78 replies to this topic

[espire8]

Welcome to BERZERK ARCADE VE. It's the only title I can think of and I'm not sure if it's used already, if so just let me know. Anyway,this is really a hack of someone else's hack done five years ago by Mike Mika called BERZERK VE (voice enhanced). The atari 2600 original Berzerk code had several unique hacks done by many others -but nobody actually made any truely different mazes to this fun shooter, which is what I done here. All the mazes are now totaly redrawn with more complex patterns and the robots and player character have been reduced in size to make navigating the passageways easier. The humaniod's animation is all new too and the robot's very slightly. I have over 20 different maze designs although I can only include 4 in a single binary. I was thinking of separate bins with different mazes but I'll just start off with this for now.

 BERZERK_Arcade_VE.bin   16K   286 downloads

I know plenty of people would like to see a complete 2600 version of berzerk that include features already accomplished by others such as diagonal shots by DEBRO, and exits that are blocked off on one side by supercat. And perhaps even programmer(s) who could tweak the code to include more mazes to explore, or even an atarivox version. Unfortunatly, I have no coding skills and I don't know if my efforts here will initiate anyone who does. It is my hope that it will.

Please enjoy my contribution to this hack that will hopefully, with the combined contribution of others, will work it's way towards a perfection of this great game for all to appreciate.

...

Edit: I found an exit bug in the first posted binary and tried to fix it but it keeps coming back. I think it has to do with the humaniod now being shorter so I modified one of the mazes with an extra opening and left the bug in there as a hidden escape trick. After playing for some time I found it rather helpful though it's still a cheat. I'll let you figure this one out for yourself if you have'nt already down loaded the first bin.

All comments are welcomed and thanks for checking in!

Edited by espire8, Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:19 PM.

[plaidbrad3141]

Looks good. I missed the VE version so this would be cool.

[gambler172]

Hi
Looks nice
greetings gambler172

[DEBRO]

espire8, on Sat Jun 2, 2007 7:33 PM, said:

I know plenty of people would like to see a complete 2600 version of berzerk that include features already accomplished by others such as diagonal shots by noetokeo2001

I think you may be mistaken...read this thread A little project I started
Nice mazes

[espire8]

DEBRO, on Sun Jun 3, 2007 7:23 PM, said:

espire8, on Sat Jun 2, 2007 7:33 PM, said:

I know plenty of people would like to see a complete 2600 version of berzerk that include features already accomplished by others such as diagonal shots by noetokeo2001

I think you may be mistaken...read this thread A little project I started
Nice mazes

Oops.. I'm sorry DEBRO. guess I did'nt research far back enough. I did a search on berzerk in the forums and did'nt come across your thread. Thanks for bringing that to my attention; I corrected the first post to reflect that. And I'm glad you like the new mazes. Seems you've already been ahead of me long before about getting permission from other berzerk hackers to combine all their features into one complete binary.

Although your diagonal shots are not in this particular hack, I would like with your permission to see it in there along with Mike's VE hack. I also would like to see at least more mazes added as well by anyone willing. I know it depends on time and the gaming public's interest and I'm not just proposing; my contribute here should tell anyone I'm serious and the new mazes I did will hopfully be the motivation to that next step if ever, I mean berzerk VE goes back since 2002. I hope someone picks up on this revival before this thread becomes dead and long forgotten. (remember the fate of pacmanplus' DEFENDER arcade? I'm sure anyone can relate). Anyway, I have alot of maze designs and that along with other people's combined hack efforts will make this latest update more complete than ever.

Thanks for you post DEBRO and hope to hear from you soon and I hope everyone is enjoying the new maze's challenge.

[SpiceWare]

Hmm - right now you have a 16 KB ROM - 4 banks with, if I'm not mistaken, 1 bank for Berzerk and 3 banks for digitized samples.

Change to a 32 KB ROM
1 bank = 4 mazes with all sides open
1 bank = 4 mazes with top closed
1 bank = 4 mazes with bottom closed
1 bank = 4 mazes with right closed
1 bank = 4 mazes with left closed
3 banks for digitized samples

[espire8]

A new bin with more mazes. I'm gonna post a few more bins with more designs soon, mean while I'd really like to know what you all think of the latest new designs here.

 BERZERK_Arcade_VEgr2.bin   16K   209 downloads

[WildBillTX]

Great job on the new mazes...freshens up a old classic. How many more new mazes can be added to this game?

[espire8]

WildBillTX, on Sun Jul 8, 2007 1:31 AM, said:

Great job on the new mazes...freshens up a old classic. How many more new mazes can be added to this game?

At the moment only four mazes. I was just hacking many more different designs earlier on to see which one worked best according to what others had to say, but most who downloaded my demos are not even bothering to give any kind of input.
Sadly, I feel this thread has been up long enough for me to call it quits so I won't post any more mazes.
Sorry, but I'm just too disappointed to continue with this.

[xmas78_Atari]

espire8, on Sat Jun 2, 2007 4:33 PM, said:

Welcome to BERZERK ARCADE VE. It's the only title I can think of and I'm not sure if it's used already, if so just let me know. Anyway,this is really a hack of someone else's hack done five years ago by Mike Mika called BERZERK VE (voice enhanced). The atari 2600 original Berzerk code had several unique hacks done by many others -but nobody actually made any truely different mazes to this fun shooter, which is what I done here. All the mazes are now totaly redrawn with more complex patterns and the robots and player character have been reduced in size to make navigating the passageways easier. The humaniod's animation is all new too and the robot's very slightly. I have over 20 different maze designs although I can only include 4 in a single binary. I was thinking of separate bins with different mazes but I'll just start off with this for now.

BERZERK_Arcade_VE.bin

I know plenty of people would like to see a complete 2600 version of berzerk that include features already accomplished by others such as diagonal shots by DEBRO, and exits that are blocked off on one side by supercat. And perhaps even programmer(s) who could tweak the code to include more mazes to explore, or even an atarivox version. Unfortunatly, I have no coding skills and I don't know if my efforts here will initiate anyone who does. It is my hope that it will.

Please enjoy my contribution to this hack that will hopefully, with the combined contribution of others, will work it's way towards a perfection of this great game for all to appreciate. :)

...

Edit: :!: I found an exit bug in the first posted binary and tried to fix it but it keeps coming back. I think it has to do with the humaniod now being shorter so I modified one of the mazes with an extra opening and left the bug in there as a hidden escape trick. After playing for some time I found it rather helpful though it's still a cheat. I'll let you figure this one out for yourself if you have'nt already down loaded the first bin. :D

All comments are welcomed and thanks for checking in!

I'm a big fan of Berzerk and have my own arcade cabinet of this game by Stern. Anyways, I'm most impressed with this version. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about hacking yet, but this game comes closer to being a perfect arcade port. Nice work and thank you!

[xmas78_Atari]

xmas78_Atari, on Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:30 AM, said:

espire8, on Sat Jun 2, 2007 4:33 PM, said:

Welcome to BERZERK ARCADE VE. It's the only title I can think of and I'm not sure if it's used already, if so just let me know. Anyway,this is really a hack of someone else's hack done five years ago by Mike Mika called BERZERK VE (voice enhanced). The atari 2600 original Berzerk code had several unique hacks done by many others -but nobody actually made any truely different mazes to this fun shooter, which is what I done here. All the mazes are now totaly redrawn with more complex patterns and the robots and player character have been reduced in size to make navigating the passageways easier. The humaniod's animation is all new too and the robot's very slightly. I have over 20 different maze designs although I can only include 4 in a single binary. I was thinking of separate bins with different mazes but I'll just start off with this for now.

BERZERK_Arcade_VE.bin

I know plenty of people would like to see a complete 2600 version of berzerk that include features already accomplished by others such as diagonal shots by DEBRO, and exits that are blocked off on one side by supercat. And perhaps even programmer(s) who could tweak the code to include more mazes to explore, or even an atarivox version. Unfortunatly, I have no coding skills and I don't know if my efforts here will initiate anyone who does. It is my hope that it will.

Please enjoy my contribution to this hack that will hopefully, with the combined contribution of others, will work it's way towards a perfection of this great game for all to appreciate.

...

Edit: I found an exit bug in the first posted binary and tried to fix it but it keeps coming back. I think it has to do with the humaniod now being shorter so I modified one of the mazes with an extra opening and left the bug in there as a hidden escape trick. After playing for some time I found it rather helpful though it's still a cheat. I'll let you figure this one out for yourself if you have'nt already down loaded the first bin.

All comments are welcomed and thanks for checking in!

I'm a big fan of Berzerk and have my own arcade cabinet of this game by Stern. Anyways, I'm most impressed with this version. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about hacking yet, but this game comes closer to being a perfect arcade port. Nice work and thank you! I just downloaded your work and played on my CC2. As for my opinion, way better that what Atari did. My favorite Maze on the arcade was where they had robots inside a room that you could not get too because the blue walls had no opening. Your mazes are great and there is no comparison to the original Atari 2600 Berzerk. If you have more mazes up for download, I'll be sure to give you more of my opinions.

[neotokeo2001]

xmas78_Atari, on Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:38 AM, said:

I'm a big fan of Berzerk and have my own arcade cabinet of this game by Stern. Anyways, I'm most impressed with this version. Unfortunately, I don't know anything about hacking yet, but this game comes closer to being a perfect arcade port. Nice work and thank you! I just downloaded your work and played on my CC2. As for my opinion, way better that what Atari did. My favorite Maze on the arcade was where they had robots inside a room that you could not get too because the blue walls had no opening. Your mazes are great and there is no comparison to the original Atari 2600 Berzerk. If you have more mazes up for download, I'll be sure to give you more of my opinions.

Do you mean like this?


Berzerk AE:
 Berzerk_Arcade_V_small.bin   16K   178 downloads

[PacManPlus]

...ya know... making a maze with no walls (except the complete outer edges), adding a few more robots, adding some small boxes with the playfields, and giving erratic movement to Otto, it could almost be made into a Robotron-esque games.

[Lord Helmet]

PacManPlus, on Wed Nov 28, 2007 3:28 PM, said:

...ya know... making a maze with no walls (except the complete outer edges), adding a few more robots, adding some small boxes with the playfields, and giving erratic movement to Otto, it could almost be made into a Robotron-esque games.

Or at least a Robotron prequel of sorts

[joeybastard]

Some questions about the mazes in Berzerk maybe somebody can answer.

Are there a set number of choices in a table and the computer just picks randomly from that table? Is there a different table of choices for horizontal entrance/exits vs. vertical entrance/exits? Or in a different scenario, are there just a set number of mazes and the computer sticks an extrance/exit to correspond with the last room after the choice is made?

[neotokeo2001]

joeybastard, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:57 AM, said:

Some questions about the mazes in Berzerk maybe somebody can answer.

Are there a set number of choices in a table and the computer just picks randomly from that table? Is there a different table of choices for horizontal entrance/exits vs. vertical entrance/exits? Or in a different scenario, are there just a set number of mazes and the computer sticks an extrance/exit to correspond with the last room after the choice is made?

There are four set mazes that each have a set program address, No tables. I believe the program sets the exit randomly in one of the three directions other then where you entered.

It is easy to hack mazes in Berzerk now since there are so many examples that you can compare to. Just open up Berzerk in Hack-o-Matic and compare it to one of the hacks and you will see the changes. It is easy to see the wall sections but you may have to experiment for the screen placement.

[joeybastard]

neotokeo2001, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:32 AM, said:

joeybastard, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:57 AM, said:

Some questions about the mazes in Berzerk maybe somebody can answer.

Are there a set number of choices in a table and the computer just picks randomly from that table? Is there a different table of choices for horizontal entrance/exits vs. vertical entrance/exits? Or in a different scenario, are there just a set number of mazes and the computer sticks an extrance/exit to correspond with the last room after the choice is made?

There are four set mazes that each have a set program address, No tables. I believe the program sets the exit randomly in one of the three directions other then where you entered.

It is easy to hack mazes in Berzerk now since there are so many examples that you can compare to. Just open up Berzerk in Hack-o-Matic and compare it to one of the hacks and you will see the changes. It is easy to see the wall sections but you may have to experiment for the screen placement.

Thanks, I'm not looking to hack it, I'm researching something else that Berzerk kind of applies to. Thanks for the info

[espire8]

neotokeo2001, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:32 AM, said:

It is easy to hack mazes in Berzerk now since there are so many examples that you can compare to. Just open up Berzerk in Hack-o-Matic and compare it to one of the hacks and you will see the changes. It is easy to see the wall sections but you may have to experiment for the screen placement.

It may be easy to make small cosmetic changes (as you can only see a small part of the maze walls at a time when hacking) but the screen placement is the tricky part.
If that part were easy, then everyone would be creating alot more unique designs instead of altering exsisting ones. Of course, I have nothing against it, but it's just that I don't see anyone else producing totally unique and playable mazes as I have posted here in this thread.

Seems to me I'm the only Berzerk hacker who cared enough to figure that one out.

[neotokeo2001]

espire8, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:05 PM, said:

neotokeo2001, on Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:32 AM, said:

It is easy to hack mazes in Berzerk now since there are so many examples that you can compare to. Just open up Berzerk in Hack-o-Matic and compare it to one of the hacks and you will see the changes. It is easy to see the wall sections but you may have to experiment for the screen placement.

It may be easy to make small cosmetic changes (as you can only see a small part of the maze walls at a time when hacking) but the screen placement is the tricky part.
If that part were easy, then everyone would be creating alot more unique designs instead of altering exsisting ones. Of course, I have nothing against it, but it's just that I don't see anyone else producing totally unique and playable mazes as I have posted here in this thread.

Seems to me I'm the only Berzerk hacker who cared enough to figure that one out.

[jboypacman]

This could be quite cool.

[espire8]

Neo, you're not helping me.

Maybe we're not understanding each other and sorry if we don't, but if you really want to impress me, show me your own berzerk hack with the same amount of complexity and all new layout designed from scratch, as mine are, and I'm talking a playable demo, not a mockup, and I'll give you my honest opinion.

Take another look at my designs. I've covered every corner of the playfield with "new" and "different" maze patterns that blend seamlessly without any "empty dead spots" which is the compromise found in many other berzerk hacks because some hackers have lots of trouble trying to locate every section (the screen placement) of every matching maze wall that suppose to connect to each other.
And I still say I have yet to see mazes like that from others.

All 4 mazes have 6 sections (3 of them mirrored) and I noticed many hacks locate and redesign only 2 sections at most because that's all they can find. But I wanted to do more. I wanted more unique and complex mazes and I made over 30 different maze mock-ups. But I wanted more than mock-ups. I wanted to sample and playtest those mazes. But I wanted to have more than the 4 mazes that the code allows and that's where I can go no further. But I worked hard on my designs and another thing that separates mine from other's are that my patterns were so tight I had to shrink the robots and player even in width (yes neo, even smaller than your version) so it's easier to navigate.

[neotokeo2001]

I would be interested in making a version of Berzerk that has more maze options. It should be possible to add more then four mazes by expanding it to 8k or more. I have a lot of things lined up ahead of it but it will eventually get done. I like the mazes that you (espire8) have designed and I wasn't trying to one up you or anything. Just showing you that Berzerk has been hacked a lot, Probably only Space Invaders has been hacked more.

An expanded maze version would probably have to lose the voice.

[2600man]

This looks sweet:D!!
I just wanna know.....
Are you throwing out all the original mazes for all new ones?
I'd prefer to see the old ones kept with some new ones added:)
But whatever you do will rock regardless:D


Oh Nvm:)
I played and it looks amazing:D
I see where you're going on this,Kick'n:D

Edited by 2600man, Wed Mar 19, 2008 12:49 AM.

[Out_of_Gas]

I came up with "Outlaw Berzerk", and through Neo it became Westworld Berzerk. But I also was able to change the walls. I know it was a older post, but others DID care about changing the walls, granted not as elaborate as you.
My hack's was called
Mystical Wizard.

Attached Thumbnails

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[cosmosiss]

Wow, that Westworld Berzerk looks wicked! Did it ever got made?