PlusROM High Score Club

[+Al_Nafuur]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Using developer settings, I had a crash too, when the warriors automatically switched the enemies to shadows. Before it would overwrite the score area with maze garbage.

The reason seems to be a stack pointer underflow, where it wraps to $00.

 

Edit: Also happens in player settings, also when switching to the shadows. Also at around 1200 points.

I tested @Nukey Shay's original disassembly from this post here:

 

And it also crashes around 1200 points..

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

27 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

And it also crashes around 1200 points..

Since he modified the ROM heavily with very little comments, I think it is better to start from scratch. E.g. by using a disassembly created by Stella.

 

Still a major task, since you have to understand the code before you can modify it. Especially if you want to stay within 4K.

Amidar (1982) (Parker Bros).asm

[+Al_Nafuur]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Since he modified the ROM heavily with very little comments, I think it is better to start from scratch. E.g. by using a disassembly created by Stella.

 

Still a major task, since you have to understand the code before you can modify it. Especially if you want to stay within 4K.

There seems to bee enough free bytes scattered all over the ROM. @Nukey Shay heavily rearranged the code to merge them, but he mostly kept the original Stella labels.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, Al_Nafuur said:

There seems to bee enough free bytes scattered all over the ROM. @Nukey Shay heavily rearranged the code to merge them, but he mostly kept the original Stella labels.

There are hardly any free bytes, Nukey mostly got the free bytes by optimizing the code.

[+Al_Nafuur]

27 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

There are hardly any free bytes, Nukey mostly got the free bytes by optimizing the code.

🤔

From the HSC logs it looks like you have found the bug

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

34 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

🤔

From the HSC logs it looks like you have found the bug

No, unfortunately it is not deterministic. With Stella's Time Machine rewinding you can circumvent it.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I got closer to the problem. It happens when you fill the last of the four corner fields and the warriors should turn into chickens.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

@Al_Nafuur I guess I found the fix: Before LF9BA, add ds 9, 0.

 

This fixes a chicken alignment bug.

[Mr SQL]

Just tried the NTSC build of Amidar, crashed just before clearing the 2nd screen.

[+Al_Nafuur]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

@Al_Nafuur I guess I found the fix: Before LF9BA, add ds 9, 0.

 

This fixes a chicken alignment bug.

Are you sure?

 

For me it only fixed it sometimes. The ROM still crashes for about 70% of the runs when finishing the 4 corner fields..

[Thomas Jentzsch]

9 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Are you sure?

 

For me it only fixed it sometimes. The ROM still crashes for about 70% of the runs when finishing the 4 corner fields..

I only tested Nukey's code and found no crashes. Therefore I guess the problem is in your additional changes.

 

Edit: I played a few PlusROM games without crashes. When exactly does it crash for you?

Edited June 14, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Al_Nafuur]

1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I only tested Nukey's code and found no crashes. Therefore I guess the problem is in your additional changes.

 

Edit: I played a few PlusROM games without crashes. When exactly does it crash for you?

Sorry, my fault. I made some other changes to the code, so your fix didn't worked right. I reverted them and now all seems to work fine.

 

I just uploaded the fixed HSC versions to the PlusStore.

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Why are the PAL 60 colors different than the original game's PAL colors? I guess Nukey modified the colors to better match the NTSC colors.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Al_Nafuur]

9 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Why are the PAL 60 colors different than the original game's PAL colors?

🤷‍♂️
I didn't change anything in @Nukey Shay's hack there.

There is one place where the PAL color was commented out and changed:

;  IF PAL
;       adc    #$98                    ;2
;  ELSE
;       adc    #$A8                    ;2
;  ENDIF

  IF PAL
       adc    #$68                    ;2 C6
  ELSE
       adc    #$A8                    ;2 76
  ENDIF

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 minute ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I didn't change anything in @Nukey Shay's hack there.

 

See above.

[vitoco]

13 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I just uploaded the fixed HSC versions to the PlusStore.

No crash this time, but the emulation exited when I pressed RESET in my 7800, as if I was moving the stick to the right at the same time. It didn't happen just once, so I tried few more times to test this issue, but I couldn't identify what more needs to happen (to have some score, moving the joystick after/before the attract mode, pressing the button, ...).

 

[+Al_Nafuur]

1 hour ago, vitoco said:

No crash this time, but the emulation exited when I pressed RESET in my 7800, as if I was moving the stick to the right at the same time. It didn't happen just once, so I tried few more times to test this issue, but I couldn't identify what more needs to happen (to have some score, moving the joystick after/before the attract mode, pressing the button, ...).

 

Most probably you died while pressing the joystick to the right. The attraction mode is not reading the joystick, so the last know state for the PlusCart is "right" and as soon you are pressing the reset button it is the exit signal for the PlusCart.

Luckily this should be easy to fix with just add a "lda SWCHA" into the attraction mode, so the PlusCart can peek and update the joystick status.

 

[+Al_Nafuur]

2 hours ago, vitoco said:

No crash this time, but the emulation exited when I pressed RESET in my 7800, as if I was moving the stick to the right at the same time. It didn't happen just once, so I tried few more times to test this issue, but I couldn't identify what more needs to happen (to have some score, moving the joystick after/before the attract mode, pressing the button, ...).

 

Just uploaded the fixed version. Unintentional ROM exit shouldn't happen on the PlusCart anymore.

 

Code has been pushed to the Git repository:

https://github.com/Al-Nafuur/PlusROM-Hacks/blob/main/High Score Club hacks/Amidar HSC/Amidar HSC.asm

 

This game has fought back more than expected. I hope this was the last issue with this HSC hack.

 

[vitoco]

26 minutes ago, Al_Nafuur said:

Just uploaded the fixed version.

It works great.

 

Now I need to learn the rules of the game 😂

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 hours ago, vitoco said:

Now I need to learn the rules of the game 😂

• The warriors turn at every corner 
• Except for one warrior who is patrolling the border
• The filled four corner squares turn the warriors into chicken some time
• you can up to 4 times per maze use the fire button to pass warriors for a short time

That's all I rememeber.

[+Al_Nafuur]

http://www.atarimania.com/2600/boxes/hi_res/amidar_standard_cart_3.jpg

[kermit73]

12 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

• The warriors turn at every corner 
• Except for one warrior who is patrolling the border
• The filled four corner squares turn the warriors into chicken some time
• you can up to 4 times per maze use the fire button to pass warriors for a short time

That's all I rememeber.

And because the warrior AI is so predictable, it's pretty easy to come up with a pattern for the game and essentially play forever.

 

I broke 300k in a 5-hour game, suggesting it would require more than 15 hours to roll the score at 1M with the pattern I used.  I think my pattern comes pretty close to maximizing the rate of scoring since it captures all the chickens (on all except maybe the first board or two) and the time pausing or backtracking is minimized.  Another factor is due to some bugs in the scoring, if you complete two boxes in the same move, you only earn points for one of the boxes.  If I ever go back to this game, I might look for ways to improve the pattern to reduce the number of times this happens.

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 hour ago, kermit73 said:

And because the warrior AI is so predictable, it's pretty easy to come up with a pattern for the game and essentially play forever.

I suppose the arcade version did better?

[kermit73]

2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I suppose the arcade version did better?

I'm not sure on that one, but I expect it had smarter AI. 

 

Back in the day, I only recall seeing this game in an arcade (or rather, a movie theater) once and probably only dropped a quarter in the machine once or twice.  I definitely got more hours in on the Atari 2600 version and only recently took the trouble to develop a pattern.

[+Al_Nafuur]

@cd-w (Chris Walton) has allowed Juno First to be added to the PlusROM High Score Club.

 

Just like Chetiry Juno First displays the first 3 characters of the username of the current online high score list.

 

The hack has been in the works for a while, but finally we managed to get it released to the HSC. Unfortunately, the release comes at a time when AtariAge has decided to remove all unlicensed arcade ports from the shop. What this means for the HSC or public repositories like the PlusStore remains to be seen.

The source code with the PlusROM functions for the HSC backend added can be found at the PlusROM example/hacks github repository:
https://github.com/Al-Nafuur/PlusROM-Hacks/tree/main/High Score Club hacks/Juno First HSC
 

As always, PlusCart user/tester can find the PAL60, and NTSC versions in the PlusStore directory "Public ROMs\PlusROMs\High Score Club" or in "Recently Added ROMs" for the next few days.

The NTSC version can be played online in javatari.js. The ROM-file can also be played with Gopher2600, or the newest version of Stella.

The "PlusROM High Score Club" page for Juno First:
https://highscore.firmaplus.de/game/48