Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

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Dwedit
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by Dwedit »

Dragon Warrior 2 had me stumped for a while, I still haven't completely figured out the map format for that game. (Referring to the non-overworld maps. Overworld map is simple RLE.)
I can extract them out of RAM no problem, but I never figured out the compression exactly.
But I don't feel like sending anyone out on pointless mission.
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tepples
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by tepples »

byemu wrote:Give a game
and I can teach you hwo to make a world map of this game!
Try making a map for River Raid for Atari 2600.
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qbradq
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by qbradq »

I thought River Raid was somewhat random. Is that not correct?
tepples
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by tepples »

River Raid is pseudorandom based on a constant seed. Its map is reportedly thousands of screens tall, but it's the same every time as I understand it.
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tokumaru
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by tokumaru »

Isn't Pitfall like this too?
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by tepples »

Pitfall I think has several predefined screen layouts along with a 254 byte table of what layout to use on a given screen. See Thomas Clancy's map.
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by lidnariq »

tepples wrote:Pitfall I think has several predefined screen layouts along with a 254 byte table of what layout to use on a given screen. See Thomas Clancy's map.
Pitfall's "254 byte table" is actually a bidirectionally-clockable LFSR.
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byemu
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by byemu »

tepples wrote:
byemu wrote:Give a game
and I can teach you hwo to make a world map of this game!
Try making a map for River Raid for Atari 2600.
I can only make nes(fc) map
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byemu
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by byemu »

Dwedit wrote:Dragon Warrior 2 had me stumped for a while, I still haven't completely figured out the map format for that game. (Referring to the non-overworld maps. Overworld map is simple RLE.)
I can extract them out of RAM no problem, but I never figured out the compression exactly.
But I don't feel like sending anyone out on pointless mission.
I'll try to make this game's world map
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Dwedit
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by Dwedit »

It's a wild goose chase, don't bother unless you simply want to poke memory to change the map number then extract the map out of a savestate.
I've already done that stuff. http://www.dwedit.org/dw2maps/
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byemu
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by byemu »

I found a Gimmick Editor
named gedit013.zip

http://bin.smwcentral.net/u/9410/gedit013.zip
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thefox
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by thefox »

It's me and my necrobumps again...
byemu wrote:I found a Gimmick Editor
named gedit013.zip

http://bin.smwcentral.net/u/9410/gedit013.zip
This editor is awesome! It's also very interesting to see how Gimmick handles level data.

I'm a bit surprised by how "rigid" and somewhat wasteful the level format is. Every level is the exact same size (8x4 screenfuls, that is 2048x768 pixels with each screen being 256x192 pixels). Even though the level data is divided into screens, every screen is saved as-is into ROM, even duplicates of empty screens. The game uses 16x16 pixel metatiles, so that brings the map data of a single level to exactly 6 KB. There are only 7 levels in the game though, so the total map data should be around 42 KB (not including other related data, like objects), which is perfectly fine for a 256 KB PRG game.

I guess this goes to show that you don't always need to pull crazy tricks all over the place or squeeze out every last optimization to make an awesome game. (That's not to say this game isn't well engineered, it definitely is, with its slope physics, object interactions, enemy AI and overall attention to detail.)
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Sverker
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Re: Gimmick Map research!(Level 1~2)

Post by Sverker »

byemu wrote: It's easy!
Give a game
and I can teach you hwo to make a world map of this game!
Bart VS The Space Mutants!
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