Jump to content
IGNORED

Like Pitfall? Like Ponies?


plusX

Recommended Posts

Daring Do versus the Everfree Forest is My Little Pony meets Pitfall.

 

Play online, grab the rom, see the box cover, read the manual, find a modded Explorer's Club patch and leave comments all at the site http://daring.do

 

I've spent too much time on it to judge it objectively, so I'm curious what others think. Thanks for playing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've spent too much time on it to judge it objectively, so I'm curious what others think. Thanks for playing.

It looks like a very good and extensive hack. It also looks like you've put alot of work into your web page & it looks great. I'd like to see a manual describing what each thing now does. I noticed that one enemy shoots & will stun you, and another thing makes you double-wide. I'd like to see some of these hacks added to the original Pitfall as well... especially the colors behind the forest. The only thing about your hack that I would suggest changing is the pony's legs. The standing sprite & running animation could use some work. It kinda looks more like a spider than a pony. I know it's difficult to make it look right with just 8 pixels wide, but that's my suggestion. It might also help if the legs aren't a different color than the body. I don't know. Jrok was able to make a good looking sprite of a knight on a horse with just 8 pixels in his 1st iteration of Charge! which might be helpful to look at. His newer version combined 2 sprites to make the horse so that one probably wouldn't be helpful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you -- exactly what I was looking for, and you're right about the crazy legs effect. That's something I stopped working on because it was hard, not because it was done, then I just learned to overlook it.

 

There is a manual though -- the link is on the left side of the page. However, it is just the Pitfall manual word-for-word with some pony-related noun substitutions to match the game. While this is hilarious (to me), I never actually thought about the manual in terms of teaching someone to play the game until your comment. Cobras and fires speak for themselves, cockatrices (the thing that stoned you) and poison joke (the thing that nu-sized you), not so much.

 

I'll look at the running animation this week. You see it every frame and the cool "running man" animation really is the core of Pitfall, so it has to be better. 4 legs in 8 bits is tough, though. Maybe the solution is to rename it "My Little Spider".

 

One concrete gameplay question, if you happen to know -- did you play enough to assess the difficulty of jumping the underground Diamond Dogs (new scorpions)? I'm terrible at jumping them, but I'm terrible at jumping the scorpions as well, so I can't judge whether they are too difficult in their new shape.

 

Thanks again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a manual though -- the link is on the left side of the page.

I had tried clicking that link, but it does nothing for me. I thought maybe it was my browser, but I don't know. The url says "http://daring.do/daring.html#" and I'm really rusty with html, but I didn't think a # would do anything but take you to a different spot on the same page if you have it as a marker in your code (such as #top, #bottom, etc.) So, I thought maybe it wasn't just a problem with my browser.

 

One concrete gameplay question, if you happen to know -- did you play enough to assess the difficulty of jumping the underground Diamond Dogs (new scorpions)? I'm terrible at jumping them, but I'm terrible at jumping the scorpions as well, so I can't judge whether they are too difficult in their new shape.

I didn't compare the new and old sprites side-by-side, but the new ones "look" a bit smaller than the old scorpion sprites, so they should be easier to jump. I'm not very good at jumping the scorpions in Pitfall either. They're much easier in Pitfall II. I "think" I could jump them easier in your hack, but they are still the things that kill me off when playing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a manual though -- the link is on the left side of the page.

I had tried clicking that link, but it does nothing for me.

...

 

It works for me - here's the text:

 

DARING DO BASICS

 

The object of Daring Do vs. the Everfree Forest is to guide Daring through a maze of jungle scenes, jumping over or avoiding many deadly dangers, and helping her grab the most treasures in the shortest possible time.

 

1. Make sure your system has the Java plugin v 1.6 or higher installed.

2. Keep your mouse inside the game area.

3. Press F1 for a new game, or to reset the game at any time. The timer starts as soon as you move the pony.

4. CONTROLING DARING DO

 

* To run left or right...use the left or right arrow keys.

* To jump over dangers...press the space bar while running to the right or the left.

* To climb up or down ladders...push the up arrow to climb, down arrow to descend.

* To grab a swinging vine...press the space bar while running to the right or to the left.

* To let go of the vine...push the down arrow at the end of a swing.

* To collect a Treasure...just run right to it.

 

5. SCORING.

 

You start each adventure with 2000 points. Some misfortunes will cause a deduction of points. Should you fall down a hole by accident, you will lose 100 points. Parasprites will also cause point loss depending on how long contact is made with them. Each treasure you find will add points to your score. There are eight of each type of treasure in the entire game, 32 in all, for a total of 112,000 points. A perfect score is 114,000 points (reached by collecting all treasures. without losing any points by falling down holes or being attacked by parasprites).

 

* STATUE = 5000 POINTS

* SAPPHIRE = 4000 POINTS

* EMERALD = 3000 POINTS

* ZAP APPLE = 2000 POINTS

 

6. TIME.

 

You have 20 minutes to complete each adventure. Daring Do has 3 lives in each game (See “The Hazards of the Game”) Game is over when Daring Do is “lost” for the third time or when time runs out.

SPECIAL FEATURES OF DARING DO VS. THE EVERFREE FOREST BY PONYVISION

There are 255 forest scenes through which Daring Do can travel. Each scene covered underground is equivalent to three on the surface. The forest is a circular maze, which means that, if Daring safely goes through all 255 different scenes, she will come back to the starting point. In the course of that journey, Daring Do will also encounter all 32 treasures.

 

THE HAZARDS OF THE GAME

 

Daring Do‘s Everfree Forest adventure is fraught with danger. Some hazards will slow her down and rob you of points, while others will stop her cold in her tracks. The “lesser” hazards are the open holes in the ground and parasprites (See “Scoring”). The catastrophic hazards are the diamond dogs, swamps, quicksand and tar pits. These obstacles will not cost you points, BUT they will cost one of Daring Do‘s 3 lives. When you hear them singing, you may be able to call upon the sea ponies to help you pass these hazards safely. The cockatrice‘s evil gaze can turn you to stone for a time, while the effect of poison joke ranges from the modestly annoying to the deadly.

 

GETTING THE FEEL OF DARING DO VS. THE EVERFREE FOREST BY PONYVISION

 

You cannot excel at Daring Do vs. the Everfree Forest without acquiring a variety of skills. The most important is “jumping”. You'll need to use both the space bar AND arrow key at the same time in order to make Daring jump up to a swinging vine. Jumping is also important when you leap atop sea ponies while crossing the swamp OR when you hurdle over parasprites, holes, diamond dogs, cockatrices and poison joke. Special care should be taken when you jump diamond dogs; the margin for error is less.

To practice your skills, try running to the right. Learn to jump the parasprites and the holes in the ground first, then tackle the tougher skills of swinging on the vine and jumping over the sea ponies. Whenever Daring Do is lost, you'll get another chance to try the hazard again, since the “replacement” Daring appears on the left side of the screen.

 

JOIN DARING DO’S EXPLORERS’ CLUB

 

If you score 20,000 points (or more) on any one of your adventures with Daring, you will be eligible to join this prestigious organization. Just post a link to a screenshot or playthrough video, and you will be FULLY AUTHORIZED to display this special Explorers’ Club membership emblem on your site.

 

post-12950-0-59089400-1345476140_thumb.png

Edited by Impaler_26
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ah -- the link is javascript-driven and raises a css popup. Debugging that would be for a whole other site. Still, since it didn't work for at least one person it might help to add a pdf download. It's weird having to actually account for all of these variables -- I was comfortable just blowing off the mobile users, for instance, since they don't have java anyway, But now I see them in the logs and I'm mortified that they're stuck looking at some weird jumble.

 

Impaler_26: Thanks for playing!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

An excellent, impressive, and very extensive hack.

My humble two cents constructive comments:

 

-The greatest/hardest challenge of Pitfall! has been taken completely out. All you need to do is jump across three things with almost no challenge. If possible find away to perhaps have the first and third open in harmony while the second one is closed and vice-versa in order to provide a greater challenge then just jumping on top of the three things; since there is no way to really allow the pony to stand on one while say a "mouth" opens.

 

-Change the font of the score and timer.

 

Thank you for sharing this with the community.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any way to get the ROM without being redirected to install Java for Windows? I briefly see the link but then I get pushed to an install Java site I guess in order to see the flash version.

 

Thanks for pointing that out -- I completely forgot to test w/o java enabled & used Oracle's own deployment script. Figures they would do something like that. I've changed it so that it shows Impaler's set of screenshots w/ a message when there is no java enabled. But web programming is just workarounds on top of workarounds, so who knows. It worked for chrome and firefox on linux -- I can test windows later on. I'd appreciate if you'd let me know if it works for you.

 

MrAtari2600 -- Now mine! Thanks!

 

Trebor -- Excellent point. In fact the screen is even more ruined than that. In the original Pony series, there is a bizarre scene where the hero is eaten by a giant clam and then it's boom -- sea ponies out of nowhere singing the song you hear and saving the day. So the gag is that while the song is playing, you are immune from drowning and don't even have to jump them. This is hilarious to all three people who will get the joke, but you're correct that the game suffers every time you play while the joke is only funny a few times if at all. Not really a good trade-off. Your solution is good for the size issue, but I'm not sure if I want to go all-in and have sea ponies that sometimes sing you to shore and sometimes drag you to the bottom to die. I will think about ways to salvage that screen, though.

 

Impaler -- Nice! At 29k points, you realize you are now FULLY AUTHORIZED to flash that Explorer's Club badge any place you choose. And moving to the right, no less!

 

KevinMos3 -- I may have made some progress on the run cycle, though it will require I squeeze in more code and I'm only half sure it will work. This has been helpful:

, though it doesn't translate directly into pixels. I've also learned that single-pixel diagonals are a fantasy unless they're completely isolated. What I have now is only 3 or 4 frames, as opposed to Pitfall's 5, and not as smooth. But if Daring Do doesn't look more like a pony, she looks less like a tumbleweed. Hopefully I'll be able to wedge it into the game in the next few days.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

New sprites!

 

I went to school on that Richard Williams video and really improved the run cycle. Where before Daring Do glided on a cloud of pixel dust, she now jauntily trots through the forest like Steamboat Willie meets Moon Patrol. Or as close as I can get in 8 bits. The legs still aren't perfect, but the whole thing is much more alive. The key for me was when he explicitly said not to bother trying to animate a horse by moving its legs -- concentrate on the body. I think it looks miles better. I wanted to buy series the video comes from out of gratitude to the guy, but found out it's $1,000. Not that grateful.

 

For those interested in the technical details, I cut back the cycle from 5 frames to 4, and used some of the bytes that freed up for a table of offsets for the color pointer so the color bands can track her as she bobs up and down in the frame. Of course, this meant I would have to stuff the lookup itself into the code, which is what I was worried about in the last post. I hadn't really looked at the code in months and what's in there is crammed pretty hard. But I found the best place for it and *right at that very line*, there is a weird load and store of the high byte of some other table. This byte is stored during init and never overwritten, so I cut the rewrite and replaced it with my lookup for the easiest hack ever.

 

So now I have the remaining bytes from the sprite, plus a few bytes from changing the frame-cycling logic to a simple and 0x03. This gives me a bit of sea room if I think of something clever to fix the crocodile problem Trebor pointed out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any way to get the ROM without being redirected to install Java for Windows? I briefly see the link but then I get pushed to an install Java site I guess in order to see the flash version.

 

Thanks for pointing that out -- I'd appreciate if you'd let me know if it works for you.

 

By the way, the change totally works, I can get the site just fine now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Is it possible for you to make a PAL60 version of the game? I really want to play it on my Harmony but the colours make the game unplayable on a PAL system. :)

 

PS: From what I've seen so far this is pretty cool, btw! :)

 

This attachment has the PAL colors "fixed", but the gameplay and songs really suffer when it's clocked back, at least on stella.

 

I'd be curious if anyone has played the NTSC on a Harmony cart. Someone was asking if he could have the game burned to a classic cart, but I'm not sure how much vblank I ate up with my mods.

 

Also, this is pretty funny. Someone rage-played on youtube, complaining that the game kept freezing up on him. He didn't realize you only get three lives per game. It makes me wonder how many of the players are that completely baffled by the game. Ahh, the kids today.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_E772jP5ug

dopal.bin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I'd be curious if anyone has played the NTSC on a Harmony cart. Someone was asking if he could have the game burned to a classic cart, but I'm not sure how much vblank I ate up with my mods.

 

 

If it ever proves to work on actual hardware, are we allowed to put it on a custom cart? It's just too cool not to break out at parties. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

For great pony, I have gotten my hooves on a Harmony cart. As far as I can tell, Daring Do works just fine! My 7800 tends to turn everything green for somereason and my old CRT is no better so I can't tell if anything looks wonkey there, but there is no rolling image or anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...