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D.K. VCS


Joe Musashi

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And with that I am happy to present the first "official" release 1.0 :-D

 

Congrats on this :) Now that you've finished, let's get some info added to Stella for this ROM. Please provide some information for the following properties (where applicable):

 

Cartridge_Manufacturer

Cartridge_ModelNo

Cartridge_Name

Cartridge_Note

Cartridge_Rarity

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I totally forgot about that...

Understandable, it's been about a year since the last update.

 

No judgement though as I know how that goes - hard to believe it's been over 2 years since my last update to Draconian :-o

 

I've been wanting to reboot it using the new Bus Stuffing, which has taken longer than I thought to develop. We've got an issue with it not working on some 2600 Juniors (and some 7800s). If we can't figure it out in another week or so I'll be rebooting it with the new CDF bankswitch scheme instead. It's like DPC+ with the fast fetchers, but uses fewer resources (so there's 2K more RAM and ROM available for the games to use) plus a number of enhancements (such as built in packed digital sample support and 32 datastreams).

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Played this a little bit last weekend and some just now. First thing that strikes you about DK VCS are the vibrant colors! Graphics and colors for this game are just gorgeous at this point. :love:

 

Difficulty ramps up nicely, but I'm still finding that jumping is a little floaty or awkward and is especially (or mostly) noticeable on the elevator stage. Have to really be careful in this stage or maybe it's the spacing of the platforms, I don't know. Just seems Jumpman soars a bit farther than you'd like. Gotta stand way back on some of those ledges to make the jump safely. Springs are *really* fast after the 2nd or 3rd stage too, yikes!

 

Rivet stage has the hammer located on the second platform vs. the fourth but is that due to hardware limitation with everything else going on up there or? I see the hammer completely disappear after you climb to the next platform and reappear when you climb back down, so figure you're probably just trying to avoid flicker

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I've had some free time to go through my final checklist:

 

attachicon.gifdk.asm.png

Not much had to be changed, there are only a couple of minor fixes compared to the latest release candidate RC3.

  • The boot screen message is delayed for half a second to give CRTs time to sync.
  • PAL colors for the title rainbow effect have been slightly altered.
  • ADSR sound curves of the intermission tune have been improved a little (should avoid some clicking noises).
  • Fixed a bug where Mario would accidentally jump at the start of a stage.

And with that I am happy to present the first "official" release 1.0 :-D

 

attachicon.gifD.K.VCS_1.0_170304_NTSC.bin

attachicon.gifD.K.VCS_1.0_170304_PAL60.bin

 

This is incredible. I for one, would love for this to get released in the AA store, but I am afraid it won't be possible due to potential claims by the the big N. Perhaps Albert could still sell DK VCS under the table through PM or using the "custom cart" link? I would very much like to get one and hopefully not be limited to X copies.

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Has collision detection been fully tested? On level 9 A barrel or fireball was able to get between Mario and the hammer (when it was in the up position) - thereby killing Mario. Supposed to be that way?

That's how the arcade version worked I believe.

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Has collision detection been fully tested? On level 9 A barrel or fireball was able to get between Mario and the hammer (when it was in the up position) - thereby killing Mario. Supposed to be that way?

 

That's how the arcade version worked I believe.

 

Indeed...The Arcade original* and faithfully ported to this version, allows Fireballs (and Firefoxes) the ability to pass under the hammer and collide with Jumpman while the hammer is upright. Donkey Kong PK/XM under the 7800 also correctly exhibits this behavior.

 

*See "Using the Hammer" in the aforementioned link.

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Has collision detection been fully tested? On level 9 A barrel or fireball was able to get between Mario and the hammer (when it was in the up position) - thereby killing Mario. Supposed to be that way?

Every version I can think of, except the Colecovision version, had this right. I have even missed a fireball on the 2600 original.

Happens on the arcade a lot if you are walking toward the enemies on higher levels.

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NES version took some liberties to make things easier. The hammer oscillates much faster on NES so the barrel doesn't have time to hit Mario even when running towards it. In the arcade the hammer is slower so it can and will miss the barrel if the timing is wrong. Another cheat the NES version has baked in is if Mario parks himself on a ladder with one or zero pixel clearance to the top of the girder, the barrel will not fall down the ladder. In the arcade game, you're playing Russian roulette if you do this. I guess Nintendo wanted kids to think they were good at home, then get schooled when they tried to play it in the arcade in front of their buddies! :evil:

 

Many arcade ports to NES, including Pacman, were neutered in similar fashion, but still far superior to the Atari ports.

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not

I meant period releases, not new homebrew. VCS Pacman vs NES Pacman. VCS DK vs NES DK.

 

Sure stuff like New Pacman 8k or Pacman Collection 7800 blows even the NES versions out of the ballpark. I'm constantly blown away by new homebrew efforts.

 

But the original releases of DK and Pacman for the VCS were turds. And ET. (ducks for cover)

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Difficult switches. I would have preferred more lives for the A position rather than less, but whatever.

 

Got it. Not sure why I wasn't smart enough to figure that out, but there you go. I thought I might have downloaded the wrong version or something.

 

I'm just tickled to death to see the cement pie factory level on the 2600, as well as the elevator level. I really do prefer the Japanese order of the screens. I never knew why the U.S. arcade version was ordered so strangely.

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NES version took some liberties to make things easier. The hammer oscillates much faster on NES so the barrel doesn't have time to hit Mario even when running towards it. In the arcade the hammer is slower so it can and will miss the barrel if the timing is wrong. Another cheat the NES version has baked in is if Mario parks himself on a ladder with one or zero pixel clearance to the top of the girder, the barrel will not fall down the ladder. In the arcade game, you're playing Russian roulette if you do this. I guess Nintendo wanted kids to think they were good at home, then get schooled when they tried to play it in the arcade in front of their buddies! :evil:

 

Many arcade ports to NES, including Pacman, were neutered in similar fashion, but still far superior to the Atari ports.

 

I was playing Famicom Pacman recently and was struck by how easy it was. I was able to hit over 50k on my first run through. That never happens on any of the real (i.e., Western computer or console) home ports.

 

But yeah, this DK VCS is something else. I'd love to show it to some of my NES loving friends.

Edited by zetastrike
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Another cheat the NES version has baked in is if Mario parks himself on a ladder with one or zero pixel clearance to the top of the girder, the barrel will not fall down the ladder. In the arcade game, you're playing Russian roulette if you do this. :evil:

 

...rts.

Actually the Japanese Arcade Donkey Kong will not drop a barrel on you if you are at the top of the ladder.

Another thing the American version changed.

 

P.S. Byte Knight and I made a 4 screen DK Arcade 2600 also. Link is in my signature. Play "E"asy Demo. ( Ends after 4 screens, Japanese order), then play "H"ard Demo for the next 4 screens.

I've been polishing it over the last year and a half.

Still it is my 2nd (almost) completed game.

I learned a lot. There are more than a few duplicated code sections that really bug me because if it were not duplicated I could probably put back in the opening "stomp the girders", but I am not up for such a big rewrite. It may cause overcycle / screen roll as we have pushed it past the limit and hacked it so it doesn't overcycle.

I still would like to add at least a high score while you play. And I should squeeze in there the Reset switch should work anywhere, not just at Game Over. I did add the Fire Button restart at Game Over, but that's not in this demo.

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I was playing Famicom Pacman recently and was struck by how easy it was. I was able to hit over 50k on my first run through. That never happens on any of the real (i.e., Western computer or console) home ports.

 

But yeah, this DK VCS is something else. I'd love to show it to some of my NES loving friends.

The NES version completely misses the "cruise elroy" mode where the ghosts, especially Blinky, speed up near the end. Best strategy is not to have a bunch of isolated dots laying about the maze whenever you near the end or Blinky will chase you down, unless you have a warp or a one-way gate nearby and grind the corners.

 

NES has a pretty faithful mockup of the arcade Pac maze, however the maze walls are one sprite tile thick, not two like the arcade, allowing the entire maze to fit vertically on screen. This means there are fewer dots (192 in NES Pacman vs 244 in Arcade Pacman) and Pacman and ghosts in general move slightly slower than the arcade, but the screen is a lot less smaller. I think the Tengen Ms Pacman release is more faithful to the Arcade than Tengen/Namco Pacman, but it scrolls up and down somewhat. It also have continues, multiplayer and fast modes, and a certain Easter Egg when playing as two player coop if you "bump" in the tunnels in a higher level.

 

It is a great port however if you aren't used to the frantic nature of the Arcade title. The look, feel, and all cutscenes are down pat. One thing I've been playing a lot of recently is my Namco Arcade plug and play. I crammed the PCB and guts into a Cigar Box but it's basically the same maze as the original arcade with all the nuances intact, except formatted to fit a landscape screen orientation, with the score, remaining lives, and fruit on the right hand edge of the screen. Common complaints are the arcade "patterns" don't work in this version, but I could care less about learning an memorizing patterns as that takes the fun out of the game.

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