So, yeah. I’m one of the chosen ones that got the Faceball ROM early. Just to prevent misunderstandings: I got the ROM early because I’m a nice guy. I don’t do this for money or to get a free copy. I will buy both, the normal and the collectors edition. The original version is a really great game. I played through it multiple times and I think it is easily worth 100$.

I spent the last 4 or 5 days hacking around in the ROM and have already discovered allot of things. It is my first ROM hacking project, so I needed some time to figure everything out. I focus on changing the gameplay and don’t try to fix the typos. Special thanks go to Greg Stevens and HorvatM who pointed me at the right tools. The Sacred Tech Scroll from Guy Perfect made things allot easier for me. He also took the time to explain me how to write asm statements and get them into a ROM (even though he didn’t know what he was helping me with).

That said. manipulating the ROM is fairly easy. After 2 days I could already do things I would have thought are not possible. I can’t wait for what guys like HovratM or Greg Stevens can pull of. So here is what is possible so far.

There are 14 mazes in the ROM which I can freely modify. Meaning I know how to:

– change wall positions
– change wall types (I was hoping to find a mirror wall-type as there are some hints in the game that this was planned but it seems like they didn’t make it into the code.)
– change enemy start position
– change enemy strength
– change enemy drop item
– change enemy attack behavior
– change enemy movement behavior
– change enemy escape behavior
– how to attach a shield to an enemy
– some other stuff I can’t remember right now
– oh yeah, there is a Facball enemy I can use

I also think I know where the items that simply lie around in the levels are stored, but I didn’t play around with that yet.

On top of that I figured out how the mazes are loaded. This allows me to create completely new ones, put them somewhere in the ROM and load them instead of the existing ones.

As I said before, there are only 14 mazes. This means if I manipulate maze 1 it changes for all 4 stages. However, I figured out where the selected stage is stored. After that I wrote some code that is executed instead the original maze-loading code. This allows me to load what ever maze I want and yeah, this means I can have 56 different mazes in the game.
However, I only tested this in a very simple way.

OK, that it for now. Ask questions if you want to. I will keep the updates coming.

OK, I spent the last 5 hours making a primitive control scheme selection screen.

To use it, press Select + R during gameplay. Right now, you can choose between the original BPS scheme (selected by default) and my scheme.

While you are on the selection screen, the timer will appear to stop but will actually still be counting down. I don’t know how to fix this. I also haven’t tested it on hardware.

Attachments:

1. matejscontrols-1.ips

holy crap that was fast..didn’t even know if you could do it

HorvatM wrote:
OK, I spent the last 5 hours making a primitive control scheme selection screen.

To use it, press Select + R during gameplay. Right now, you can choose between the original BPS scheme (selected by default) and my scheme.

While you are on the selection screen, the timer will appear to stop but will actually still be counting down. I don’t know how to fix this. I also haven’t tested it on hardware.

Wow. Would it be possible to have the control scheme screen accessed through the start screen or the stage-select screen? That way you wouldn’t have to bother about the counter anymore.

[HorvatM]

I thought you knew how to do that, since you said you removed the menu from the title screen.

EDIT:
Never mind, I think I got it. There is another global variable that holds the controller status, at 0x926E, and is used by the intro/title screen function (0x227BC) and the stage selection screen function (0x17C4E).

• This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by HorvatM.

HorvatM wrote:
I thought you knew how to do that, since you said you removed the menu from the title screen.

I just removed the images by changing the window parameters and disabled the down control. No idea how to put somthing else there. But I think if you could access the control scheme by pressing select while the start screen is displayed it would by pretty cool.

You have to tell me some day how you added a screen….

Really looking forward to playing this version now. thanks guys.

I made some minor changes to the editor lately. It now patches the correct music and control scheme on the 1-1 Test. I also added a 1-1 Flash button to make testing easier.

I only added a couple of new levels but we should be done soon. I attached a screenshot so you guys can see how the final editor looks like. Also you get a sneak peak at level 2-2.

Attachments:

1. 

   sdfslooflirpafds.jpg
   

Three eastereggs spotted, when including the filename. Can anyone spot more than three? I assume the date not being set to April 1st does not count as another (weird kind) one? 😉

P.S. Nice progress!

KR155E wrote:
Three eastereggs spotted, when including the filename. Can anyone spot more than three? I assume the date not being set to April 1st does not count as another (weird kind) one? 😉

P.S. Nice progress!

Okay, I must have no idea of what counts as an Easter egg, because I only see one.

I don’t see any. And what about the filename? His ROM has always been called Gesichtball.

HorvatM wrote:
I don’t see any. And what about the filename? His ROM has always been called Gesichtball.

The file name of the image posted is “sdfslooflirpafds.” Krisse was counting that as one Easter egg. I wasn’t including that with the one Easter egg that I found.

Benjamin Stevens wrote:

KR155E wrote:
Three eastereggs spotted, when including the filename. Can anyone spot more than three? I assume the date not being set to April 1st does not count as another (weird kind) one? 😉

P.S. Nice progress!

Okay, I must have no idea of what counts as an Easter egg, because I only see one.

I have no idea what guys are talking about.

Okay. I think I see two now, apart from the image file name. If so, the one I just found is insanely clever.

Yeah I see two, the file name and the, oh wait I won’t give the game away. 🙂

I thought that there may have even been a second game in the fuzzy area beneath the two Virtual League Baseballs, but then I determined that they must be V-Tetris and Waterworld. It all depends on how the computer would alphabetically sort “V-Tetris” in relation to the other “V” games, but computers do seem to sort “V-T” as “VT.”

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
I thought that there may have even been a second game in the fuzzy area beneath the two Virtual League Baseballs, but then I determined that they must be V-Tetris and Waterworld. It all depends on how the computer would alphabetically sort “V-Tetris” in relation to the other “V” games, but computers do seem to sort “V-T” as “VT.”

Seriously, there is nothing else.

OK, I’ve finally improved my controls hack so that the control scheme option screen is accessed from the title screen rather than during gameplay. It replaces the Arena option, but the title screen still says “Arena” because I don’t know how to change it (I hope thunderstruck does).

The patch is only compatible with the original BPS ROM. Apparently thunderstruck will have to help me make it compatible with his, because it freezes the game there.

It has not been tested on hardware.

If anyone wants another control scheme, tell me and I’ll add it.

Attachments:

1. matejscontrols-2.ips

If anyone still cares, I’m releasing the source code for my hack. Use MV810ASM to assemble it.