Hello all,
I have been working on doing enhanced graphics for shinobi since January and have released a first version which has updated textures in mission backgrounds.
The reason i am posting here is because i am searching for an experienced coder in ASM that could perform a hack in order to give me more space to work and create more accurate arcade like graphics on the CPC.
How this could be done?
I will describe how the game works now, and then what would be the modification:
The game has 4 missions, and each mission consists of 3-4 stages.
The map of each stage has the naming: <XX>.bin, where <XX> stands for <mission number><stage number>
The game has one tileset per mission. naming is : CHITES<X>.bin where <X> stands for mission number.
The game allocates 64 tiles for each mission. All graphics for the stages of a mission share these 64 tiles.
Currently the flow in code is something like this:
1. mission 1 start
2. load CHITES1.BIN
3. load 11.BIN
player finishes stage 1
4. load 12.BIN
player finishes stage 2:
5. load 13.BIN
player finishes mission 1 and bonus stage:
1. mission 2 start
2. load CHITES2.BIN
3. load 21.BIN
and so on.
The idea here is to load a different tileset before each STAGE, at the same address location as the original game did, overwriting previous stage tileset contents. Thus no additional RAM is required.
With this mod, we will be able to have 64 tiles per STAGE, which are enough to produce closer to arcade graphics.
So from my side i will create 19 CHITES<XX>.bin, where <XX> stands for <mission number><stage number>
The hack in the code would be so that this flow will be implemented, marked with red font:
1. mission 1 start
2. load CHITES11.BIN (rename CHITES1 to CHITES11.BIN)
3. load 11.BIN
player finishes stage 1
mod addition: load CHITES12.BIN (addition of a new loader here)
4. load 12.BIN
player finishes stage 2:
mod addition: load CHITES13.BIN (addition of a new loader here)
5. load 13.BIN
player finishes mission 1 and bonus stage:
1. mission 2 start
2. load CHITES21.BIN (rename CHITES2 to CHITES21.BIN)
3. load 21.BIN
etc
The advantages of utilizing 64 tiles per stage are more than visible. Take as an example the attached screenshot:
For the red wall and the window, in order to match the arcade style, i had to use 27 tiles.
This can not be done if we have 64 tiles for the whole mission!
What do you think about the this hack? Does anyone know if this is feasible ?
regards,
Faidon