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Adding in-game challenges/goals to an existing machine?

cyberkryten

cyberkryten

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Jul 18, 2017
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519
Location
Bournemouth
Alias
Martyn
Whilst looking at how I can improve my play and also watching some of the streaming people have done, I was thinking that something where there are some specific challenge modes in a game would be good.

I know most games have modes which are that sort of thing, but I'm a little surprised that given the rise of home-use games, everything is still geared towards scoring and I was wondering if there's anything in games which offer other options over and above the highest score and an occasional high score for a specific mode (SpiderMan also has combos/spiders as recorded max items)

I was thinking about fastest time to finish Mode X from starting it, or a variety of challenges around the play field like hit left ramp ten times as fast as possible and record the time, or hit certain switches 10 times as fast as possible. The idea being that once you trigger the mode, everything else on the play field is irrelevant, the only goal is what you're aiming at.

My son and I are both quite competitive but once we've put up a few high GC scores, beating those are a tough challenge and don't happen all that often so it would be great if there were a load of side-challenges we could shoot for that give the opportunity to put down markers but also help us improve our game generally. It may turn out that its boring as hell and that's why no-one has done it.

As there doesn't seem to be much about like that, I was thinking that maybe I could add it to an existing game - effectively buy an old cheaper game and then change out the software to add my own challenges - it looks like something like the Multimorphic P-ROC would allow me to do that, but just wondered if anyone has done anything similar?

I'm a C/Assembler programmer, so the code itself shouldn't be an issue, but how long would it realistically take to add one or two challenges to a game?
 
With PROC you'd be starting from scratch, writing code for every switch hit etc. The only way to get the existing code in would be to write it again (and manually add assets for sound, graphics and so on)

The other way is to decompile and edit assembly code from the original roms, but that's extremely fiddly and error prone for anything other than very minor changes. Plus you've got limitations on rom size too.

Long story short - not trivial, but would be very interested in your journey if none of this puts you off. I've considered dabbling myself a few times.

Plenty of online resources and communities to help, not least of all a certain @myPinballs ;)
 
cyberkryten said:
I was thinking about fastest time to finish Mode X from starting it
Click to expand...
Hallowed be thy Name has a speed completed high score on Iron Maiden, as does Destroy the Ring on LotR. Iron Maiden has so many high score categories, so that if it ever gets to a stage where I think I can't beat the GC I'll aim for them.
 
cyberkryten said:
Whilst looking at how I can improve my play and also watching some of the streaming people have done, I was thinking that something where there are some specific challenge modes in a game would be good.

I know most games have modes which are that sort of thing, but I'm a little surprised that given the rise of home-use games, everything is still geared towards scoring and I was wondering if there's anything in games which offer other options over and above the highest score and an occasional high score for a specific mode (SpiderMan also has combos/spiders as recorded max items)

I was thinking about fastest time to finish Mode X from starting it, or a variety of challenges around the play field like hit left ramp ten times as fast as possible and record the time, or hit certain switches 10 times as fast as possible. The idea being that once you trigger the mode, everything else on the play field is irrelevant, the only goal is what you're aiming at.

My son and I are both quite competitive but once we've put up a few high GC scores, beating those are a tough challenge and don't happen all that often so it would be great if there were a load of side-challenges we could shoot for that give the opportunity to put down markers but also help us improve our game generally. It may turn out that its boring as hell and that's why no-one has done it.

As there doesn't seem to be much about like that, I was thinking that maybe I could add it to an existing game - effectively buy an old cheaper game and then change out the software to add my own challenges - it looks like something like the Multimorphic P-ROC would allow me to do that, but just wondered if anyone has done anything similar?

I'm a C/Assembler programmer, so the code itself shouldn't be an issue, but how long would it realistically take to add one or two challenges to a game?
Click to expand...


Wizcat said:
With PROC you'd be starting from scratch, writing code for every switch hit etc. The only way to get the existing code in would be to write it again (and manually add assets for sound, graphics and so on)

The other way is to decompile and edit assembly code from the original roms, but that's extremely fiddly and error prone for anything other than very minor changes. Plus you've got limitations on rom size too.

Long story short - not trivial, but would be very interested in your journey if none of this puts you off. I've considered dabbling myself a few times.

Plenty of online resources and communities to help, not least of all a certain @myPinballs ;)
Click to expand...


Yep, i think i've shown what you can do with a p-roc board pretty extensively. If you want to start a p-roc project clear your calendar for at least 5 years and get your thick coat on!. Rewrites are not easy and with a p-roc you are starting from zero and dont forget the time on graphics and sound assets. Programming the game rules is only 1 part. They are achievable though if you have the staying power. As wizcat says, smaller edits on existing assembler based game roms are possible to, but thats not trivial either.
 
Ah, seems I misunderstood how the P-ROC operates. I thought it ran the original code/assets and let you access the switches and reinterpret what to do, but seems like it's a total replacement for the main CPU board so you start from complete zero? That sounds like a lot of work!

I think trying to add new challenges/modes by modifying the assembler on a game rom is probably a non starter as the decompile is going to be a major effort and I'm guessing there isn't a lot of space to do things like write a whole new mode.

Are there any pre-built systems that I could piggy back off of to do this?

Having asked that, @myPinballs It seems that this is exactly the sort of thing your Indy rewrite code would allow me to do - Loopin_Jackpots appears to be a good example - hitting as many loops as you can on a timer scoring for each one. It looks like I could turn that around and start a timer counting up, then wait until 10 loops have been hit stop the timer and record the time when complete as a 'high score'?
 
cyberkryten said:
Ah, seems I misunderstood how the P-ROC operates. I thought it ran the original code/assets and let you access the switches and reinterpret what to do, but seems like it's a total replacement for the main CPU board so you start from complete zero? That sounds like a lot of work!

I think trying to add new challenges/modes by modifying the assembler on a game rom is probably a non starter as the decompile is going to be a major effort and I'm guessing there isn't a lot of space to do things like write a whole new mode.

Are there any pre-built systems that I could piggy back off of to do this?

Having asked that, @myPinballs It seems that this is exactly the sort of thing your Indy rewrite code would allow me to do - Loopin_Jackpots appears to be a good example - hitting as many loops as you can on a timer scoring for each one. It looks like I could turn that around and start a timer counting up, then wait until 10 loops have been hit stop the timer and record the time when complete as a 'high score'?
Click to expand...

Yes you could do that with a proc rewrite approach no problem, but you need to do all the 'graft' work first to build up your original/basic game. You can utilise the code base from other peoples projects that are os as a starting point so you arent starting form zero. For example my indy or whirlwind projects or erics cactus canyon work, but that would still leave you with a serious dmd and sound recreation effort for said game and building up the game ruleset first before expanding on it. Anything used from my published work must also be published for free use.

What game are you thinking of?
 
There used to be a mame wrapper for p-roc (iirc) but that wouldn't allow you to add rules & assets. Just yesterday I got Forbidden Planet to a state I'm fairly happy with so as Jim says, 5+ years.
 
I was thinking I could do this with anything, but given the comments it seems like the only viable option is going to be to build it on top of someone else having done a lot of the prep work, otherwise I'll be going for years like you guys. I'm not great at artwork, so having to redo that really makes starting from scratch a no-go.

(anyone else get the impression I hadn't really thought this through before asking the original question?)

Most of my fun projects over the years have never got to a state where they're worth releasing so the fact you two have spent years to get these done is amazing!

My son loved your Stern indy rewrite at UkPinfest, so I might see if I can pick one of those up if one comes available in a month or two.
 
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