New Glitch happened on my TKG-12 board. Need an explanation...

[maximumsteve]

So I was down to my last man playing a shitty game, but just played it out, and LVL 5 pie factory I barely beat out a fireball on the top left of the board. I was definitely on my last man 100%, and then on the next board, which was a barrel board, it showed an extra man in the top left ofcourse, but when I started running the board, it disappeared. Wtf was that? A sprite glitch??

[xelnia]

If you die at the same time you clear a board, you'll get the "Extra man" glitch. Someone else would need to explain how it works at the code level, but basically the game thinks you died, but it also thinks you didn't...so it "adds" an extra man during the screen transition then takes it away. It's not uncommon at all and not specific to any board revision.

[dnickolas]

Confirmed in MAME too. Allen says extra man all the time for this reason I think.

[Sock Master]

When you're starting a new life, the game sets a flag that tells the routine that displays the number of lives to add 1 to the display until you start playing.
This is basically to make it so you see that one life is being decremented when you start playing a new life.

If you happen to hit a death condition at the exact same moment as completing a stage, this flag will be set but the game will not end up going through the death animation/process.

So a life is not lost, but this flag gets set.  So next time the on-screen lives get redrawn, it adds one life to the display.  And when you start playing the next stage that flag gets unset and the 'extra' life is removed from the lives display again.

Luckily it's just a harmless glitch resulting from a paradox condition - dying and completing the stage at the same time.

[maximumsteve]

Thank you John? Sock Master!! I appreciate the explanation and it's very interesting to read the different nuances and possibilities in the technical aspects of this game. Mario bros. Remix!!!??? Please.... pretty please..... sugar on top. I want to be selfishly the first one to try it when you finish! 

[JCHarrist]

Another interesting tidbit about the extra men display.

Sometimes the first man is subtracted before the "How High?" screen and sometimes it does it after.

This is the same board on different restarts.