Author Topic: Donkey Kong Remixed  (Read 124063 times)

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Offline Sock Master

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Donkey Kong Remixed
« on: September 08, 2015, 07:18:03 pm »
So, I've pretty much finished up on "Donkey Kong Remix" (was called Donkey Kong Remixed) and am now in talks with a hardware guy to get plug-in boards created in order to get the new game into DK hardware.

But if there are any improvements or revisions I could do, I've still got some time before the game gets "locked down".

Here's a video of some gameplay.  (I died stupidly several times on the same board, but eh, I didn't want to record again.)



This is what the game is:
It's the original Donkey Kong, with the original stages, but also a bunch of new additions.

-4 Original stages
-6 Brand new stages
-3 Bonus stages (which appear after a rivets stage)

Most of the stages *also* have several variations, so when you see them the 2nd or 3rd, or sometimes even the 4th time around, they will have changed slightly.

New gameplay mechanics:
-Collapsing floors on the new rivets stages, which can crush firefoxes underneath.
-A spring on one of the new barrel stages, which can send barrels back to the top.
-Gap in the center of a new barrel stage where barrels will fall down and then either go left or right.
-Elevators on a new rivets stage.
-Hammers on a new elevators stage (and you can hammer the springs).
-The rivets+elevators stage has a switch to change the direction of the elevators.
-Blue hammers - Jumpman can *JUMP* while using a blue hammer.

New AI processing:
-Because floors can fall, firefoxes can now fall too.
-Because floors can pile up on top of each other, Jumpman can now walk *in front* of a platform - and also jump up onto it.
-Firefoxes also can jump up onto a platform..and jump back down.
-Yes, the fireballs can get to the top conveyor on the Pie stages...But, they are set not to do it often.  And, they are able to come back down.
-Jumpman can fall slightly further without dying.
-Jumpman can jump without bashing his head into platforms or elevators, stopping and falling to his death.
-There is new logic for things involving situations that could/did not happen in the original game.  New logic for deciding which way a barrel goes after falling down the center gap, new logic for deciding which barrel/which side the fireballs spawn from in the new conveyor stage...  Um, so tricks can be learned, but they'll be different.

Expanded difficulty range:
-Some aspects of game difficulty keep increasing right up till level 22.  But it ramps pretty gracefully.
-Barrel frequency slowly increases as level goes up.
-Elevators have more speeds and can get slightly faster than Classic DK.
-"Pie" frequency slowly keeps increasing as level goes up.
-Springs now do *not* hit maximum frequency on level 4!  Levels 4 through 7 have spring frequency gradually increasing from old-L3 speed until hitting the old-L4 max on level 7.  (I did this to balance out the difficulty.)
-selectable Normal / Hard DIP SWITCH.
   -On Normal, internal difficulty does not go beyond 5.
   -On Hard, internal difficulty goes up to 7.  Fireballs/firefoxes eventually get even faster & spawn faster.  Barrels go to 100% controllable.  Barrel/Pie release rates get slightly faster than Normal.  Elevators reach a higher top speed.   And... there is a new type of wild barrel that can change wild mode each time it bounces (less predictable).

I tried to be very careful about difficulty.  On "Normal" it does not really get insane and should be roughly of similar difficulty to the original Donkey Kong.   "Hard" is for folks who enjoy a bit of extra chaos.

It is harder than classic DK, but I'm trying to keep that level 22 attainable.

But most importantly.. The gameplay is a *lot* more varied, more interesting.. a bit more chaotic.  I've been playing it for months as I've been working on it and I'm really happy with it.

But, I'm not a super expert at playing it..  So I'm making a call out to the experts.  If there are things that shouldn't be the way they are, or things that should be tweaked/changed a bit - I'd love to know so I could make this as good as I can make it.    (Small, easy to change things/details, hopefully, please)

Thanks.
« Last Edit: September 08, 2015, 07:24:36 pm by Sock Master »
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Offline xelnia

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #1 on: September 08, 2015, 08:11:35 pm »
Pretty excited for this!  Kreygasm

Is there any way we can play-test this in MAME?
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Offline Sock Master

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #2 on: September 08, 2015, 10:40:24 pm »
I'm considering maybe putting together a demo version that would fit into DK's ROM footprint, that would load into MAME.
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Offline hooch66

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2015, 07:33:00 am »
Cool man, cool. I'm definitely in for the plug-board.
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Offline tilt

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2015, 09:54:29 am »
I'm considering maybe putting together a demo version that would fit into DK's ROM footprint, that would load into MAME.
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Offline marinomitch13

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2015, 09:26:29 pm »
Barrels go to 100% controllable.

Robbie must be crying tears of joy.  Kreygasm
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Offline ChrisP

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #6 on: September 10, 2015, 10:14:32 pm »
This is awesome.

Alright everybody, make sure you make your misgivings known! Because if you let this come out without doing so, you surrender the right to all the neverending bitchin' that you do about D2K. ;D

However, I am very curious - if this isn't MAME that we're seeing in the video, what ARE you running it in?
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Offline Sock Master

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #7 on: September 10, 2015, 11:10:03 pm »
It's running in MAME in the video, but it's a modified build that supports the unused 5th ROM socket that is in the DK 4 board stack.   (I was surprised that MAME does not support ROMs in that socket, actually.   Has that socket never been used before, ever??)
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Offline ChrisP

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #8 on: September 11, 2015, 12:33:46 am »
Honestly I'd never even heard of that empty slot in the 4-board and was very surprised to come to know of it. I have no hands-on experience with a 4-board though.

At any rate, I've read a fair amount about DK boards and the things people do with them, and to my knowledge, nobody has ever made use of this socket for any purpose. I'm curious why it's there at all. Might be some sort of Radarscope remnant, or a bit of the design that never came to be utilized (a la the unused "200" and "falling pie" sprites).
http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com

4 Quarters :-* - 800K Avg. Per Qtr. :o - No Restarts 8) - No Proof :'(

7/26/2013   Coin 35,946   710,800   18-1
7/28/2013   Coin 35,947   903,700   22-1
8/16/2013   Coin 35,948   694,100   17-6
8/17/2013   Coin 35,949   893,100   22-1

3,201,700: the $1 World Record?
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weiwovaseiba

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #9 on: September 11, 2015, 06:15:10 am »
This thread, I like,
this game I want!

Offline Sock Master

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #10 on: September 11, 2015, 07:14:12 am »
It looks like the empty ROM socket was intended for a diagnostic ROM.  There is even code in Donkey Kong to check if the service switch is pressed and then jump to the extra ROM.  Whether this diagnostic ROM was ever made, I don't know.  It's possible that it exists, somewhere.   Without it, DK just jumps to empty space in the address map and locks up if the service switch is pressed.
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WCopeland

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #11 on: September 11, 2015, 08:32:25 am »
If you give the ROM to mamedev, I have no doubt they will add official support for it in MAME.

http://mamedev.org/contact.html
There is a radio button for a new ROM dump you'd like to submit. You could also probably put in a pull request for it on their Github since you've already got support for it up and going locally.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2015, 08:34:26 am by WCopeland »

Offline ChrisP

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #12 on: September 11, 2015, 10:19:44 am »
I actually do have my doubts that MAMEdev will add this.

Generally speaking, their philosophy is only to include games that actually had a commercial release, not homebrew hacks. I think D2K managed to squeak through simply because it became fairly successful and well known, a good number of collectors bought the kit, and many were asking for it to be MAMEd. But I could be mistaken and it's definitely worth a shot.
http://donkeykongblog.blogspot.com

4 Quarters :-* - 800K Avg. Per Qtr. :o - No Restarts 8) - No Proof :'(

7/26/2013   Coin 35,946   710,800   18-1
7/28/2013   Coin 35,947   903,700   22-1
8/16/2013   Coin 35,948   694,100   17-6
8/17/2013   Coin 35,949   893,100   22-1

3,201,700: the $1 World Record?
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WCopeland

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #13 on: September 11, 2015, 11:32:21 am »
Be that as it may, I don't think they'd reject a pull request with support implemented.

Offline Sock Master

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Re: Donkey Kong Remixed
« Reply #14 on: September 11, 2015, 05:06:24 pm »
I'm still ironing out some bugs anyway.   But, yes, I am hoping to make it available as a hardware kit to install into DK cabs.

I did find a way to keep cutting it down until it did fit into MAME's DK 16K code size.  What I ended up with is a version with two alternating boards.   I chose the barrels with spring, and the rivets with elevators stages, as perhaps being two more unique stages of DKRemix.  If it looks like I got the bugs out, I think I'll post up a link for everyone to try and maybe leave some feedback on.
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