[StanJr]

That's right, somebody had to do it! So I did, and I had a LOT of fun doing it! Enjoy!

Tomb Raider 2600
The Mystery of the Scarlet Dragon

Location: Ruins, Jipijapa, Ecuador

During a routine archaeological dig a most significant discovery was made, a small dragon statue carved out of pure Ruby. None of the previous known cultures of ancient South America could account for the find. Dubbed the “Scarlet Dragon,” the idol has become the subject of much debate and curiosity. Where did the Dragon come from? Who made it? Where did they find a source of such large and pure rubies? Are there more like it? Plenty of questions and the only answers are buried deep in the Ecuadorian mountainside. Many experts have studied the Scarlet Dragon, but none have been able to offer any answers, until now…
Her plane set down outside the tiny village of Jipijapa two days ago. Lara Croft, world-renowned explorer and rumored “Tomb Raider” has come to do what many would never dare, enter the forgotten ruins and solve the Mystery of the Scarlet Dragon.

Your job is simple. Guide Lara through the tunnels and passageways of the Jipijapa Ruins. Pick up as many Scarlet Dragons as you can find. Along the way, collect all the key tablets you can, without them you will not be able to venture into the next level of the ruins. Also be on the look out for other helpful items, including Lara’s trademark pistols (good for killing one enemy) and flares to help you see in the dark. There are likely other items lost in the ruins that can help you and who knows what powers they may possess!

But remember, tomb raiding is NEVER easy. Expect the ruins to be littered with obstacles of all sorts from razor floor traps to spiked balls, and even pools of lava! And it’s a sure bet that the ruins are home to some nasty creatures as well. You’ll have to be quick and nimble if you are to uncover the secrets of this ancient temple!

Off you go! The Mystery of the Scarlet Dragon awaits!

(Tomb Raider 2600 is a pure hack of Montezuma’s Revenge, all MR rules apply.)

(You will need z26 to play it and you will need to add –g3 at the end of the command line that includes the .bin EXAMPLE: z26.exe tombraider.bin –g3. Stella users, you have to create a new entry in the STELLA.PRO file.) Thanks to Eckhard Stolberg and NE146 of Atariage.com

Attached File(s)

•  tombraider.zip (5.7K)
  Number of downloads: 160

[Rhindle The Red]

Stan,

I liked the hack, but it seemed a bit off, so I mucked about a bit and adjusted the run animation, made her land more squarely on the ropes and adjusted the jump slightly.

I also made her more...shapely, shall we say.

Hope it meets with your approval.

Also, is there some reason I keep getting caught in the doors? I don't remember that in the original MR.

Attached File(s)

•  tomb.zip (5.69K)
  Number of downloads: 149

[Random Terrain]

StanJr said:

(You will need z26 to play it and you will need to add –g3 at the end of the command line that includes the .bin   EXAMPLE:  z26.exe tombraider.bin –g3.  Stella users, you have to create a new entry in the STELLA.PRO file.)  Thanks to Eckhard Stolberg and NE146 of Atariage.com

If you use z26 and the x26 front end, just click on the "Settings" menu, then select the "Debugging" tab at the bottom, then chose "8k Parker Brothers" from the "Override Game Type" drop-down menu, then run the game. You can also do that -g3 thing under "Debugging" instead if you would like. Either works. Depends on which you think is faster.

[StanJr]

oops! Sorry cavelevel! I meant to add that in too! Thanks for that!

Rhindle, feel free to hack away, dude. Its the spirit of the hobby! I too toyed around with that run animation (for hours!) and ran some tests similar to what you've done, I just thought with the arms and legs splayed out so, Lara looked a bit frantic and spazzy flailing about. I had one that was pretty tight, but it still looked off (thanks to a programming error in the run animation that no amount of hacking can fix!) That is why I decided to go with the lowest key run animation I could.

I'm not sure what you did to the rope climbing animation, but I'll fire up HOM2 and take a look. Must be smooth, though if I didn't notice.

I also opted for the more streamlined Lara for the standing pose to make her more curvy. Unfortunately its a rough balance keeping her girlish figure thin and still allowing her chest size to be all it can be (hence the one pixel tacked onto her chest above her arm). I went through about 8 different "thin Laras" and "chunky Laras" trying to figure out what looked best, in the end I opted for the thinner Lara and sacrificed a bit in boob size.

thanks for taking the time to play the hack and digging around inside!

[ATARI TROLL]

Nice very Nice!!

[Inky]

Will SOMEONE please get the color hacking ability going. I want to get started on my hack idea.


Unless I start it and one of you fine gentlemen could tweak the color for me..

[Random Terrain]

It sure will be nice when we can easily edit the color of most any game without studying the code. It should be as easy as load bin file, edit graphics and color, save bin file, load emulator, play game, have fun.

[Cafeman]

What game was hacked to make Tomb Raider 2600?

The animation is pretty cool. But I get permanently stuck on the 'ladders', ending the game if I touch them. Did the hack cause this glitch?

[Keir]

StanJr said:

Tomb Raider 2600 is a pure hack of Montezuma’s Revenge

[StanJr]

permanently stuck on ladders? Never happened to me. What Emu are you using?

I do get stuck in the doors from time to time, if I run into them sans key, but I'm not entirely sure why that is. Lara is the same dimensions (so to speak) as Panama Joe, so I don't know why she is getting hung up.

[Rhindle The Red]

Perhaps you unknowingly changed something besides the graphics. Try opening the original and the new version side by side and changing just the graphics bits carefully, just to make sure.

[Lost Monkey]

I accidentally modified Rhindle's mod of Stan's hack, but here is a version with the colours changed.

I was using this picture for the basis of the colours:

[/img]

Attached thumbnail(s)

• 

Attached File(s)

•  tomb.zip (5.7K)
  Number of downloads: 159

[Lucky Man]

Rhindle The Red, on Wed Sep 3, 2003 11:08 PM, said:

Stan,

I liked the hack, but it seemed a bit off, so I mucked about a bit and adjusted the run animation, made her land more squarely on the ropes and adjusted the jump slightly.

I also made her more...shapely, shall we say.

Hope it meets with your approval.

Also, is there some reason I keep getting caught in the doors? I don't remember that in the original MR.

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I really like this hack. Did anyone ever figure out why Lara keeps getting stuck on unlocked doors? It seems worse with Rhindle's hack, although I like his Lara animation a little more.

[vdub_bobby]

Lucky Man, on Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:31 AM, said:

Did anyone ever figure out why Lara keeps getting stuck on unlocked doors? It seems worse with Rhindle's hack, although I like his Lara animation a little more.

It's because of the new graphic: M'sR won't let you move if you are touching a door except: it will let you turn around and when you do it moves you one pixel - but no more. The Panama Joe graphic was cleverly designed so that when you turned around while touching a door, you weren't touching a door anymore, so you could move. So you'll need to make a Lara sprite with the same qualities.

Looksee:


To make the Lara sprite work just make sure the front of her is as far forward as it can be.

EDIT: Try this:  tomb_bob.bin (8K)
Number of downloads: 84

This post has been edited by vdub_bobby: Tue Aug 15, 2006 11:16 AM

[Atari Dogs]

vdub_bobby, on Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:08 PM, said:

Lucky Man, on Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:31 AM, said:

Did anyone ever figure out why Lara keeps getting stuck on unlocked doors? It seems worse with Rhindle's hack, although I like his Lara animation a little more.

It's because of the new graphic: M'sR won't let you move if you are touching a door except: it will let you turn around and when you do it moves you one pixel - but no more. The Panama Joe graphic was cleverly designed so that when you turned around while touching a door, you weren't touching a door anymore, so you could move. So you'll need to make a Lara sprite with the same qualities.

Looksee:
attachment

To make the Lara sprite work just make sure the front of her is as far forward as it can be.

EDIT: Try this: attachment

It work better, but the movement is not as good. It is too choppy when she runs. That may be how you get it to work though.

Someone make a lable for this game.

[moycon]

Atari Dogs, on Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:09 PM, said:

Someone make a lable for this game.

Ooooh I want one! Good job all around.

[Lucky Man]

vdub_bobby, on Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:08 AM, said:

Lucky Man, on Fri Aug 11, 2006 10:31 AM, said:

Did anyone ever figure out why Lara keeps getting stuck on unlocked doors? It seems worse with Rhindle's hack, although I like his Lara animation a little more.

It's because of the new graphic: M'sR won't let you move if you are touching a door except: it will let you turn around and when you do it moves you one pixel - but no more. The Panama Joe graphic was cleverly designed so that when you turned around while touching a door, you weren't touching a door anymore, so you could move. So you'll need to make a Lara sprite with the same qualities.

To make the Lara sprite work just make sure the front of her is as far forward as it can be.

EDIT: Try this: attachment

Sorry it took me a while to check this out. I was on vacation...and sick. Why do those so often happen together?

You're hack doesn't seem to get stuck on the walls, but I have to agree with Atari Dogs, the character animation does seem a bit choppy. More importantly, though, you used Lost Monkey's hack that somehow changed the disappearing floors so they no longer reach all the way to the solid floors. Rhindle's hack doesn't seem to have this problem. Can you make the same changes to that one?

[vdub_bobby]

Lucky Man, on Thu Aug 24, 2006 9:48 AM, said:

You're hack doesn't seem to get stuck on the walls, but I have to agree with Atari Dogs, the character animation does seem a bit choppy.

Agreed. IMO the entire sprite should be redone. Just make sure that the standing-still sprite is as far to the right as possible.

[KevinMos3]

NOTICE: All content has been moved to this thread.
Below is my original mangled, highly edited post from when I was first beginning work on the hack:

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

Old thread, I know -- but I have some questions.

Does anyone know if this can be made to work in the Xbox emulator "z26x"? I've been intrigued by this hack for a while now and finally tried it in Stella on my PC. I loved it, but I don't play games on my PC. I only use my Xbox for emulation.

If this cannot be made to work in the Xbox emulator and it cannot be put on a cart, what is the reason?... could it be redone in a way that would work? If so, and no one wants to do it, I'd be interested in learning how to do it.

BTW, I prefer StanJr's original sprite for Lara. It looks more like the elegant lady we all know Lara to be. The others are nice, (especially the color hack), but they make her look fat.

edit: I tried my hand at bithacker and the showgfx/editgfx programs. Anything I change -- even if I use a hex editor to change one byte of a sprite -- causes the game to no longer load in z26x.

Does ANYONE know how to edit the sprites in this game without screwing it up from working in z26x or real hardware?

edit again: I've figured out most of the colors. The only one I haven't found is the color for the locked doors to the exit of the level. Here's my color/character sprite edit so far. It's similar to StanJr's but it does NOT get stuck on locked doors:

** UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE **
This is now using the F6 bankswitching instead of F8. It will now work in z26 without the -g3 option and it "should" work on a cart. Thanks to Randy for pointing me in the right direction on this issue. I've changed the level colors and the colors of some of the items. If you downloaded the file called "Tomb Raider Classic.zip" before, download this one. This is the newer binary. Let me know what you think. Are the Scarlet Dragons too dark? Should the icons at the top be a different color than gold/yellow? Does anyone have better ideas for level colors? Ok, now my OCD is showing...

[Content Moved Here]

I'm pretty happy with the vintage Lara at this point, but I'm really hoping someone can help with the emu/hardware issue to make this more compatible. I'd love to play it on my Xbox and even on a cart.

P.S.
What were the lives icons supposed to be before? Boobs?

FollowUp: I'm trying to learn how to disassemble. I've split the original F8 version into two 4k parts and have run them through distella with the -d option as specified by Nukey Shay in this thread. I've been trying to make sense out of the rest of the guide, but I'm stuck. I'm completely new to this sort of thing, but I'm wanting to learn and I'm planning on taking some programming classes this spring. Would anyone care to help walk me through some of this? Am I biting off way too much with this game as my first hack effort?

This post has been edited by KevinMos3: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:08 AM

[KevinMos3]

Okay, I guess it's time I made an actual post since I've edited the crap out of my previous one. I'd like input on the hack. Does anyone have better ideas for level colors or sprites? Which Lara is your favorite, the classic or the modern? How about the cart design... better ideas there? I'd like to eventually put this on a cart and want to iron out anything that can be improved. Feedback is appreciated.

[Atari Dogs]

I will have to try out your version. I made myself a cartridge of the color full version back in 2006. I was not happy with the outfit Lara is wearing, but my daughter, who I made if for, liked it.

Your label is really nice. I wish I could make better labels. All I know how to do it cut and paste using the 2600 label maker. Here is the label I made.

I also made a copy of the female Pitfall game for her. Here it is.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[stephena]

Random Terrain, on Thu Sep 4, 2003 3:40 AM, said:

StanJr said:

(You will need z26 to play it and you will need to add –g3 at the end of the command line that includes the .bin   EXAMPLE:  z26.exe tombraider.bin –g3.  Stella users, you have to create a new entry in the STELLA.PRO file.)  Thanks to Eckhard Stolberg and NE146 of Atariage.com

If you use z26 and the x26 front end, just click on the "Settings" menu, then select the "Debugging" tab at the bottom, then chose "8k Parker Brothers" from the "Override Game Type" drop-down menu, then run the game. You can also do that -g3 thing under "Debugging" instead if you would like. Either works. Depends on which you think is faster.

I just want to remind everyone that all these options are available in Stella as well. Creating a specific stella.pro entry is useful if the game is complete, and you don't want to specify the type each time. Otherwise, you can override the type from the UI (right click in the launcher for 'Override properties'), or on the commandline use '-type E0'.

As well, in many cases you won't have to specify a bankswitch type at all in Stella; the autodetection will take care of it.

EDIT: Oops, I just realized this was an old thread, created before Stella had reliable autodetection. Just to reiterate, all the ROMs in this thread are autodetected in the latest version of Stella; there's no need to worry about the type at all.

This post has been edited by stephena: Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:51 AM

[KevinMos3]

Atari Dogs, on Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:12 AM, said:

I will have to try out your version. I made myself a cartridge of the color full version back in 2006. I was not happy with the outfit Lara is wearing, but my daughter, who I made if for, liked it.

Your label is really nice. I wish I could make better labels. All I know how to do it cut and paste using the 2600 label maker. Here is the label I made.

I also made a copy of the female Pitfall game for her. Here it is.

Thank you for sharing. I wasn't even aware of the female Pitfall game. I'll have to check that out.

stephena, on Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:47 AM, said:

I just want to remind everyone that all these options are available in Stella as well. Creating a specific stella.pro entry is useful if the game is complete, and you don't want to specify the type each time. Otherwise, you can override the type from the UI (right click in the launcher for 'Override properties'), or on the commandline use '-type E0'.

As well, in many cases you won't have to specify a bankswitch type at all in Stella; the autodetection will take care of it.

EDIT: Oops, I just realized this was an old thread, created before Stella had reliable autodetection. Just to reiterate, all the ROMs in this thread are autodetected in the latest version of Stella; there's no need to worry about the type at all.

Not only that, but in my current version all these issues are taken care of anyway. This has been converted to a 16k F6 bankswitching ROM so that it will work without specifying any specific options. It should also work on real hardware now, (which I will test out when I get the chance).

I probably should have started a NEW thread instead of posting in the existing one, but my original post was only a reply asking for help making StanJr's old version more compatible anyway. I was initially open to learning how to hack it myself, but I did not expect to do so much so quickly. This has turned into a real project for me with the more complete hack, level maps, and box art/cart art. I hope it doesn't get buried and forgotten now.

[Atari Dogs]

For Pitfall, the skeletons (scorpions) were too hard for my daughter and me even to jump over, so I shrunk them one pixel for my cartridge. I think the sound effect when you jump up to the rope was deleted some how. Other than those, it is a fun little hack for a girl.

[KevinMos3]

I made some slight alterations to the cart labels in the above post, plus two more alternate versions. Again, if anyone wants the full quality version of these, pm me and I can email them to you.

I'm still hoping to get feedback about the hack itself. Ya'll speak up.

This post has been edited by KevinMos3: Sat Dec 12, 2009 11:32 PM