Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

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DementedPurple
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Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

I know a lot of you will be saying "It's a bootleg!" But it was actually officially licensed by Nintendo for sale in other countries. But why did they choose to use Crazy Climber hardware instead of the original Donkey Kong hardware? And why did they use their own sound effects? It wouldn't have been too hard to program the original sound effects. Also, why are the colors messed up? I know that it's probably because Crazy Climber had a different hardware palette, but good god! Did you have to go for the most horrendous colors you could find!? It looked like puke! Also, why did they partner with Felcon instead of Coleco? They already had a partnership together for home console releases.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Crazy Kong is a shit bootleg, but when faced with supply problems Nintendo gave it a thumbs-up because it's better than nothing read rainwarrior's clarification below. Licensed or not, it was definitely born as a bootleg, and a bad one at that.
Last edited by mikejmoffitt on Thu May 18, 2017 11:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dwedit
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by Dwedit »

Crazy Kong's sound effects were from Crazy Climber, they probably used the same exact rom chips. They might be played back at a slightly different pitch. For example, the triumphant scream sound effect when you beat a level in Crazy Climber is the same as the Karate Shriek sound effect when you jump in Crazy Kong.

As for why to use Crazy Climber hardware, maybe it just wasn't earning as much as Donkey Kong, so they ported over the game. There was also a port of Pac-Man on Galaxian hardware.
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DementedPurple
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

mikejmoffitt wrote: but when faced with supply problems Nintendo gave it a thumbs-up because it's better than nothing.
Supply problems, hmm. First we have Donkey Kong shortages in 1982, then NES game shortages in 1988, Wii shortage in 2006, Amiibo shortage in 2012, and Nintendo Switch shortages in 2017... Hmm, Nintendo might be up to something.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Dwedit wrote: As for why to use Crazy Climber hardware, maybe it just wasn't earning as much as Donkey Kong, so they ported over the game. There was also a port of Pac-Man on Galaxian hardware.
I promise Nintendo had nothing to do with the porting of DK to Crazy Climber hardware, nor Namco with bringing Pac-Man to Galaxian hardware. These are bootleg efforts, and they are janky and pretty bad as a result.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by rainwarrior »

"Officially licensed" is a misleading way to put it. They sued them for copyright infringement and decided to settle on a deal where Nintendo could make some profit from it rather than just burn it to the ground.
DementedPurple
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

Yeah, it's also more glitchy then the original Donkey Kong, the original game didn't count the score for jumping over barrels sometimes, but Crazy Kong does that way more often. You know what, I might hack the game to fix it. However, it will be hard because of how little documentation there is for Crazy Climber hardware.
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Dwedit
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by Dwedit »

It's Z80 code, you probably don't have to interact with anything other than the processor itself for this type of thing. But unless you're good with debuggers and breakpoints, it will just be Yet Another Daunting Task (TM) to add to your enormous queue.
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DementedPurple
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

Dwedit wrote:It's Z80 code, you probably don't have to interact with anything other than the processor itself for this type of thing.
I'm confused. Why is the Z80 different then the 6502? It would still need to access RAM to write the palettes, name tables, sprites, and so on.
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Sumez
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by Sumez »

DementedPurple wrote:Yeah, it's also more glitchy then the original Donkey Kong, the original game didn't count the score for jumping over barrels sometimes, but Crazy Kong does that way more often. You know what, I might hack the game to fix it.
The cause (on the original DK) is actually pretty simple. Basically, when jumping straight up the game looks for a hazard right below you (like a barrel rolling beneath) and awards points if found. When jumping sideways the area it looks is widened as the hypothetical barrel could be anywhere on a much wider set of coordinates. However, the game doesn't actually look if you're jumping sideways, it just checks if you're holding left or right, and assumes that you are. So if you let go of the stick after initiating a long jump, the barrel needs to be a very specific location to register the score.
This is the same reason you can get points for jumping next to Donkey Kong on the rivet stages (or any other hazard) if you hold the stick to the side while in the air.

Maybe Crazy Climber doesn't do the left/right check at all and treats all jumps as standing jumps?
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by adam_smasher »

DementedPurple wrote:
Dwedit wrote:It's Z80 code, you probably don't have to interact with anything other than the processor itself for this type of thing.
I'm confused. Why is the Z80 different then the 6502? It would still need to access RAM to write the palettes, name tables, sprites, and so on.
The key here was "for this type of thing". Of course the Z80 ultimately needs to interact with all sorts of other hardware to make the game, but to fix bugs that are just in the game logic hopefully none of that stuff really matters.
DementedPurple
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

Alright, if you want something to be fixed, make a list of things you want me to fix. Thanks!
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by mikejmoffitt »

The palettes are a big one.
Crazy Kong looks pretty ugly. It would be better if he more resembled the DK design he is apeing in the first place.
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by rainwarrior »

Do you own a Crazy Kong machine, or is it a game you grew up with or something?

I'm curious why you're interested in making it look more like Donkey Kong, since there is already Donkey Kong.
DementedPurple
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Re: Why did Crazy Kong run off of Crazy Climber hardware?

Post by DementedPurple »

rainwarrior wrote:Do you own a Crazy Kong machine, or is it a game you grew up with or something?

I'm curious why you're interested in making it look more like Donkey Kong, since there is already Donkey Kong.
I just thought it would be a fun challenge. I don't have a machine, as a matter of fact, I don't own a single arcade machine. I'm going to hack it with MAME. Speaking of which, how would I hack a MAME ROM?
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