(WIP) Luca Elia: StarPak 4 & Tekken Card World - 模擬器

2017.04.02

The Last StarPak (A Tale Of Rare Cartridges)
Let me get back to the recent post about the Galaxy Games cartridges, because
we have a nice update!

About a week ago programmer Keith M. Kolmos (@KeithMKolmos) managed to
locate, among his archived data, the development files for the only remaining
undumped cartridge, StarPak 4.

Thus, while no production StarPak 4 cartridge has been spotted to date, we do
now have all the data needed to emulate these elusive games. That includes
the PIC program used for protection, which might have been impossible to
extract from the real hardware anyway. Kudos to Keith for sharing.

The development cartridge had eight 8Mbit EEPROMs, so we got 8 binary image
files, plus an hex file for the PIC. For production, the game data was copied
into two 32Mbit FLASH parts. The PIC code appears functionally identical to
that from cartridge #3, but the bytes returned during the initial handshaking
were changed.

Here's the selection of games in StarPak 4:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0000.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0001.png

Prominent among the lot is the remake of Stern's Berzerk, which greets the
player with (samples of) the well known synthesized speech:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0002.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0003.png

Neon Nightmare is a cute test for your coordination skills as you try, as a
humble moth, to avoid getting zapped in a maze of neon lights:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0004.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0005.png

Orbit is a color-matching game set in space. Moons have to be skillfully
inserted into the orbits of the circling planet with the right tint:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0006.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0007.png

Some nice rendered graphics in Deep Sea. Your submarine and its torpedoes
against a fleet of enemy ships:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0008.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0009.png

Another classic board game, Reversi (aka Othello), is presented with an
Egyptian flavour in Scarab:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0010.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0012.png

Orbit Freefall is a variation of the previous planets game with some
additional twists:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0013.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0014.png

We got to the last two games. As you can see there are major issues. Most of
the moving graphics are garbled. It's probably the emulation at fault rather
than the data, but I couldn't spot an obvious cause yet (e.g. in the blitter
logs). Anyway the titles are:

Star Tiger, a spaceships battle with Asteroids-like controls (thrust and
fire):
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0015.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0016.png

Finally Battle Checkers, features tanks in place of the usual round pieces,
and a short-tempered sergeant to keep you on your toes:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0017.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/galgame4/0019.png


2017.04.01

Tekken Card World
ShouTime is on a dumping spree and so we got a Tekken-themed coin pusher
today!

It's a Namco medal game similar to Pac-Slot and Tobikose! Jumpman. It uses
super deformed Tekken characters in the same vein as Super Puzzle Fighter or
Pocket Fighter.

The title is Tekken Card World (鉄拳カードワールド) and like the other games
it runs on cave.cpp hardware (Namco EMG4 or N-44EM PCB):
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0000.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0018.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0006.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0008.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0019.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0021.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0023.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0030.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0032.png
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/0035.png

As you'd expect from a medal game, not much skill is required (read: none at
all) to play this game. Anyway, below are some images of the cabinet,
borrowed from here:
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/tekkencw_cab.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/IZDtnE2.jpg
http://www.lucaelia.com/images/mame_snaps/tekkencw/tekkencw_cab_controls.jpg

There are videos of the real game in action on the net, like this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=903Hk5oAQ3U


http://www.lucaelia.com/index.php

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