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Sonic Crackers 2010 Disassembly Release

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by MarkeyJester, Sep 20, 2010.

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  1. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    We felt this needed its own new topic rather than using the original 2009 version, I know that most of you don't really care for Crackers, but we're willing to accept this and enjoy the fact that we at least covered some research.

    So me and Selbi have been doing a lot of researching, commenting and work on the Sonic Crackers disassembly, and we have it now where it builds properly now even after code changes, a lot of bugs from the original version have been found and dealt with. The Z80 has been disassembled too and can be reassembled with the main rom, a shit load of routines have been commented and understood, and it's enough to make a hack out of. With that in mind, we're releasing it publicly.

    Download.

    There's only one issue that you should know about, which is due to the original game having it's music banked at 00010000, there's code directly before it which is not padding so adding code before that position causes the game not to build properly, but of course, changing this means changing code that's not exact to how Sonic Team left it, so it's out of the question for us the go altering.

    But nothing stops you from removing this code should you feel the need to, you can also delete some of the unknown routines to make up for some space, and with the Z80 disassembled, you can also rebank the music to somewhere else in the rom, so it's a minor problem that can be fixed with a few minutes work.

    Once again, thanks go to (Please read and acknowledge that others have helped in some form here) Hivebrain for the original data locations, and Malevolence for his work previously, and to Nemesis for his edited "asm68k.exe".

    Have fun.
     
  2. Selbi

    Selbi

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    Ahh, good times doing all this research. I wouldn't say that I've done a lot and what I've done is absoluteley nothing compared to Markey's work (for example all the VDP stuff), but I'm still proud with the things I've done, which are mainly things that are important, but on the other hand not really necesary, like the timer or the rings spawning out when you get hurt (they are unnecesary, because you can't collect them and appear even though you don't have any rings).

    As Markey already stated, there probably aren't much people interested in this, but I (and I also think we) would be more than pleased, if you at least take a quick look at it and give us a few words about it. It doesn't need to be a wall of text of course.

    So, happy hacking, or whatever.
     
  3. PsychoSk8r

    PsychoSk8r

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    30 Day Project: Revisited.A New Release!
    Nice, looking through this could be inspiration for the 30 day project. =3
     
  4. Vinchenz

    Vinchenz

    Yo! Hustle! Hustle! Member
    I'm interested in seeing the tethering code between Sonic & Tails be imported into Sonic the Hedgehog 2. :P
     
  5. Alriightyman

    Alriightyman

    I am back... from the dead! Tech Member
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    0101001101101111011011100110100101100011 00000010: 0101001100000011 01000101011001000110100101110100011010010110111101101110
    Very cool. When I get some free time I'll have a good look at this. Great job!
     
  6. theocas

    theocas

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    Wonderful Markey. I'll be sure to use this in No-name for something... possibly two-player or something. I'll definitly try to port over some art.
     
  7. Ollie

    Ollie

    DIGGY DIGGY HOLE Member
    Thanks for this! I appreciated the disassembly last time too. Can't wait to have a look into this version.
     
  8. Uh, SonED2 Projects, please? I can't do anything about the levels without any SonED2 projects.
     
  9. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    I'll look into a way of allowing SonED to be functional with Crackers, though it'll have to be done via the same method as Sonic 1 Two-Eight because of the compression and setout differences.
     
  10. Mercury

    Mercury

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    Awesome!

    Crackers seems to handle curves differently (it looks smoother to me), so I'll definitely be interested in combing through the physics routines and seeing what's what.
     
  11. MarkeyJester

    MarkeyJester

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    [​IMG]
    So far so good, Layout and object positioning are going to be a challenge though.
     
  12. Ollie

    Ollie

    DIGGY DIGGY HOLE Member
    MY. GOD.

    So can't wait for the project files, nice one!
     
  13. Spanner

    Spanner

    The Tool Member
    Good work to all those involved with the disassembly. I had said this to MarkeyJester and Selbi once when this was being worked on, so here's my take on this.

    Sonic Crackers is really an incomplete Sonic Engine. Remove the combi-ring mode and you now have Sonic running around an engine which would be like if Dimps worked on Mega Drive games. Fix up the existing objects to work properly, code in some new stuff and remove things such as the time limit and in the end, we could eventually have a hack based on Crackers, but entirely different in a way.

    It would be a tough task in a way (although core objects could easily be ported from older games), but it would be potentially worth it in the end, especially if you want a hack which looks and performs entirely different than the source game, although there is an existing hack like that. + - (cough) Sonic Boom (cough)  
     
  14. Animemaster

    Animemaster

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    Cool stuff, I'll have to check it out sometime.
     
  15. Namo

    Namo

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    Hm, that makes me wonder. If we were to compare the physics from Sonic Crackers to Knuckles Chaotix, how similar/dissimilar would they be?
     
  16. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    You can easily compare Chaotix's intro level with Sonic Crackers holding Tails the whole time.
     
  17. Dark Sonic

    Dark Sonic

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    Sonic Crackers is such a mess that I think it would probably make more sense to hack Sonic 2 with the addition of a combi ring system and copy any of the graphical assets from crackers into that game.

    Then again Chaotix's engine sucked too. Say what you want about Dimps but the Sonic 4 engine looks a hell of a lot better than Chaotix's
     
  18. JunYamine

    JunYamine

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    Too many projects to list...
    I don't know too too much about how the physics would be, but after playing Chaotix for a bit, then playing Crackers, I noticed that there are some similar music tracks, and the levels do play similarly, but I'm sure there would be some differences while looking at it on a coding level. My real question would be "what are those field stages in Crackers for?" I'd personally love to see some ideas using this ROM as a base (after it's debugged and all that)
     
  19. theocas

    theocas

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    You know what - I am gonna be bored a lot soon, so I'll make Sonic Crackers No-Name :P
     
  20. I'd be really interested in seeing a couple of levels completed. Maybe take some of the badniks from Chaotix, limit their pallets, and stick them in the game.
     
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