VIP 5 2019 - To everyone there is a boon, and a time to every rom hack under heaven

[KobaBeach]

Whoa wait a sec. How old is the VIP series? I thought it was more recent than that. The furthest entry in the line is 9 years ago?

I really love that title screen. I've also forgotten everything about this.

VIP1 - 2005
VIP2 - 2006
VIP3 - 2007
VIP4 - 2008
VIP5 - 2011
last VIP6 release - like 2017?

[Alice]

I forgot most of what happened in vip5 so I'm ready to see it again!

All I really rememebr is the Boon/cat thing Mt. Rushmore on the map and I think there was a level fairly late in the game that was pretty atrocious. I think it messed with your controls but I can't recall the details.

VIP1 - 2005
VIP2 - 2006
VIP3 - 2007
VIP4 - 2008
VIP5 - 2011
last VIP6 release - like 2017?

Wow, so there's as much time between VIP1 and VIP5 as there is between VIP5 and the last release of VIP6? That's a ridiculous change in timespans, lol.

[KobaBeach]

VIP1 - 2005
VIP2 - 2006
VIP3 - 2007
VIP4 - 2008
VIP5 - 2011
last VIP6 release - like 2017?

Wow, so there's as much time between VIP1 and VIP5 as there is between VIP5 and the last release of VIP6? That's a ridiculous change in timespans, lol.

The thing about VIP6 is that it lost every project coordenator, lead and assembler due to drama, and that's why it'll never be finished, most likely. There's only level designers left and most of them can only just use Lunar Magic.

[Grounder]

more like rip6

[This Eye o' Mine]

welcome back eye :3

:3

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So with the first map transition into the main map, I guess I'll explain one of the major obstacles to getting this hack to work on anything beyond ZSNES. As usual, this is a somewhat long and technical explanation, but in short: it was the amount of time the custom overworld takes to draw.

For background, it's important to understand that the SNES has a picture processing unit (PPU) which works in parallel with the main CPU to draw the picture onto the screen, one scanline at a time. Graphics data to be drawn (backgrounds, sprites, and palettes) needs to be uploaded to its Video RAM (VRAM) every frame, but this can't be done while the PPU is busy drawing the current frame, as this would naturally interfere with the current frame itself. Therefore, the PPU sends a non-maskable interrupt signal (an NMI) to the main CPU when the current frame has finished drawing and entered 'V-blank', which is the relatively short period of time where the electron gun in a television is physically moving back to the top left of the screen in order to start drawing the next frame (in a CRT anyway). Upon receiving the NMI signal, the CPU halts whatever it's doing and jumps to a routine that's mostly dedicated to uploading graphics to the PPU.

Now, one of the bigger problems with older ASM-heavy hacks like this running on newer emulators is that ZSNES seems to overclock the emulated CPU something fierce, leading to ASM coders back in the day assuming they have way more time to do stuff in this routine than a real console would actually give you. There's a number of things that can happen if the NMI routine takes too long, depending on the circumstances. You can get a black bar at the top of the screen, a frame of garbage on the screen, or graphics tiles will not get uploaded properly. This is assuming that ASM writers back then cared about uploading graphics during the NMI at all, as ZSNES will let you upload stuff while the frame is drawing. Though the VIP 4 final boss still suffered from this, at the point of VIP 5 all ASM that I've encountered uploads stuff to VRAM in the NMI routine.

The custom overworld in this hack was not coded efficiently in the slightest. There were two main things that were causing problems, so for today I'll mention the one that's simplest to explain, and which you would've seen already if the hack hadn't been fixed. This is the loading of a different submap. Basically, on two different frames during loading the code tried to jam way more data into VRAM than it had time for, leading to this loveliness showing up on those frames:


(Thanks to lion for the image)

The black bar at the top of the screen gives a handy visual as to how far into the drawing period of the frame the NMI routine was still running, as it's caused by the routine disabling the screen until it's finished. I'm not quite well-versed enough in SNES hardware/was too lazy to do the research to tell you what exactly causes the garbage on screen (my money is on windowing), but I'm fairly certain that whatever hardware function was in charge of handling it was getting messed up because it was being set while the PPU was already outside of V-blank (even if the screen was still not displaying anything).

Either way, fixing it involved writing ASM to redistribute some of the graphics uploading to be more evenly spaced out so as not to overburden the NMI routine on any one frame, and to actually make it skip part of the routine entirely in one of the problematic frames. The part of the routine that's getting skipped (mostly overworld animations like the water) is not noticed anyway, as the overworld itself is still covered up by the iris in at this point.

[KobaBeach]

Song at overworld is Crime of the Heart, Riza's daytime overworld theme from Treasure of the Rudras (everyone's nighttime overworld theme is just a remix of their daytime themes).


If you like Square's golden age RPGs (SNES and PSX), do check this out. It wasn't exactly my sorta thing but it's a solid RPG. Got looked over when it came to releasing it stateside due to the PlayStation (CDs are cheaper than cartridges after all, also 32bit tech!), as well as the difficulty of translating the mantra system (input any word and it'll translate to a magic spell, kinda Scribblenauts-ish). It has a translation patch since like the early 2000s.

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Greengrowth Walking Path is an interesting look at the "beginner's first level" sort of aesthetic. It's almost entirely made of flat ground and a few pits, enemy selection is pretty basic, no real gimmick. A Slippery Place is a sort of "beginner's second level", you see them experimenting with sublevels, level header options, basic asm (poison mushrooms), varied ground. It's kind of a cute example of progress. Run! Jump!, Pipesy-Daisy and Horse Feeding Grounds can be seen as said beginner(s) experimenting further with gimmicks and making more focused, if still pretty amateur levels.

This is the sort of stuff I like about VIP5.

So with the first map transition into the main map, I guess I'll explain one of the major obstacles to getting this hack to work on anything beyond ZSNES. As usual, this is a somewhat long and technical explanation, but in short: it was the amount of time the custom overworld takes to draw.

now this is podracing (also im lion)

[Arctangent]

Greengrowth Walking Path is an interesting look at the "beginner's first level" sort of aesthetic. It's almost entirely made of flat ground and a few pits, enemy selection is pretty basic, no real gimmick. A Slippery Place is a sort of "beginner's second level", you see them experimenting with sublevels, level header options, basic asm (poison mushrooms), varied ground. It's kind of a cute example of progress. Run! Jump!, Pipesy-Daisy and Horse Feeding Grounds can be seen as said beginner(s) experimenting further with gimmicks and making more focused, if still pretty amateur levels.

This is the sort of stuff I like about VIP5.

this feels too un-vip to be intentional but at the same time you instant you see the map screen you instantly understand how much more work was put into this hack so ???

[KobaBeach]

this feels too un-vip to be intentional but at the same time you instant you see the map screen you instantly understand how much more work was put into this hack so ???

yeah that's the thing vip5 is actually a good game

[Ashan]

What the hell was this interaction?

[raocow]

hammer bros rubbed all the time juice from the green berry unto his skin

[Ashan]

Don't talk to me until I've had my time juice!

[Sebby19]

That weird interaction with the berry reminded me:

Hey rao, what would you have done if you accidentally activated a glitch that warped you right into the credits? Like the current SMW speedrun world record.

[raocow]

I mean I'd have to load my most latest save?

[Sebby19]

Maybe I'll rephrase the question. What would your reaction have been if you accidentally beat the game through a glitch.

[raocow]

that's not really something I can answer. could be annoyed, could find it really funny, there's a ton of different factors that could affect things, yo

[Leet]

Maybe I'll rephrase the question. What would your reaction have been if you accidentally beat the game through a glitch.

I don't think there's anyone whose answer wouldn't be "surprise and amazement"? To stumble onto something like that completely accidentally.

[Grounder]

he beat a smbx episode on accident a couple of times because of poor coding

it was pretty much just amusement

tower something or other

[Piesonscreations]

When raocow uses 3% of his power he just ends up going to the game's credits.

[morsel/morceau]

What the hell was this interaction?

If yoshi is eating something and gets hit, eating is cancelled (here the berry sprite drops off the tongue). But berries store their property when you start eating them (normally the berry effect is completed when swallowing is completed). So here the next thing swallowed was counted as the berry.

It's funny how VIP is all things to all men. Some people think it's supposed to be shit and others think it's supposed to be good. raocow thinks VIP 6 it doesn't deserve its OW graphics. I remember VIP as a series that has always had cool custom graphics and rips not seen elsewhere. raocow thinks VIP never makes you do anything arbitrary. I think of flying with a p-switch, grabbing both a shell and a silver p to maintain the latter's colour through a pipe, flying with yoshi, and various other suppressed memories.

[raocow]

raocow thinks VIP 6 it doesn't deserve its OW graphics.

man have I seriously said that? that's harsh of me

[morsel/morceau]

I have no idea if you watch your own videos, but you said it was weird and kind of funny such a beautiful map was used 'for a game like this.'

[raocow]

Huh. Like I can't deny it, it's right there in video.

I wonder where my headspace was, because I agree that vip5 is legit good and really interesting.

[Ashan]

Is it really necessary to clarify that a romhack of a home console game that was at the time 20 years old is made by super nerds?

[Awoo]

Is it really necessary to clarify that a romhack of a home console game that was at the time 20 years old is made by super nerds?

[KobaBeach]

Here's the scene referenced by Sea Lacks Speed:


Character is named Straight Cougar.

The rationality behind No Music No Life is that the author apparently wanted to make a stage where you'd be challenged due to having no powerups, but he ended up making it too easy.

Also from left to right on Mount Boonmore:
Mona ( ´∀｀)
Giko (,,ﾟДﾟ)
Shii (*ﾟーﾟ)
Morara (　・∀・)

Lastly, Daddy Cool is throwing mahjong tiles, not diplomas. Him being stupidly good at mahjong and winning in the most absurd ways possible is a huge meme on 2ch.

It's funny how VIP is all things to all men. Some people think it's supposed to be shit and others think it's supposed to be good.

I said VIP5 was "actually a good game" earlier but that was jokingly, I honestly believe all VIPs are good to some extent. Even 2.

6 is probably my least favorite due to lack of nostalgia compared to 1-5 but it's still not bad (also those islands spelling out VIP6 in the OW are cute)