Popeye's Picnic ( Pitfall Hack)

[alfredtdk]

Popeye, Olivia Oyl, Wimpy and Eugene the Jeep went to a picnic in Yellowstone park, everything was great that day, the snacks, the fresh and refreshing air of the park and even the traditional ants of a picnic were present, it couldn't be better . Suddenly a strange fog appeared out of nowhere and made Popeye fall into a deep sleep, when he woke up it was already night and realized he was alone, where would the others be? Popeye hears a laugh behind him, as he turns to see what it is, he comes across the Sea Hag. Soon he realizes that it was all a Sea Hag plan ,the fog, the deep sleep, all to sour your happy picnic. Popeye without thinking twice goes looking for the missing, the task will not be easy, there are many dangers planted by Sea Hag during the course through the park. But that's not all, Sea Hag has a strong ally on his side to prevent Popeye from finding them, Bluto Odyssey (yes, Bluto from the Magnavox Odyssey version) who anxiously waits for his rival to appear in the underground passages that serve as a shortcut in the search. of the underappreciated. Olive Oyl will be with her heart a thousand waiting for the arrival of her beloved Popeye to welcome him in her arms, you will be able to visualize her beating heart symbolically behind her. Sea Hag also created with his magic the fake golden Olive Oyl for a fool, to disillusion Popeye in his quest.

Popeye's Picnic (Pitfall Hack) (2022) (Alfredtdk).bin

[Lost Monkey]

Interesting hack and backstory.  Just FYI, a "hag" would be a female. 

[alfredtdk]

I wanted to make Popeye's clothes closer to this version.

[LatchKeyKid]

Nicely done!  This one seems a bit more involved than your previous Lumberjack.  Is that just my impression or true in terms of the number of changes?  I posted in the other thread as well and have some questions about how you made those changes as I had hoped to eventually something similar.

[alfredtdk]

All done in Bithacker, my friend, with the exception of color changes, for that I use Cygnus HEX editor.

I will give an example, compare these lines in Bithacker. The one on the left refers to the original unaltered Pitfall code, on the right we have the Pitfall hack, Popeye's Picnic. Notice the changed lines of the hack to your right from 0E92 to 0E80.

Edited April 24, 2022 by alfredtdk

[alfredtdk]

5 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Nicely done!  This one seems a bit more involved than your previous Lumberjack.  Is that just my impression or true in terms of the number of changes?  I posted in the other thread as well and have some questions about how you made those changes as I had hoped to eventually something similar.

All done in Bithacker, my friend, with the exception of color changes, for that I use Cygnus HEX editor.

I will give an example, compare these lines in Bithacker. The one on the left refers to the original unaltered Pitfall code, on the right we have the Pitfall hack, Popeye's Picnic. Notice the changed lines of the hack to your right from 0E92 to 0E80 .

Edited April 24, 2022 by alfredtdk

[LatchKeyKid]

Thanks for the tips!  I think I can make out some of the sprites (upside down) in the bithacker layout.  That's definitely not what I was expecting!  As for hex editing, I think I'd have better luck reading the code scrolling by in the first matrix movie!  How do you determine which one is a color change?  I (incorrectly) figured that maybe you had a working dissassembled copy of the Pitfall code that you were tweaking in assembly.  I found an annotated version online of Pitfall but when I try to compile it in the Dev Studio it just gives me several errors.  If you're ok with it, I'd like to pm you for more advice so as not to spam your game thread with off topic questions about hacking.

Edited April 24, 2022 by LatchKeyKid

[alfredtdk]

3 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

Thanks for the tips!  I think I can make out some of the sprites (upside down) in the bithacker layout.  That's definitely not what I was expecting!  As for hex editing, I think I'd have better luck reading the code scrolling by in the first matrix movie!  How do you determine which one is a color change?  I (incorrectly) figured that maybe you had a working dissassembled copy of the Pitfall code that you were tweaking in assembly.  I found an annotated version online of Pitfall but when I try to compile it in the Dev Studio it just gives me several errors.  If you're ok with it, I'd like to pm you for more advice so as not to spam your game thread with off topic questions about hacking.

I wish I could help more, but I'm not a programmer, far from it. I'm taking the first steps in that direction.
The Homebrew scene is very strong here in the community, I would recommend sections like Batari Basic to solve all your doubts about creating a game from scratch, even more if you use this tool, we have great masters here on the forum that can eventually help you. so in this, create a topic specifying the doubt.
This will certainly strengthen the community even more, because everything here is a learning experience, it will not only benefit you but everyone here, a doubt from you can help another member to solve the same problem they are facing, that is, everyone wins.

 

https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories.html#batari_basic

 

https://atariage.com/forums/forum/65-batari-basic/

[LatchKeyKid]

10 hours ago, alfredtdk said:

I wish I could help more, but I'm not a programmer, far from it. I'm taking the first steps in that direction.
The Homebrew scene is very strong here in the community, I would recommend sections like Batari Basic to solve all your doubts about creating a game from scratch, even more if you use this tool, we have great masters here on the forum that can eventually help you. so in this, create a topic specifying the doubt.
This will certainly strengthen the community even more, because everything here is a learning experience, it will not only benefit you but everyone here, a doubt from you can help another member to solve the same problem they are facing, that is, everyone wins.

 

https://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories.html#batari_basic

 

https://atariage.com/forums/forum/65-batari-basic/

 

Thanks and good luck!  You've definitely already got experience with all your game versions posted here.  I was able to swap in some custom sprites last night thanks to your advice.  If I could just ask you one more question, how do you find the color changes in the hex code editor?  Is there a specific sequence that indicates a color being set or do you search for the hex code designation of each individual color?  Again, thanks for the help and I won't bother you more after this! 

[alfredtdk]

11 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

 

Thanks and good luck!  You've definitely already got experience with all your game versions posted here.  I was able to swap in some custom sprites last night thanks to your advice.  If I could just ask you one more question, how do you find the color changes in the hex code editor?  Is there a specific sequence that indicates a color being set or do you search for the hex code designation of each individual color?  Again, thanks for the help and I won't bother you more after this! 

It's no bother, if it's within my power to answer some questions, don't hesitate and feel free to ask.
It was through this Forum that I learned, because until last year I didn't know anything. Curiosity is a blessing, my friend. Without her, many of my works that are available for those who want to check it out would never see the light.

Answering the question, I first use Stella's debugger to identify the game's colors, having an X color identified in the debugger, I go in the hex editor with the game table, then it's a succession of trial and error until I find the color identified in the correct line of the game. game code. I'll give an example about Pitfall in question. Most of the jungle colors are identified in only one line, in this case the 0FB0 line. From the OC code onwards you can change with the desired color for the forest until you reach the A4 code, which refers to the crocodile lake.

See in the photos the two OC codes correspond to the white colors of the score, the time and the Activision brand logo. I changed them to the 2C color code.

The other sprites, Harry, crocodiles, bonfire, etc... are located in other rows of the table. So as not to forget, I write down everything, each identified code, in a text editor for posterity.

 

 

[LatchKeyKid]

That's alot of trial and error!  I'm guessing from the description you have to do that individually for each game.  Thanks for the detailed explanation and I'll try it as well.  So far I've just been changing sprites that match the original color to some degree.  Lol, Harry will be an obvious issue!  

[alfredtdk]

6 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

That's alot of trial and error!  I'm guessing from the description you have to do that individually for each game.  Thanks for the detailed explanation and I'll try it as well.  So far I've just been changing sprites that match the original color to some degree.  Lol, Harry will be an obvious issue!  

Some games are easier to identify the values, others take more time, due to the values being spread all over the table.
In the case of Pitfall the task was easier. the character Harry has several scan lines and therefore more availability in color values, you can make a character with multiple colors.
To make it easier, see the game table in the underlined lines. Harry's entire color palette (running and climbing stairs) focuses on these 4 underlined lines.
On the second screen, underlined refers to the other objects in the game, the crocodiles, the scorpion, the bonfire, gold bars, etc...
Just a warning when doing the coloring of Harry going up the stairs, there is a bug that I still haven't discovered the cause, you must be careful when changing some values for another, the character Harry loses lives when approaching the wells before even taking it the vine or jump on the crocodiles.
Well that's it for now, I hope it helps in building your game, any doubts ask, if I don't answer for lack of knowledge, maybe other members of the community here can solve your doubts.

 

 

[alfredtdk]

LatchKeyKid

I also recommend this topic, it has great tips on hacking Pitfall, such as the possibility of also making the snake and the bonfire move across the screen.

 

 

[LatchKeyKid]

I've definitely encountered the bug you mentioned.  It looks like it's specific to sections of Harry's pants when he is going up the ladder as you said and activates on the edges of closed tar pits.  I've got no idea how to find out why though and I really needed to change him completely to black in order for the hack I have to work.  That's a strange glitch.  I've been using the dissassembled version of Pitfall to figure out what's going on but my only method of "fixing" it is to start randomly changing things back and forth and see if they work.  So far changing the shape and other timing variables of the pits don't work.

 

Do you have a list of colors that are safe to use?

 

[alfredtdk]

2 hours ago, LatchKeyKid said:

I've definitely encountered the bug you mentioned.  It looks like it's specific to sections of Harry's pants when he is going up the ladder as you said and activates on the edges of closed tar pits.  I've got no idea how to find out why though and I really needed to change him completely to black in order for the hack I have to work.  That's a strange glitch.  I've been using the dissassembled version of Pitfall to figure out what's going on but my only method of "fixing" it is to start randomly changing things back and forth and see if they work.  So far changing the shape and other timing variables of the pits don't work.

 

Do you have a list of colors that are safe to use?

 

I would say that values from 00 to 19 are problematic to use in this region, to climb stairs, values above 20 are fine. Where I underlined seems to me to be the most critical point. Do you want to use black colors? I don't know if it's an example, I made a hack with the Dracula character who wears black clothes, but as there was this bug when using black colors when going up the stairs, the solution was to use very dark tones, like the one with a value above 20, I used the value of 22 in this case.

Catlevania Run - Dracula Edition (Pitfall Hack) (2022) (Alfredtdk).bin

[LatchKeyKid]

Thanks.  Yeah, I see when he climbs the ladder he changed color as well.  I guess I'll just have to settle for a non-black color like grey for the stair case section then.  It'll be a bit jarring but nothing I can do.  I have noticed that the colors seem to depend on each other and I don't know if they come from a table with a pointer instead so that the order is very important instead of just simply assigning a color due to memory constraints.  When you die going into the closed pit that is supposed to be safe, in the dev mode of stella it brings up a "inc DARK_GREEN" code line which may somehow factor in since that is the color of his pants in the code but I can't find the same line in the dissabled code to change.

 

I like the transformation into a bat by the way.  It's an interesting option to not have to jump over barrels. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by LatchKeyKid

[alfredtdk]

I would recommend a deep blue color, rather than gray, which even matches the black background of underground passages, the one with a value of 80 or 90.

I also think it's possible to circumvent this bug, the solution may be related to some line in the programming record.

[LatchKeyKid]

I appreciate the advice.  Yeah, some of the colors are coded into the game likely to save space and fit on the 4k cartridge.  I was trying to change for example one section of my replacement croc (the top two lines of each sprite) and you'd think that would be easy but you can't as they use the same code for both.  If I change the top to of the closed mouth croc sprite then two middle lines of the open mouth are striped in that color as well.  It would require recoding it to use different color tables and that's beyond me for now.  I was really hoping that it would just be a quick swap like the sprites.  Other colors are plus'ed/minus'ed in the code and shared across different things so that they're all interconnected so changing one thing results in other drastic unintended changes.