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Messages - codeman38

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46
Mega Drive/Genesis / Bomboy level layout weirdness
« on: June 16, 2015, 01:05:28 AM »
So thanks to this post from Lunatic Obscurity, I discovered something really weird about Gamtec's Bomboy-- or at least the dump that's currently circulating around the internet, anyway (md5sum = c5816740d93932870c5c466ea2931a4f).

Specifically-- through some quirk of programming that I'm not fluent enough in Mega Drive assembly to even begin to comprehend, the level layouts are completely different depending on which emulator is used. And even weirder, none of these match the introductory demo, which is consistent across emulators.

Attaching some screenshots to show what exactly is going on, because this is definitely interesting.

Edited to add: Versions used: RetroArch "stable" cores (v1.0.0.2), though I checked the latest nightlies and they produce the same result; Kega Fusion 3.63i; Genesis Plus 1.3.0 (all under Mac OS X).

Edit #2: Naturally, none of these emulated versions-- including the demo!-- match the layout shown on actual hardware (via Nusutto's footage).

Attachments:

47
2000-present / Shenzhen Nanjiing Technology game music
« on: April 18, 2015, 11:04:17 PM »
adrian09_01
Apr 15 2015, 01:39:46 PM
BTW2, has SNT got a some form of MIDI to NSF converter? The Candyfloss song from Yu-Gi-Oh after conversion to MIDI by NSF2MIDI with the original TH song's instruments sounds exactly like the Theme Hospital one.[/quote]Uh, wow. Turns out that you're basically correct about that. (Edited to add: Though see the added note below the line-- this definitely explains part of the story, but not the entirety of it, as there's still one major mystery remaining...)

I happened to stumble across this while looking up some unrelated stuff regarding VRTech's Famiclone chipsets:

http://www.vrt.com.tw/old_site/admin/upload/download/Sound%20Generator%20users%20manual_ENG_.pdf

The program archives referenced in the above document can be found at:
http://www.vrt.com.tw/old_site/admin/upload/download/midi2vt.rar
http://www.vrt.com.tw/old_site/admin/upload/download/FMDemo.rar

The best part, though, is the MIDI file which was included with that development kit, which I *am* totally attaching to this thread for posterity. That's right: both Nanjing and the developers of the OneBus all-in-one cartridge literally just threw the demo song from the dev kit into their games.  :lol:

So yeah, without a doubt, that clearly indicates where the Konami-esque sound driver from SNT's early games came from. But now that's only got me more curious about where the completely different-sounding one from their later games originated.
Hm, that still leaves some questions unanswered, though-- Yu-Gi-Oh was one of the later games, and those have a distinctly different sound from the earlier ones, with heavy vibrato and chunky noise-channel percussion. Maybe there was a later version of the MIDI converter? Or one provided by a different chip manufacturer?

It's not just the music-- the sound effects which are included in some of the NSF rips are also noticeably different. The ones in Tai Kong Huan Xiang match those in the above-linked development kit exactly (i.e., obviously reverse-engineered from some Konami game), and indeed, that's one of the "older" games. The ones in the Yu-Gi-Oh NSF, on the other hand, seem to be from somewhere else entirely. So that definitely suggests a different dev kit was at play.

Attachments:

48
Game Boy / Leftovers in Zook Hero Z
« on: April 18, 2015, 10:07:38 PM »
RVVD4029
Apr 15 2015, 09:06:35 PM
Well for the graphics you found in tile layer pro. I think the graphics are unused as the real graphics look nothing like that. For the god medicine by konami reference. It makes sense as vfame used their sound engine a lot in their fighting games for the gbc.[/quote]...uh? VFame certainly used Capcom's sound driver in a lot of their fighting games, but I don't recall them ever using Konami's.

However, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, there's still a loose Konami connection with graphics-- the dialogue font used in the (undumped and apparently undumpable) English translations of several of their RPGs is straight out of Survival Kids.

49
Other Pirates / Shocking (Korean pirate arcade game)
« on: January 04, 2015, 12:42:44 AM »
...Yeah, the song at 1:32 is definitely plagiarized. :lol: ("Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark!)

50
Game Boy / Star War 4 Warriors revenge (GBA pirate game)
« on: January 04, 2015, 12:22:20 AM »
I'm curious as to what this game's music sounds like (since it's been overdubbed in the video). Is it 8-bit Game Boy stuff, like Fighter Sonic et al? Or is it sample-based, like the more recent Digimon game that Sintax made?

51
Pirate Talk / What's this thread
« on: December 04, 2014, 08:44:16 PM »
As a random aside, the bar code on that multicart (671860013624) officially belongs to the CD "The Assemblage" from Cryptogramophone... but, judging from a Google search, it's also appeared on some very dubious-looking bottles of steroids. And possibly a voltmeter for electronic cigarettes.

...This just keeps getting weirder and weirder, doesn't it?

Also, that menu screen is kind of interesting in itself-- it uses both the Bubble Bobble 2 font (as frequently seen in Nice Code's stuff) and the PC Paint text font (rarely seen in Nice Code's work, but frequently seen in other companies').

52
Game Boy / Aladdin 2 GBA HK Original?
« on: November 08, 2014, 11:45:57 PM »
For CuppaKofe's sake (because this stuff is fascinatingly train-wreckish), here are some of the older threads about this series of bootlegs, including links to video footage from even more of them:


53
Other Pirates / Jungletac handy max 15-in-1
« on: August 28, 2014, 09:11:43 PM »
Oh, hey, the music in Jump Car (2:15 in the video) is from Shenzhen Nanjing's Golden Sun and Shui Hu Shen Shou ports. (Which is, in turn, a cover of a tune from Majin Eiyuuden Wataru Gaiden, but the instrumentation in the original game is different.)

Still wondering exactly what the connection between Nanjing and Jungle was, because there was obviously something going on...

Edited to add: Yep, definitely sensing a Nanjing connection in there somewhere. The off-key version of the Zelda dungeon theme heard in Space Castle also shows up in some of Nanjing's older RPGs.

54
Game Boy / Harry Potter 2
« on: August 17, 2014, 11:14:38 PM »
The game was developed by BBD, the same developer that later went on to make a lot of the games released by Sintax, and appears to have been released in 2001.

If my understanding is correct, based on the videos in this thread, your version is not the original BBD release, but a later (bootleg of a bootleg!) re-release.

55
Mega Drive/Genesis / "Magic Number"
« on: April 19, 2014, 08:11:39 PM »
Interestingly, judging from the auction description, this seems to be a Taiwanese knockoff/remake of a Taiwanese original. ("IQ Block" by IGS, specifically.) I wonder if there were any shared developers between the two companies or anything like that.

56
2000-present / Nanjing connection to "LEE" cartridge IDs?
« on: March 02, 2014, 01:16:46 PM »
I was randomly surfing around the Pirated Game Museum wiki and happened to notice this cartridge for "Ninja Cat" (a.k.a. Kyattou Ninden Teyandee):

http://piratedgamemuseum.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ninjac.png

Aside from the fact that bootleggers who made this cartridge couldn't tell a cat from a fox to save their lives, I noticed something else vaguely interesting: the sidebar reads "LEE02014 - NILEEA CAT".

At first, I thought, "wow, that's an even worse spelling of 'ninja' than is usual for bootleggers", but then I realized what must have happened. niNJa --> niLEEa. Which suggests that this cartridge probably had the ID NJ02014 at one point, and that this line of cartridges is probably connected, directly or indirectly, to Shenzhen Nanjing.

(Interestingly, this alternate version of the cart also has a LEE id, but spells "ninja" correctly.)

57
Pirate Talk / Help me identify this "Pokémon" bootleg?
« on: March 02, 2014, 12:52:41 PM »
There doesn't seem to be a single consistent name for the hacked version. This archived page from TRsRockin shows the GBA PocketNES version under the name "Pokemon Ruby Version 3", while Pirated Game Museum shows the Famicom cart under the names "Pocket Red" and "Pokemon Red Version".

58
Pirate Talk / Help me identify this "Pokémon" bootleg?
« on: March 02, 2014, 02:04:04 AM »
That would be Mitsume ga Tooru (三つ目がとおる - a.k.a., The Three-Eyed One) for Famicom.

59
Game Boy dumps / Handheld Underground dumps thread
« on: December 27, 2013, 09:37:42 PM »
A couple more weird findings:

World of Warcraft inexplicably has a "James Bond" title screen buried in its graphics. Perhaps another game that uses the same engine?

Digimon Fighter contains yet another variation on Digimon Amethyst's title screen-- "Digit Dinosaur: The adventrue of devildom" (sic!). The subtitle is in the same font as Digimon Amethyst's, but the title screen itself is based on the 2003 Digitmon Sapphire variation, complete with Croc. (And no, this isn't an English title screen for the beat-em-up game-- the tile bank that it's in is straight out of the Mario-knockoff platformer.)

Edit: "Digit Dinosaur" may very well be the original title screen for that platformer, possibly - it has "Copyright © Design by BBD" as part of the tiles. Also, the Croc in the "Digit Dinosaur" screen is a more direct copy from the Croc 2 title screen - it was redrawn for Digitmon Sapphire.

60
Game Boy dumps / Handheld Underground dumps thread
« on: December 27, 2013, 07:28:23 PM »
Interesting things from the ROM headers:

  • The Digimon game claims to be "SHAO-LIN" in its header. This is also (naturally) the header title for Shaoling Legend: Hero The Saver, which shares the same HUD and music.
  • Luo Ke Ren X, not surprisingly, has the same "EMO  -by WS" header from Sintax's Castlevania game.
  • World of Warcraft claims in its header to be "AVP". If I recall, there was a still un-dumped Alien vs. Predator game from Sintax-- I have a pretty good idea now of what engine it must use.

In fact, the only one of the new games that doesn't claim to be something else in its header is Feng Zhi Gou II, which has the title "FENG2-by WS". Curiously enough, that includes the same author initials as Castlevania.

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