find the code area.
I was able to fix all but four of the previously-unripped games (the missing ones being Baseball, Beach Volleyball, Ice Hockey, and Racing Rivalry). As I had mentioned before, there are a number of unused games on the Tetris system, though the majority have been dumped elsewhere (unaltered NES Tetris, VT03-based Bubbles and Horrible Area, commercial Data East games, etc). I somewhat expected to find greater unused contents here, as my (non-Tetris branded) copy of the console features undumped VTxx hacks in place of the Nanjing sports games; though they are not present in the code at all.
An improved bundle of games is attached below, pre-decoded and uncommon titles only; also attached is a better .txt summary for the sake of accuracy. I also restored some text in Forest Kid, though was unable to do so for Aether Puzzle.
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Some context surrounding the VT03 hacks on the discussed VT32 consoles, since I'm unsure if it's been explained here. Prior to the common 2010s VT03 and VT32 consoles, there was a separate set of Nice Code-based VT03 ports that were published by Shenzhen Niutai (as evident by their generic "© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED" string, among other factors). Notable releases featuring the Niutai variants include the "151-in-1 Games" console by Qi Sheng Long (which I do have, but it's been buried in storage for years), and the "G-Factor" Famiclone cartridges. For whatever reason, a handful of the Niutai hacks were added to VT32 handhelds beginning in 2022; though most VT32 consoles did feature a sole Niutai hack before this (Deformable, with its "copyright notice" removed).
In being able to compare the code directly, it's quite clear that Niutai's VT03 port of Forest Kid was the basis for the more common "Kong King" hack. The coding layout and some graphics are virtually identical, with Kong King reformatting one area to reduce its file size. As to why Nice Code licensed to Niutai first, and did their own in-house (?) VT03 set later, I have no idea; but I do feel it's important to note that, at least in some cases, Niutai's versions came first.
Images of the 151-in-1 game set can be seen in an old download posted by taizou (based on a rebranded console by Overmax): http://bootleg.games/BGC_Forum/index.php?topic=321 Do note that the console has a mixture of games from Qi Sheng Long, Power Joy and the like (and switches over to the newer VT03 set by game 63), so not everything on it is Niutai.
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Combined the graphics in 4BPP in the game Bird Eggs. Also I decorated the sprites for clarity.
Please note that this is only a demo rom, in this form it will work with broken graphics, because the format of graphic data storage has been changed.
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Here are the mssing games with the volume button JSR removed. In these cases, no footer was used, as the JSR $6100 was added at the end of the NMI handler. In such cases, I just replace the 20 00 61 with a 2C 00 61 (JSR $6100 becomes BIT $6100).
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Not sure if anyone brought these up before.
Tetris is ripped from an otherwise unnotable Korean multicart. Looks very similar to the one on MSX and Arkanoid-clone arcade hardware.
"Zhong Xue Jiao Cheng" is ripped from the Mapper 241 version of Xue Sheng Dian Nao dumped by temryu.
For the second one I replaced the first bank with the first bank of Zhong Xue Jiao Cheng and changed the reset vector to the program's entry point. So there're definitely unused bank and theoretically can be trimmed down.
(UPDATE: Temporarily taking down Tetris (K) (from 64-in-1 Game Station).nes before I get this fully work. )
(UPDATE 2: Seems Tetris only behaves well when the RAM is filled with 00. Re-attached it. )
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I've ripped 劲舞 (Jing Wu) from Subor 12.0 which only consists a single song. Probably the earliest trace of "ex-Subor Developers"'s DDR clone engine but I can't confirm that.
I also ripped 单词默写 (Dan Ci Mo Xie) which is more like guessing the word instead of reciting (since they literally didn't give you any clue and only gives a very short time to react).
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A couple of interesting things I found in the Yi Jian Da study cartridge's ROM. The mouse accessory is unemulated, but if you select PS/2 mouse in NintendulatorNRS as the second port you can control mouse with the first controller in a bizarre way. I believe there're more than one program in the ROM itself because Shu Xue Yuan Di shares the same bank with My Computer, but I didn't figured out any entry points for now (plus it would probably be worth more to do so if the accessory is emulated).
(Edit: The mouse accessory is now emulated, thanks for NewRisingSun for pointing out the setup of the mouse (which replaces "Ze Cheng Keyboard" in NES 2.0 header when setting up) in NintendulatorNRS. I am going to check out tomorrow. )
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Here're interesting stuffs I found on Chang Da's Educational Cartridges.
1. Individual versions of common Family Basic programs on these kind of cartridges (e.g. Calculator Board, Music Board) and "Letters Invade", done by hacking the extracted Family Basic portion in the ROM. This is actually much easier to do than other Family Basic variants (and even Nintendo's original Family Basic). Unfortunately Letters Invade has incorrect palettes that I may fix later.
*Side note: The educational cartridges has their Family Basic variants hacked to check certain values in the RAM and load the respective program. This variant of Family Basic just happened to have an easy-to-detect part of the checking program. I forgot where it was but you can do a quick comparison between them.
2. Sumangame's "Math Teacher"/"Shu Xue Jiao Shi" game which I've never seen before.
3. An unused menu lurking inside the ROM??? Looks like it was for a scrapped portion of a middle school learning software in the cart.
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I wanted to ask a question that has been bothering me for a long time. Are there normal (non-pirated) conversions of "Super Game" games on MMC3 that have copy protection removed or disabled? How many such conversions are available?