Page 1 of 2
SNES special events (draft)
Posted: November 19th, 2015, 8:20 pm
by David
Here is a draft version of the SNES special events document I've been making.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: November 19th, 2015, 9:31 pm
by salvadorc17
No "special" stuff in level 2 and 4??
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: November 19th, 2015, 11:07 pm
by Norbert
I've only read the text about level 1 so far, but this is/will be an interesting read. I may have an addition for level 1, although I haven't playtested PoP1 for SNES enough to be sure. What I noticed is that, when I put the prince in the room with the level exit door, if the prince makes any noise the guard from the room to the left walks towards the prince.
[Edit:]
Are you sure the guard in the demo level has skill 18?
Pr1SnesLevEd says his skill is 11.
Maybe the game overrides the regular setting?
[Edit #2:]
Oh, yeah, it
is being overridden, at 0x92D1 it says 0x12 (18).
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: November 21st, 2015, 1:49 pm
by David
Norbert wrote:when I put the prince in the room with the level exit door, if the prince makes any noise the guard from the room to the left walks towards the prince.
I don't think it's special (i.e. level/room-specific), it's just a difference from the DOS version.
The SNES version will activate guards from adjacent rooms if they are close enough to the edge.
According to my experiments, "close enough" means: max. 3 tiles into the left room, or max. 1 tile into the right room.
There was a mod where this provided an unintended short solution:
viewtopic.php?p=15286#p15286
(In room 8 there is a stars trap, so you can't go left. But the guard from room 7 comes over and presses a button that opens the gate to the exit.)
Norbert wrote:Maybe the game overrides the regular setting?
Yes, it is overridden by the special event.
The document says "The guard has skill 18.", but it seems this is can be misunderstood?
Now I rewrote it to "Any guard's skill is overridden to 18.".
Norbert wrote:Oh, yeah, it is being overridden, at 0x92D1 it says 0x12 (18).
Here is the disassembly:
Code: Select all
get guard skill? (skill->X, random->A): rndp:
01:92C6: ae 19 05 LDX $0519 ; guardprog
01:92C9: ad 79 05 LDA $0579 ; current level
01:92CC: c9 15 CMP #$15 ; demo level
01:92CE: d0 02 BNE $92d2
01:92D0: a2 12 LDX #$12 ; new guard skill
01:92D2: 4c 17 be JMP $be17 ; RND
I don't know why was this needed, though.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: November 21st, 2015, 4:43 pm
by Norbert
David wrote:The SNES version will activate guards from adjacent rooms if they are close enough to the edge.
Ah, yes, I kinda thought that maybe that was the case.
David wrote:Now I rewrote it to "Any guard's skill is overridden to 18.".
Sounds good.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 1st, 2015, 2:01 pm
by Norbert
Two minor additions for level 1:
- first gate _or entrance level door_
- is closed_, and always starts open_
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 2nd, 2015, 9:22 pm
by David
Norbert wrote:
- first gate _or entrance level door_
Yes, that's more precise.
However, the special event is that a gate counts as a result only on level 1.
Norbert wrote:
- is closed_, and always starts open_
You're right. I didn't notice that, because the level already specifies that the gate is open.
Now I also found it in the disassembly: this happens around 01:D35E.
Here is the current version:
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 3rd, 2015, 1:40 pm
by doppelganger
Another thing I've noticed was that after the throne-room battle in level 19, the prince falls into the room on the left. (Well, that's how it is in the original levels).
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 3rd, 2015, 2:51 pm
by Norbert
doppelganger wrote:Another thing I've noticed was that after the throne-room battle in level 19, the prince falls into the room on the left. (Well, that's how it is in the original levels).
True.
David's draft describes this as:
"When leaving the room down [...] he appears above row 0, column -3 (column 7 of the room to the left)."
Maybe instead of "(column 7 of the room to the left)" it could say something like:
"The game interprets column -3 as being column 7 of the room to the left."
(Or something with "... is essentially ...")
It's probably important enough to not be in parentheses and to specifically explain the relation between -3 and 7.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 3rd, 2015, 9:22 pm
by salvadorc17
This documentation is good, but please some pictures for better understanding of the described events..
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 4th, 2015, 1:42 pm
by Norbert
Attached are screenshots.
These are still without rectangles and letters, I'll add a new post later that includes such marked screenshots.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 4th, 2015, 5:34 pm
by Norbert
Marked screenshots.
Far from perfect, but better than nothing?
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 4th, 2015, 9:52 pm
by salvadorc17
Norbert wrote:Marked screenshots.
Far from perfect, but better than nothing?
Thanks for those, i dont want to tell you what to do, but what do you think about create a pdf with the info and screenshots together, that will be a great way to compare, and understand all this information..
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 5th, 2015, 12:18 am
by Norbert
salvadorc17 wrote:what do you think about create a pdf with the info and screenshots together
Yeah... David, maybe you can do another minor rewrite of your text, to add image filenames in brackets (e.g. "[level01.png]") where you'd want them, and add letters to the text to refer to certain areas in the screenshots that include letters (e.g. "... (see A).", or something). You could let me know if you need certain screenshots to be modified, or if you need additional screenshots. To slowly work towards a unified document (ODT and PDF) that one of us could eventually put together. I wouldn't mind doing that. Of course the Credits section will mention you wrote all the text.
Re: SNES special events (draft)
Posted: December 29th, 2015, 6:32 am
by Norbert
Do you want me to merge the text and images into a document?
It's basically ready to be published, I think.
It can always be improved further in the future.