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Title: KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun

By: Bock

*EDIT* Patched version 0.91 fixes the problem with switches.
"EDIT" Patched version 0.92 fixed starting level and version number. Please re-download if you tried an older version.
*EDIT* Almost two years later, version 0.99 adds music and correct/fixes on many games flaws.

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KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun
a Sega Master System 64kb Game
by Omar Cornut (Bock)
E-mail: omar [at] miracleworld [dot] net
Web: http://www.smspower.org
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Version 0.9
Released 2009/03/29
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This is my contribution to SMS Power! Coding Competition 2009:
http://www.smspower.org/dev/competition/

This game is a tribute to old school arcade games.
It is cute, short, yet difficult and unforgiving.

Features!

- BLUE SKY WITH SUN
- A PRINCESS TO SAVE

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Story
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1. KunKun is a happy orange blob.
2. KokoKun is a happy pink princess blob.
3. KokoKun was taken hostage by some evil black blob.
(who hides in the SMS video memory but doesn't show up on screen
because I did not have time to program it yet)
4. KunKun has to go and save KokoKun.
5. The world is saved, everyone can live in peace.
6. Repeat 5 times until insanity.

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Controls
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- D-Pad left : move left
- D-Pad right : move right
- D-Pad up : stick to ladder, climb ladder, jump (hold to use hover boots)
- D-Pad down : climb ladder down, trigger switch
- Button 1 : jump left
- Button 2 : jump right

It is important to note that "KunKun & KokoKun" is not an action
game. Please don't rush and jump everywhere or you won't last.

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Made using
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- WLA-DX for assembling Z80 code.
- Paint Shop Pro 7 for drawing graphic and level mockups.
- Maxim's Bmp2Tile for generating tileset and tilemap.
- Visual Studio 7 for editing.
- MEKA for emulating and debugging.

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TODO
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What did not make it for the competition deadline: (again)

- No music/sound, sorry :(
- Life and bonus system not enabled. Infinite lives.
- Game Over and Continue screen.
- Title screen / password system missing. Don't even try to reach the sun!
- Better ending sequence.
- Plenty of game features I thought about that were not implemented.
- More cute animations.
- More levels.

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Greetings
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MasterKohta for last minute sound fx design (TBI).
Joseph, Michael and Bleader for testing.
" putain j'y comprends rien à ton niveau 4 "
( f*ck, I understand nothing of your level 4 )

All SMS Power! members and regulars.
All SMS Fans in the world.

-------------------------------------------

Enjoy!!!
http://www.smspower.org

KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun [v0.9] (1).png (1.02 KB)

KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun [v0.91] (2).png (3.36 KB)

KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun [v0.91] (3).png (4.41 KB)

KunKun & KokoKun 2 - Return of the Kun [v0.91] (4).png (4.65 KB)

KunKunAndKokoKun2-SMS-0.99.zip (18.11 KB)

Aargh, it's back! To torture me again!

Is anyone else having trouble flipping the switches?

Yes, in the second level :) I think I saw a gate opening one pixel, but then it closed again. I hope Omar can fix that before the voting. It would be annoying to get bad votes because of a little bug like that.

OUCH
I am gonna fix it immediately

I uploaded a fixed 0.91 version.

There was a terrible bug I introduced on an another object used in the last level, it was doing a RET and forgetting a POP before. It is total luck that the game could even run. Anyway it is fixed now.

I began to think that fusion is doing something wrong in SMS that switch in 2nd stage would not work :P
This is so fun, best coding part entry :D

Always use indentation to signify that things have been pushed :)

Hmm, I think I see some problems:

- Meka can't load the zip, same problem as my first entry - the ROM ahs to be the first entry, remove and re-add the readme to fix
- The SDSC version number wasn't updated
- It starts on level 2 instead of the title screen! Debugging hack left in?
- I still can't walk through the door after it opened!
- I jumped into a yellow flashing "rope" as it appeared and KunKun got stopped NOT ON A MULTIPLE OF 8 PIXELS which is obviously against the natural order of the world.

When I write a PUSH xx line, I'll immediately write a POP xx aswell, otherwise it's certain that things get missed and eventually crash (in case of MD Z80 side, your code is in RAM and eventually stack will wipe things out).

The SVN repository with source code is publicly accessible here:
http://code.google.com/p/kunkun/source/browse/
Don't look before finishing the game of course :)

Maxim wrote

Always use indentation to signify that things have been pushed :)

Hmm, I think I see some problems:
- Meka can't load the zip, same problem as my first entry - the ROM ahs to be the first entry, remove and re-add the readme to fix
- The SDSC version number wasn't updated
- It starts on level 2 instead of the title screen! Debugging hack left in?

ARGH! I fixed all those in 0.92 :(

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- I still can't walk through the door after it opened!

I just did a full playrun and could not reproduce this one, although i recall seeing it once during development. I think there is a bug if you repeatedly flip a switch, during a certain frame I think the graphics gets updated but the collision data not.

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- I jumped into a yellow flashing "rope" as it appeared and KunKun got stopped NOT ON A MULTIPLE OF 8 PIXELS which is obviously against the natural order of the world.

I will look into that, I understand the bug. I assume you are talking about falling down to an horizontal rope/platform? The bug should be fairly rare, and although very confusing should still allow you to play.

You forgot to update the version number at the top of the readme :D
This game is so hard... Is there someone really good in this game who can post a playthrough video?

When I noticed I couldn't get through the doors I used the ram editor to beam myself to different places. I miss a fun reaction when falling directly onto the princess. =)

Bad boy Martin ! The game is hard, it is meant to be this way. Try to enjoy it without cheating for a bit.

Bock wrote

I assume you are talking about falling down to an horizontal rope/platform? The bug should be fairly rare, and although very confusing should still allow you to play.

I was jumping to the right into the "moving platform" in stage 2 and ended up alighted about 7 pixels right of the correct position, which made it look weird and harder to play.

Now, I'm in level 5 without any beaming. But I don't have the patience to do it without save-states.
Edit: I beat level 5. And level 2 without cheating :)

Addicting and looks fantastic! I reckon it would have been one of the great SMS titles if it were a commercial release back in the day.

Some facts:

- I started start on March 18 and skipped several days of work due to other obligations. Figured out I had not much time so after some brainstorming I decided to re-use the original KK&KK as a base. I hope this is not a disappointment.

- I think I spent about 30 hours on it overally. Probably half of time went into designing levels. Levels 2-5 probably took about 4 hours each to design. Most of them were completely done in an art package, and only when completed ported to the game and a few flaws fixed. Very few actual in-game iterations. It was rather tiring but exciting for the mind to design the levels without playing trying to maintain all paths and possibilities in my mind.

- I improved the data pipeline and level editing process to be much easier than in the previous game.

- Needless to say I hoped to have more levels, but time was too tight. With the new features there's probably many more nice levels to make. Maybe I can add another level for version 1.0. I also hoped to include as a bonus an hardened level 3 from the original but it was unaffordable luxury at this point.

- Technically nothing special. It is a game built around technical and design simplicity which as a envisionned it would allow me to do something (as opposed to solving more complex technical problems and not getting a game done). So the design was made to dodge as many problems as possible. But that is old news.

I wonder if anyone actually started his compo a month in advance ;)

Bock wrote

Some facts:
I wonder if anyone actually started his compo a month in advance ;)

I have started coding my entry after the announcement. Took me several weeks to get things right done, then some other weeks to code required tools and files (tile converting, makefile, porting of SMSPlus to AmigaOS, learning how to use and set up Personal Paint on AmigaOS 4.1, and two weeks before the deadline I was scared that I would not be able to finish it in time, even if the first playable version was ready by then, but it was not polished. At the end I had some nights to work and I finished it almost on time, except that the planned title music was not done, because I did not have the time to implement the graphics compression. But at least I had the time for sound effects ;)

Bock wrote

I wonder if anyone actually started his compo a month in advance ;)

I started making graphics for a game on 19.1.2009 (says the date of the graphics file), announcement was on 18.1.2009.

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I wonder if anyone actually started his compo a month in advance ;)

I started on friday (march 27th) afternoon, and finished it by about 23:45 GMT. On saturday I added the vector balls and the volume bars. And on sunday I added the starfield (though that was after the voting had started). Much of the code was just translated from my original 6502 code, while some of it had to be completely rewritten due to other differences in the hardware.
The music was done a few weeks earlier, using my own compiler and playback library.

I may as well join in. I took 4.5 days holiday to work on my entry. Overall I probably spent about 35-40 hours on it. It became playable after about 25 hours, but lacking most features; collision detection (with lots of bugs), score calculation and interrupt routine optimisation were the things that took the most time.

It's a great game, but it's a too hard for me.
It took me a long time to reach 3th level.
With some music this could perfect.

I just finished... damn you and your secret passageway!

I've been working on the game today, smoothing the rough edges and adding fabulous music tracks :)

I think it's one of the best homebrew games I ever tried...

excellent job!

Bock wrote

I've been working on the game today, smoothing the rough edges and adding fabulous music tracks :)

Awesome ! Looking forward to your next release!!

Now with music!
Following a playtest at Club Metro in Kyoto a few months ago, I went and fixed/improved lots of small things in the game.
As you can see from the 3rd picture, the original version had several palette issue on real hardware which is now fixed.

There is still a bug on level 4 where the bottom level disappear when KunKun is on the same Y position because of sprite rendering limitation and the number of duplicates sprites in this level. I will eventually fix it but player should be able to figure it out with the bug.

Thanks to Alex Mauer to permitting to use his tracks in the game!

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Changelog
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0.99 - Added 6 awesome music tracks by Alex Mauer!
- Fixed palette and tilemap glitches on real hardware.
- Made some tricky platforms on Level 2 and Level 3 a tad easier.
- Added level clear fanfare jingle.
- Level intro screen display up to 10 bonus to avoid overflow.

http://www.smspower.org/Homebrew/KunKunAndKokoKun2-SMS

KunKunAndKokoKun2-SMS-Title.png (1.08 KB)

IMG_0331.JPG (250.28 KB)

IMG_0336.JPG (151.61 KB)

IMG_0341.JPG (213.92 KB)

Great news! The music is very nice and matches with the game!

I n my opinion, it may would be better to pause the music when you press Pause button. I don't know if that's difficult to be done, it's just a thought...

Hello everybody. I'm making the video of this game to put on my youtube channel "Dariolino78 Retrogaming" but I can't get over the fifth level. How you do it? I opened the first gate. Then I open the second. Then I close the first one to open a higher gate but after that I can no longer go up. help!

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