Project Plug and play update

[NewRisingSun]

So I finally managed to fix the music in Balloon Shoot. The note table that translates note numbers to frequency values starts at F900, but the first five bytes had been replaced by tilemap data for clearing the START line. I relocated that tilemap data to EFF0 and corrected the start of the note table. This indicates to me that the original (CHR RAM having) version, wherever it may be found, had no or different music.

[forgotusername]

There are some additional Nice Code educational computer programs (though they all use a CHR chip), almost all of which are math-related. I've also noticed that many of the seemingly-CHR-RAM games only use ~16k of PRG, despite being compiled as 32k from source; I would assume this is also due to "educational computer"-like programming, in which two 16k-ish programs would be built-in to one 32k file.

I wonder if Music Moment originally used a mouse as a controller. It would explain why the game is physically impossible, as the character moves far too slow to complete the song. I would assume Eggs is also Nice Code's form of that educational computer "Word Game" with the elephant; it does seem there's an area for graphics in its PRG, though it's completely blanked out. I'm guessing this is because it was originally a Pikachu game (a single DreamGEAR console does feature the Pikachu version), which may have resulted in a more extensive removal.

[NewRisingSun]

On which PnP or multicart did the "Conte" hack of Hokuto no Ken appear?

Edit: given this ridiculous ASCII message at the beginning of the ROM file, I am 95% certain that this is fake and should be removed:

Code: [Select]

CONTE ENEGY @1999 INVENTOR LTD  CONTACT FOR DISTRIBUTION LICENSE, WE HAPPY TO WORK WITH YOU  :)

[blootooth]

Next round. I will not be releasing until New Year's Eve, so take your time coming up with even more ideas.

-Bear Love Penguin should be in the Cube Tech Hacks folder (probably)
-Cube Tech's hack of Dough Boy (Gear Master) should also be in the Cube Tech Hacks folder
-Dora Bros should be moved to the Homebrew Hacks folder
-Knok Knok from the Inventor Hacks folder is also one that isn't mentioned on BGW's Inventor page, not a real Inventor hack maybe?
-The current dump of Monster (Son Son hack) in the Project PNP romset lacks the Winners copyright

other stuff thats not in the romset:
!Other/Hacks:
-Crash (The Jungle Book hack)
-The Legend of Khresna (The Legend of Prince Valiant hack)

Cube Tech/Hacks:
-would their minor hacks of Baltron, Dada, Tennis, Bounce, Spar, Ladangel and Lunar Ball from the DEX multicart also count as an inclusion? their hack of Bird Week is in the romset and the ones i mentioned are on Cube Tech's BGW page as well.

Funtime:
-Pokemon 2000 (charizard version)

Nice Code:
-Boxes (variation of Boxes World [VT03] from the Sudoku Plug & Play TV Game + 6 Intelligent Games)
-Radish Farm (variation of Radish Field [VT03] from the Sudoku Plug & Play TV Game + 6 Intelligent Games)
-IQ Champion (D-CAT8 100-in-1 variant)

Waixing:
-Lawn Mower (variation of Lawn Purge [VT03] from the Sudoku Plug & Play TV Game + 6 Intelligent Games)

[forgotusername]

This is a pretty minor thing, though it would apply to many ROMs if implemented. Quite a few of the Nice Code ROMs currently in ProjectPNP have some slight issues (which do not effect actual gameplay/emulation), including the following:

*VT03 games using abnormal CHR sizes, such as 24k or 48k. From looking at various other files, I am quite certain they are supposed to use "standard" NES sizes from source (e.g. 32k or 64k), with the remaining data being blank "FF" tiles _{(and a single "00" per bank in non-Waixing versions for whatever reason)}. The issue of sizing may come from .wxn file conversions (?), and/or be related to the bullet point below.
*VT02/03 games with data of other game ROMs within their CHR. Multicarts often repurpose the games' blank CHR tiles to save space, which should probably be scrubbed out for extracted copies.
*Games which were compiled as using combined PRG+CHR, but are actually intended to use a separate CHR "chip"; this only applies to three VT03 titles (Lucky Time, Star, and Trooper).

I recompiled copies of all games I could identify as having these issues (attached below). This isn't something that necessarily has to be implemented (as all the games run fine either way); it was just something I was planning on doing anyway for personal use, which I thought may be relevant here. Also note that I trimmed some 256k ROMs to 192k, if the remaining 64k was entirely unrelated CHR data; it is possible the games are still meant to be 256k from source.

(EDIT: Also for the record, non-Nice Code-based Waixing titles do just seem to use odd CHR sizes like that. Only for the Nice Code variants do I believe the size is underdumped.)

[NewRisingSun]

Those size corrections are a bit too much to look at and add for the next version to be released around New Year's Eve/Day, but I will consider them for a future version, if that is okay with you.

[forgotusername]

Yeah that's okay, thank you.

[NewRisingSun]

https://unlicensed.games/libg/index.php?entry=Project-Plug-and-Play:-End-of-year-Housecleaning!

Any remaining corrections will have to wait until the next update, whenever that will be. (I hope it will be when the Hi-Res versions of the Cube Tech hacks are dumped! )

[blootooth]

https://unlicensed.games/libg/index.php?entry=Project-Plug-and-Play:-End-of-year-Housecleaning!

Any remaining corrections will have to wait until the next update, whenever that will be. (I hope it will be when the Hi-Res versions of the Cube Tech hacks are dumped! )

excellent, thank you!

[forgotusername]

There is actually one "hi-res" console listed in MAME ("dgun2572", see https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/master/src/mame/nintendo/vt_unknown.cpp), though I can't make anything out of the code... It's either a bad dump or heavily encrypted/compressed or something, as it doesn't look like any other NES-based code I've seen.

The update looks good, I don't see any issues with it.

[NewRisingSun]

Yeah, I cannot make much of anything of the DGUN-2572 dump.

[lancuster]

King Fishing has been successfully dumped:
https://forums.nesdev.org/viewtopic.php?t=25139