Can PoP1 have more levels?

Discuss PoP1 for DOS here.
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robert
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Can PoP1 have more levels?

Post by robert »

This will be a horrible question, but I'll do it anyway:

Can prince of persia 1, both pc or snes version, have more than 14 playable levels or 20 levels?

I don't mean less levels, because you can do it with cuspop (pc) or with the level editor for snes. But I just want to know if there is a way to make more levels than the original limit of them.

Thanks

[Edit: Changed post subject from "Question ¿?" to "Can PoP1 have more levels?". --Norbert]
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mk1995
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by mk1995 »

Probably. As for PoP PC you would have to add something like an additional levels.dat and hack the .exe so it goes into that after you're through with the first one. As for the SNES, the only way to do it would be to extend the ROM size and add a shit ton of pointers, so spare yourself the effort.
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robert
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by robert »

mk1995 wrote:Probably. As for PoP PC you would have to add something like an additional levels.dat and hack the .exe so it goes into that after you're through with the first one. As for the SNES, the only way to do it would be to extend the ROM size and add a shit ton of pointers, so spare yourself the effort.
Thank you!

Can you explain me how to do it for pc, if you know?. If not do you know if someone in the forum knows about this? Thanks again

I'm sure Kashglnoon should know about this, doesn't he? If you Kashlgnoon are seeing this can you help me with please?
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mk1995
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by mk1995 »

As far as I've heard Butcher actually wanted to do a mod that'd use two levels.dat files, but since he's a fuckwad and long banned you needn't bother asking him.
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David
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by David »

I have started hacking the DOS version to have more levels, and it actually works.
However, there are hardcoded tables in the EXE that specify things for each level, like: level type (dungeon/palace), guard hit points, guard types, allowed tiles, cutscenes.
I've decided to drop the allowed tiles table and simply allow all tiles on all levels.
I think the others should be moved into the unused parts of the level data, i.e. 0x8F0 would store the level type, 0x8F1 the guard type, 0x8F3 the guard hp.
A big problem would be editing levels, because current level editors can handle only levels 0..15.
My solution would be:
- edit the levels in a regular levels.dat,
- exporting the levels with PR,
- hex-editing them to contain the level type etc.,
- and then importing them with a custom resources.xml.

Also, the title of the topic should be changed to something like "Can PoP1 have more levels?".
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Norbert
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by Norbert »

David wrote:allow all tiles on all levels [and] others should be moved into the unused parts of the level data
This sounds like a good solution.
However, there would still be an upper limit to how many levels a mod can have, given the available freed space.
David wrote:A big problem would be editing levels, because current level editors can handle only levels 0..15.
I could change apoplexy to work with both regular and extended mods.
One byte in the freed space could be set to a value that's normally never used there to indicate it's an extended mod, another (the next) byte could indicate how many levels are being used.
David wrote:- edit the levels in a regular levels.dat,
- exporting the levels with PR,
- hex-editing them to contain the level type etc.,
- and then importing them with a custom resources.xml.
This sounds complicated (for users).
PR could probably check for the byte as well(*) and work with both regular and extended mods.
(*) Since apoplexy relies on PR, if PR can handle more levels, changing apoplexy would be quite easy.
David wrote:Also, the title of the topic should be changed to something like "Can PoP1 have more levels?".
Done.

[Edit: Maybe we should focus on FreePrince instead. It would allow us to do far more and more interesting things. In that context: I'm not sure we really need to have FreePrince work with the .DAT files that came with the original game. There could be a converter for the graphics for example, to make them far easier to edit and use whatever color combinations we'd want. Then again, who has the time to work on all that stuff...]
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Re: Question ¿?

Post by David »

Norbert wrote:
David wrote:allow all tiles on all levels [and] others should be moved into the unused parts of the level data
This sounds like a good solution.
However, there would still be an upper limit to how many levels a mod can have, given the available freed space.
I think you misunderstood me. Each level would store its own level/guard type only. (Actually, PoP2 already does this.)
Norbert wrote:One byte in the freed space could be set to a value that's normally never used there to indicate it's an extended mod, another (the next) byte could indicate how many levels are being used.
Levels.dat already contains the number of levels, as part of the resource table.
Norbert wrote:PR could probably check for the byte as well(*) and work with both regular and extended mods.
(*) Since apoplexy relies on PR, if PR can handle more levels, changing apoplexy would be quite easy.
Maybe supply apoplexy with an extended resources.xml, and use that with PR?
Norbert wrote:
David wrote:Also, the title of the topic should be changed to something like "Can PoP1 have more levels?".
Done.
Thanks!
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