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View topic - More levels in The Lucky Dime Caper prototype

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More levels in The Lucky Dime Caper prototype
Post Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:07 pm
Here's the Pro Action Replay codes I've just found:

00C038:xx Level (00-04)
00C039:xx Act


Now you can play any of the 5 (incomplete) levels inside this cartridge. You might also want to find and alter Donald's coordinates in some places so you won't get stuck, specially in the quite incomplete Egyptian level.

Anybody willing to document some differences?



EDIT: By the way Bock, thanks a million for releasing something like this.
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 10:44 pm
Looks familiar... I posted the memory locations and a hack for changing the level without needing any PAR codes on the day of release :)
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 11:18 pm
Oops, I found it strange that no topics had been made when it was released. I had forgotten about the "News" forum.

Anyway, does that patch you posted activate an already existant level select code? Perhaps there's something similar in the retail version or other games with the same engine? (Not that it would be too useful having the PAR codes, but just curious)
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2006 12:08 am
No, my patch was a really small trainer patch, just enough code to poke the level byte.
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 8:02 pm
i and my brother have noticied the presence of level select in final version of lucky dime caper, this have sound test and level select which is possible choose many strange levels, but we dont know how to make this cheat/trick. It was when we beat in the cartridge with master system turned on. :(
somebody has some idea of as to make this cheat? it can be with action replay too...
lucky dime caper has a unused music inside rom... link for mid is here http://www.geocities.com/johnnyzmidis/Midis4/LDC-Unused.mid

thanks.

Sorry for my poor english,
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2006 10:16 pm
There are no extra levels in the Lucky Dime Caper ROM as far as I can tell - only level codes 0 - 6 are valid.
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:05 pm
yes, maxim, the strange levels that I mention are mix of the other levels of the game. Appear some numbers of phases in the hidden selection (more than 7), my english is bad, then I do not obtain to write everything that I want. :(
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 1:30 pm
As cristfc told,there's a level select inside the game.To do this,we just "half-inserted" the cartridge,so that,touching it while the system was on,the level select screen appeared.But some luck was needed for this to work,of course.That level select is something like the one you have in cyber shinobi: Round 1 Scene 1 sound 1 in round selector,It's possible to choose only the number of levels the game has,from 1 to 7.But the cool thing here is the scene selector.There you can *always* select the number of scenes of the biggest stage-the castle-.Let's suppose you put it in the screen round 1 scene 8 sound 1 . Here,you are choosing the first stage,the forest.Note the normal stage has only ONE scene.But in the level select,you can choose the same number of scenes as it was the castle stage.It means you will end up in a crazy stage.It can be done with any other level,but the castle one.Every scene that doesn't exist in a stage is a different funny level.We've pratticaly given up trying to find out how to do this trick with a joystick only.If someone here could tell us what is the address in the ROM ( ROM, not RAM, once we only have a dreamcast with sms plus ) that defines the round where you go when selecting the forest stage, maybe the same amount of levels that can be accessed in the level select screen can be played too.Round and scene should be two separated bytes,i think.Fortunatelly,i still have a Genesis/Mega Drive console with Master System adaptor.*If i can do* the level select trick,i'll post the screenshot here later
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 12:29 pm
anyone can confirm that this is true? seems a bit strange to me...
 
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 4:23 pm
That's known to happen in Sonic 3D for the MegaDrive, when it's supposed to trigger an exception it makes the level select menu appear... But I had never heard of a Master system game doing the same.


I've tried loading a savestate from another game to simulate this cartridge shaking (memory corruption), but it doesn't seem to work (even though it does in Sonic 3D).
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Hacked, discovered and documented
Post Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 11:05 am
Last edited by Maxim on Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:13 pm; edited 2 times in total
The sound test has been rendered unusable from the final version of the code, except by hacking in an emulator.

The secret is to find that at memory offset $c008 there is a magical byte that sets the game mode - one value for levels, several for intro sections, some for boss encounters, etc. If you write value $02 there, you get the level select/sound test.

There is code to do this based on user inputs at startup, executed during the "(c) 1991 The Walt Disney Company" screen:
    ld     a,($c00c)       ; 000770 3A 0C C0  new input & 30 != 0
    and    $30             ; 000773 E6 30       - ie. button 1 or 2 pressed
    jr     z,$0786         ; 000775 28 0F
    ld     a,($c00b)       ; 000777 3A 0B C0  held input & 0 != 0
    and    $00             ; 00077A E6 00       = ie. impossible (changed value)
    jr     z,$0786         ; 00077C 28 08
    ld     a,$02           ; 00077E 3E 02
    ld     ($c008),a       ; 000780 32 08 C0  Enable sound test

This is checking two memory offsets: $c00c tells you which buttons are newly pressed in the last frame, and $c00b tells you which buttons have been held down since at least the last frame. It checks if the former signals that either button 1 or 2 is pressed - so far so good. It then checks the latter, but does it in a way that is impossible to pass - it's equivalent to saying "x × 0 > 0", which has no possible vaue for x. This looks like they patched over the check in the final version. Patch byte $77b to $01 (for example) and you can press U+1 (during the aforementioned copyright screen) to go to the sound test. Alternatively, open Meka's RAM editor and write $02 at $c008 for the same effect.

The sound test is SFX only. The level select produces weird effects when, as mentioned before, you select an impossible round/scene combination - you get the round's block types with another's layout, and most of the time is totally unplayable.

Edit: You can also use Pro Action Replay code 00C0 0802 to enable this - turn the PAR on and off again to make it appear.

Edit 2: The prototype doesn't contain this level select/SFX test, or if it does it's hidden somewhere totally different.
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (03).png (211 B)
Level/SFX select
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (03).png
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (04).png (2.57 KB)
The whole screen is solid blocks here (layout from Mexican indoors section)
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (04).png
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (02).png (1007 B)
You fall to your death immediately here
Copy of Lucky Dime Caper, The (02).png

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Post Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:54 pm
By the way...
cristfc wrote
lucky dime caper has a unused music inside rom... link for mid is here http://www.geocities.com/johnnyzmidis/Midis4/LDC-Unused.mid

How did you find that one?
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Post Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:06 am
http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=30320#30320

Lucky Dime Caper has a byte-write-trigger-type music engine.
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Re: Hacked, discovered and documented
Post Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:35 am
Maxim wrote
The sound test has been rendered unusable from the final version of the code, except by hacking in an emulator.

The secret is to find that at memory offset $c008 there is a magical byte that sets the game mode - one value for levels, several for intro sections, some for boss encounters, etc. If you write value $02 there, you get the level select/sound test.

There is code to do this based on user inputs at startup, executed during the "(c) 1991 The Walt Disney Company" screen:
    ld     a,($c00c)       ; 000770 3A 0C C0  new input & 30 != 0
    and    $30             ; 000773 E6 30       - ie. button 1 or 2 pressed
    jr     z,$0786         ; 000775 28 0F
    ld     a,($c00b)       ; 000777 3A 0B C0  held input & 0 != 0
    and    $00             ; 00077A E6 00       = ie. impossible (changed value)
    jr     z,$0786         ; 00077C 28 08
    ld     a,$02           ; 00077E 3E 02
    ld     ($c008),a       ; 000780 32 08 C0  Enable sound test

This is checking two memory offsets: $c00c tells you which buttons are newly pressed in the last frame, and $c00b tells you which buttons have been held down since at least the last frame. It checks if the former signals that either button 1 or 2 is pressed - so far so good. It then checks the latter, but does it in a way that is impossible to pass - it's equivalent to saying "x × 0 > 0", which has no possible vaue for x. This looks like they patched over the check in the final version. Patch byte $77b to $01 (for example) and you can press U+1 (during the aforementioned copyright screen) to go to the sound test. Alternatively, open Meka's RAM editor and write $02 at $c008 for the same effect.

The sound test is SFX only. The level select produces weird effects when, as mentioned before, you select an impossible round/scene combination - you get the round's block types with another's layout, and most of the time is totally unplayable.

Edit: You can also use Pro Action Replay code 00C0 0802 to enable this - turn the PAR on and off again to make it appear.

Edit 2: The prototype doesn't contain this level select/SFX test, or if it does it's hidden somewhere totally different.



I quite didn't understand your table, but i wish i could do.Ld, jr....Anyway, all this info is very interesting.Are the addresses you give ROM values?If not, do u know something that can be made in the ROM in order to get this same effect?
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Post Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:06 am
You have two options:

1. Use an Action Replay cartridge with code 00C0 0802. Turn the PAR on and off again to enter the sound test. This is untested but should work.
2. Patch the ROM by writing value $01 at address $0077b. This changes the sound test key combo to Up + (1 or 2), which is what you need to press during the copyright screen to enter the sound test. If you are using Kega you can use PAR code 00077B01 to do this - but it won't work on a real Action Replay cartridge.
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Post Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:41 pm
Thanks, i'll try your trick right now.
By the way, I'm not using a computer.I'm using a Nokia 6600, SMSplusS60 and System Explorer's hex editor.
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Post Posted: Sat Apr 01, 2006 10:49 pm
Maxim wrote
No, my patch was a really small trainer patch, just enough code to poke the level byte.
Could you tell us what's the ROM patch to play the other levels in prototype version?

Does someone know what's the ROM offset that defines the music that will be played in the forest stage?
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Post Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:45 am
I wrote this pause-button-trainer because it's very hard to ROM patch the starting level - it zeroes a block of RAM that contains the level number so it's hard to change that one byte. Regardless, you can use my hack to get the same effect.
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Post Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 1:11 pm
Maxim wrote
I wrote this pause-button-trainer because it's very hard to ROM patch the starting level - it zeroes a block of RAM that contains the level number so it's hard to change that one byte. Regardless, you can use my hack to get the same effect.

And what's your hack?
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Post Posted: Sun Apr 02, 2006 3:36 pm
Look up to the second post in this thread.
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Post Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2006 3:43 am
Maxim wrote
Look up to the second post in this thread.
Sorry, i didn't realize there's a link at the second post.I'll try your hack tomorrow
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Post Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 9:44 pm
Quote
As cristfc told,there's a level select inside the game.To do this,we just "half-inserted" the cartridge,so that,touching it while the system was on,the level select screen appeared.But some luck was needed for this to work,of course.That level select is something like the one you have in cyber shinobi: Round 1 Scene 1 sound 1 in round selector,It's possible to choose only the number of levels the game has,from 1 to 7.But the cool thing here is the scene selector.There you can *always* select the number of scenes of the biggest stage-the castle-.Let's suppose you put it in the screen round 1 scene 8 sound 1 . Here,you are choosing the first stage,the forest.Note the normal stage has only ONE scene.But in the level select,you can choose the same number of scenes as it was the castle stage.It means you will end up in a crazy stage.It can be done with any other level,but the castle one.Every scene that doesn't exist in a stage is a different funny level.We've pratticaly given up trying to find out how to do this trick with a joystick only.If someone here could tell us what is the address in the ROM ( ROM, not RAM, once we only have a dreamcast with sms plus ) that defines the round where you go when selecting the forest stage, maybe the same amount of levels that can be accessed in the level select screen can be played too.Round and scene should be two separated bytes,i think.Fortunatelly,i still have a Genesis/Mega Drive console with Master System adaptor.*If i can do* the level select trick,i'll post the screenshot here later


Reminds me of NES Zanac...there was a debug mode enabled by ejecting the cart and messing around with the Zapper gun that some weirdo figured out....extremely difficult to pull off, but very cool. Many years later, I found out it is actually enabled by a key combination on the Famicom Basic Keyboard.

When the Genesis was released, several games allowed for cheats by ejecting the carts. Thunder Force II, Last Battle, and some others worked.

-Rob
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Post Posted: Fri May 12, 2006 9:41 am
rbudrick wrote
When the Genesis was released, several games allowed for cheats by ejecting the carts. Thunder Force II, Last Battle, and some others worked.

I expect these are more luck than intention. Consoles generally aren't designed to handle the cartridge being changed - it causes errors throughout the system. Even if you write the software to copy itself into RAM, pulling out (or inserting) the cartridge still locks up the system much of the time.

The Genesis has interrupt vectors at the start of ROM which would probably float to FFs when disconnected; that may end up pointing to RAM, so they could possibly do something with that, but cheats that crash the game 75% of the time aren't much use.
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Lucky Dime Caper Prototype Maps
Post Posted: Sat Jul 10, 2021 8:51 am
ICEknight wrote

Anybody willing to document some differences?


I just made the maps for Lucky Dime Caper Proto (4 Levels, I can't get anything with the level of 'The Andes Mountains', too many bugs).
There are a lot of differences in the background, less enemies, just a one Boss (for level 1)
The 'Eagles' or 'Condor'? have been replaced by 'Owls'?.
I sized the maps to mathch with those of the final game (Maxim ones), if you wish to compare its finely.

https://www.smspower.org/Maps/LuckyDimeCaper-SMS?gallerypage=The+Northern+Woods+%28Proto%29
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