Smurf Revisited

[mozartpc27]

On 10/9/2023 at 11:01 AM, OurVision said:

We appreciate your hard work Captain. [b]Smurf Rescue is in my opinion the most important game for the ColecoVision[/b] and I am happy you did such a thorough  job disassembling it. I bet a huge # of ColecoVisions were bought because of the Smurf cartridge.

This is an interesting opinion that I have never come across... what makes you say this?  Even as a kid I found this game to be pretty terminally boring, although I guess looking back the graphics were impressive for the time.

[Northcoastgamer]

Good evening Captain. A few years back the Q*berts Qubes famous lockup/freeze was mentioned and talked about briefly when we played it for a round in the Colecovision High Score Club. I believe you said you might disassemble that as well. I was wondering if you ever have disassembled Q*berts Qubes and found the reason for the lockup. Thanks for your contributions, interesting reads.

[Captain Cozmos]

Just FYI, at some future date I plan to update the Smurf Rescue Assembly to include Sound Reference tables.
This will make accessing the sound data more easily.
 

 

[OurVision]

On 10/28/2023 at 7:23 PM, mozartpc27 said:

This is an interesting opinion that I have never come across... what makes you say this?  Even as a kid I found this game to be pretty terminally boring, although I guess looking back the graphics were impressive for the time.

The game itself? A smurf bobs along jumping over hill and dale...well not so much the dale, or the hill really but grass...lots of jumping over grass. What's a four year old not to love?

 

So many parents bought so many Colecovisions because their sons and daughters liked the Smurfs, or the parents thought the Smurfs were cute and a good gift idea.

 

Smurfs were so popular it was crazy and I know for a fact that Smurfs shifted systems out the door because parents were comfortable buying it (because of the Smurfs).

 

Every family I knew that had a Colecovision had the Smurfs cart. It was literally the thing bought for Christmas. To me, it was Coleco's best decision gamewise.

 

 

[Captain Cozmos]

3 hours ago, OurVision said:

The game itself? A smurf bobs along jumping over hill and dale...well not so much the dale, or the hill really but grass...lots of jumping over grass. What's a four year old not to love?

 

So many parents bought so many Colecovisions because their sons and daughters liked the Smurfs, or the parents thought the Smurfs were cute and a good gift idea.

 

Smurfs were so popular it was crazy and I know for a fact that Smurfs shifted systems out the door because parents were comfortable buying it (because of the Smurfs).

 

Every family I knew that had a Colecovision had the Smurfs cart. It was literally the thing bought for Christmas. To me, it was Coleco's best decision gamewise.

 

 

In my readings and researching this game I came across how a truck load of Smurf Big Wheels (3 wheel bikes) was broken into a stolen from a Coleco parking lot.  They had the FBI involved and everything.  This is how popular the Smurfs were back then.
 

Edited October 30, 2023 by Captain Cozmos

[Geoff Oltmans]

Just a suggestion... I'd probably target a modern-day tool instead of a dos one for the generated results, z88dk or the like. Good job though!

 

[Geoff Oltmans]

On 10/30/2023 at 5:34 AM, OurVision said:

The game itself? A smurf bobs along jumping over hill and dale...well not so much the dale, or the hill really but grass...lots of jumping over grass. What's a four year old not to love?

 

So many parents bought so many Colecovisions because their sons and daughters liked the Smurfs, or the parents thought the Smurfs were cute and a good gift idea.

 

Smurfs were so popular it was crazy and I know for a fact that Smurfs shifted systems out the door because parents were comfortable buying it (because of the Smurfs).

 

Every family I knew that had a Colecovision had the Smurfs cart. It was literally the thing bought for Christmas. To me, it was Coleco's best decision gamewise.

 

 

It was definitely one of my favorite or my favorite games when I was a little kid for sure.

[zyzzle]

10 hours ago, Geoff Oltmans said:

Just a suggestion... I'd probably target a modern-day tool instead of a dos one for the generated results, z88dk or the like. Good job though!

 

It's not a DOS tool, but a Windows commandline tool. And it is lean and perfectly fine and wonderful. No reason to use any other compilation tool if this one works well and without bloat.

[Geoff Oltmans]

1 hour ago, zyzzle said:

It's not a DOS tool, but a Windows commandline tool. And it is lean and perfectly fine and wonderful. No reason to use any other compilation tool if this one works well and without bloat.

Ah sorry, didn't realize it was a Windows tool. Carry on.

[mozartpc27]

On 10/30/2023 at 6:34 AM, OurVision said:

The game itself? A smurf bobs along jumping over hill and dale...well not so much the dale, or the hill really but grass...lots of jumping over grass. What's a four year old not to love?

 

So many parents bought so many Colecovisions because their sons and daughters liked the Smurfs, or the parents thought the Smurfs were cute and a good gift idea.

 

Smurfs were so popular it was crazy and I know for a fact that Smurfs shifted systems out the door because parents were comfortable buying it (because of the Smurfs).

 

Every family I knew that had a Colecovision had the Smurfs cart. It was literally the thing bought for Christmas. To me, it was Coleco's best decision gamewise.

 

 

It was a cart I never had... and still don't.

[ColecoFan1981]

Good morning, Captain Coz...

 

I read on the old ColecoVision FAQ that Smurf Rescue does not work on some versions of the Telegames Personal Arcade.

https://www.overclocked.org/emucolecofaq.htm

 

As quoted from there...
 

Quote

 

...

Besides the games listed above, Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle is incompatible with some Personal Arcades...

 

 

Whenever you have the time, could you please try to look into this?

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

~Ben (ColecoFan1981)

Edited November 13, 2023 by ColecoFan1981

[Captain Cozmos]

6 hours ago, ColecoFan1981 said:

Good morning, Captain Coz...

 

I read on the old ColecoVision FAQ that Smurf Rescue does not work on some versions of the Telegames Personal Arcade.

https://www.overclocked.org/emucolecofaq.htm

 

As quoted from there...
 

 

Whenever you have the time, could you please try to look into this?

 

Thank you,

 

 

 

~Ben (ColecoFan1981)

If I had a TPA I could verify some of this stuff.

The real solution is now that the entire world has the source code, they can adapt it for their favorite system.

 

[Captain Cozmos]

I have successfully removed all of the pascal calls and routines then replaced them with the proper ones.  It runs just like before from what I can tell.

 

I am updating memory locations and may optimize the code some.
I don't think it will make it run any better but it should make it a bit smaller and more portable.

 

If you think about it, Smurf Rescue would be the perfect port to the MSX because it only uses a joystick.
 

If I had to create something to select game level and players then press fire, this seems like a worthy cause.

 

I will release the newest source as soon as I am done.

Peace

 

O3 Cozmos

Edited November 25, 2023 by Captain Cozmos

[Captain Cozmos]

Before I finish up and post the source if anyone out there would like to try this out and test it on various emulators and/or equipment.

 

No pascal statement, optimized (a bit) with a savings so far of 306 bytes non padded.

This has been padded to 16k which you ask yourself, why bother.
For which I replay, because I could.

Actually, I redid the entire disassembly but I used my old version as a guide so I did not have to inch my way through the tables.
After making sure everything was square.  I then proceeded to remove the Pascal calls.
I ran into trouble because I used an A register instead of a B which left me scratching my head at 4am and half asleep.  I figured it out the next day.

 

I also used the opportunity to identify the 3 timer tables that run the whole deal.  1 of them, which resets for the next round after the Smurfette tune is played, was a pain.

Of course, the Energy Bar has one and the last one has to do with the overall pace of the game.

 

There are too many memory locations to document so I located the majority of what is important.
 

In any case, test out this rom and let me know if there are any glitches so I can take a look at it.

The goal for this time is to perfect the game but not change it.  It's an exercise.

I may fool with it a bit, as per the rocky tune, but nothing serious.

This will basically be an addition to the existing source which I will also post along with the optimized, no pascal version.

O3 Cozmos
 

Smurf Rescue (no pascal) 55AA.rom

[Captain Cozmos]

Can Papa save the day?

Papa Saves the Day.rom

 

The start of something or just having some fun.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Captain Cozmos

[Zinister]

That's great.  Thanks for sharing.

Smurfette saving Papa would be be fun too.  hehe 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Zinister

[Captain Cozmos]

48 minutes ago, Zinister said:

That's great.  Thanks for sharing.

Smurfette saving Papa would be be fun too.  hehe 

My initial thought was to have exactly that but then I would have to write in some extra code in order for Smurfette to have a different color dress and shoes because of how many sprites the Smurf has and where they are placed.

I do have something separate in the works now that I have an almost unlimited amount of routines from disassembling these games.
 

I may end up doing a version of Chuckie Eggs or something very similar.

After I disassembled Space Panic I can now create a platform, ladder game all in pattern tables where I only have to supply half the sprites because of the proper use of the Reflect routines.

I can also mix them with RLE and anything else I want.
Smurf has given me a great jumping routine and how to play music along with the timer to tell when a tune is over.

If I thought it would give me some advantage I would rewrite Smurf Rescue with modern tools.  If I did though, you could play as any Smurf in the bunch.
 

Edited November 30, 2023 by Captain Cozmos

[OurVision]

Papa saves the day is really good Captain.

 

I've been playing it for two days!

[ColecoFan1981]

Hi Captain Coz,

 

In the future, I am wondering if you could also try and look into these unreleased Smurf titles?

Smurf Play & Learn (an early educational title for the ColecoVision)

Papa Smurf's Treasure Hunt (a.k.a. Smurfette's Birthday; was also planned for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision before being shelved)

Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle: Super Game (has more scenes and more enemies; was planned for the original Super Game Module and later the Adam computer before it was shelved)

 

~Ben

Edited December 1, 2023 by ColecoFan1981

[Captain Cozmos]

54 minutes ago, ColecoFan1981 said:

Hi Captain Coz,

 

In the future, I am wondering if you could also try and look into these unreleased Smurf titles?

Smurf Play & Learn (an early educational title for the ColecoVision)

Papa Smurf's Treasure Hunt (a.k.a. Smurfette's Birthday; was also planned for the Atari 2600 and Intellivision before being shelved)

Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's Castle: Super Game (has more scenes and more enemies; was planned for the original Super Game Module and later the Adam computer before it was shelved)

 

~Ben

I can only look into what is currently available.
As much as I have the ability to make these unreleased Smurf Title I would rather not get sued by SONY.  Then, would the game be the same as what was planned?  Everything is speculation at this point as most info on these games has been lost to time, mouth to mouth rumors and people interjecting their own ideas.

It's a shame really, because I understand exactly how Smurf Rescue was setup and how it works to the point that I can change the backgrounds within the limitations of the Coleco hardware
 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Captain Cozmos

[OrangeKryptonite]

Love Papa Saves the Day! NOT what I was expecting!! Maybe you could make one where Smurfette saves Smurf just like the DK game where Pauline saves Mario. That would be great for girls!!