If you could mod/hack a game, what would you do?

I'd mod Asteroids Deluxe to use a 2-way joystick for 'rotate left' and 'rotate right'

(If I really wanted to get carried away, I'd use a 4-way joystick and map 'shields' to down and 'thrust' to up.)

That is an easy mod if you are willing to drill your panel... Or maybe you could just use some REALLY strong magnets to mount your joystick?

For me it's Marble Madness - an option to turn the clocks off or adjust the time to something like 5-10 minutes... There is a way to do this with the test switch, but it's cumbersome...
 
As soon as I read your title, I thought about this:

How about Space Invaders, but with the ability to move to all 4 sides of the screen instead of just being on the bottom. Have a Gyruss joystick in there so you could move around the screen firing from all directions. Of course they could fire that way as well.

I would also have 2 buttons, one for fire and one for a missile that you shoot that when explodes it has a blast radius that kills several Space Invaders at once. You get 3 per man. A great way to hit that passing UFO...

It's called Space Invaderuss

:D
 
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I would add spinner support for Asteroids Deluxe. That game should have been a spinner control for sure.

kramer-mind-blown.gif


I thought a joystick would be nice for AD but now that you brought this up...that game is begging for a spinner!

Button-only games can be off putting for some people. So a spinner on AD would be a game changer.
 
Semi related...for pinball I'm surprised nobody is making a generic board that you could load different upgrades on. So you could add multi balls, or even completely new rule sets. Sounds, music, etc. You could have modes, like classic, and advanced, or it would allow you to turn a close encounters into a road warrior.

I'm also surprised there's no 412 in 1 with wifi that would aggregate and post scores.
 
for pinball ... different upgrades


There is the Dutch Pinball kit for "Bride of Pinbot 2" which is remarkably good.
bop2_0.jpg


A local friend I know has also done many rom hacks to many early solid
state pins that added all kinds of new features, rule changes, attract modes
where none existed, etc. For some reason, he's weird about giving it out or
making them for sale.
 
Great topic...

I'd modify Joust to allow second player to join in at any time and first player to play whichever side they want (ie make the multiplayer aspect of joust like smash tv)

49-way (or analog) sticks on Robotron

Also on Robotron, I'd add level to the high score table (and/or have a seperate "high level" table)
 
49-way (or analog) sticks on Robotron

Also on Robotron, I'd add level to the high score table (and/or have a separate "high level" table)

A 49-way joystick doesn't make sense for Robotron as you move faster the further you move the stick from the center (it's a 7x7 grid so there are basically 3 speeds). A 49-way joystick is great for a scrolling shooter like Sinistar where you need to vary your speed but not a single screen shooter like Robotron, particularly on the waves ending with 9 where moving fast would mean instant death.
 
Maybe a time pilot that merged 84 to the original.

Not feasible, Time Pilot and Time Pilot '84 use different CPUs and different hardware. Time Pilot doesn't have a scrolling background, the clouds are just sprites and they are repeated 128 pixels down and right by the hardware. Time Pilot '84 has a scrolling background layer.

Assault could use more levels and making the bad guys more aggressive.

Considering the complexity of the Namco System 2 hardware that would require access to the source code and it would require new graphics which would need to be broken down into 8x8 tiles for the rotate/zoom tilemap layer for the new level (assuming there is even ROZ character ROM space to spare).
 
Here's my fantasy list:

Hammer Away - Translate and change all the Japanese text to English, since it's extremely unlikely the actual English version will ever turn up.

A Donkey Kong Jr Remix!

A Berzerk/Frenzy "remix" with more stuff, different robots and other machines

A mod for the version of Road Blasters boards that otherwise can't be readily converted to Marble Madness, etc

Dig Dug II ROMs modified to allow Mappy boards to be converted without cannibalizing chips from Super Pacman boards

The Rocket Racer ROMs debugged to be fully functional and playable

Taito Water Ski ROMs modded to run on Alpine Ski, Jungle Hunt etc PCBs
 
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A Donkey Kong Jr Remix!

In progress - http://donkeykongforum.com/index.php?topic=1770.0

Dig Dug II ROMs modified to allow Mappy boards to be converted without cannibalizing chips from Super Pacman boards

I actually thought about this (and Motos) as it is similar to what I did to get Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp running on a Super Pac-Man boardset but Dig Dug II uses a second button (for the drill) and I'm not sure how this would be hooked up.

Update: Dig Dug II and Motos use larger ROMs than Mappy does so it's not a simple patch and ROM swap. I think there are instructions for doing the board mods on Jrok's website.

Taito Water Ski ROMs modded to run on Alpine Ski, Jungle Hunt etc PCBs

I'm not as familiar with Taito games but aren't these all Taito SJ games so they should be the same. I'm guessing the MCU code is preventing it from being a simple ROM swap.
 
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There is the Dutch Pinball kit for "Bride of Pinbot 2" which is remarkably good.
bop2_0.jpg


A local friend I know has also done many rom hacks to many early solid
state pins that added all kinds of new features, rule changes, attract modes
where none existed, etc. For some reason, he's weird about giving it out or
making them for sale.

I'm glad to hear someone is doing it. That looks awesome! I see the new stern boards and wonder why there aren't cool upgrade kits. How about the option to upgrade monster bash? Or new challenges on medieval. Or new combos on theatre? Or upgraded sounds for some of the early solid states so the Williams ones don't all sound like defender or robotron. Maybe a second board to handle the lamps and coils if the voltages were the issue.
 
I've been meaning to try converting Mappy to Motos, according to Jrok in theory it should work although it may need 2 of the chips (part # escapes me at the moment) from Super Pacman boards.

I just updated my post; a Mappy to Dig Dug II or Motos conversion requires hardware mods due to differing ROM sizes.

Also I just checked MAME and Alpine Ski has some protection stuff which prevents it from being swappable with Water Ski. It's likely that could be patched out though. Some of the Taito SJ games like Elevation Action and Front Line also use an MCU for protection.
 
I just updated my post; a Mappy to Dig Dug II or Motos conversion requires hardware mods due to differing ROM sizes.

Are those the same mods needed to convert Mappy to Dig Dug II? I had assumed it was, it was just that it needed a second chip swapped out.

Also I just checked MAME and Alpine Ski has some protection stuff which prevents it from being swappable with Water Ski. It's likely that could be patched out though. Some of the Taito SJ games like Elevation Action and Front Line also use an MCU for protection.

That would be a cool game to see get some attention, I think it was only released in Japan and it's a lot more fun than Alpine Ski (which in itself ain't bad) in my opinion. I haven't tried the conversion myself but I remember reading somewhere on KLOV in the past that a simple ROM swap didn't work.
 
A 49-way joystick doesn't make sense for Robotron as you move faster the further you move the stick from the center (it's a 7x7 grid so there are basically 3 speeds). A 49-way joystick is great for a scrolling shooter like Sinistar where you need to vary your speed but not a single screen shooter like Robotron, particularly on the waves ending with 9 where moving fast would mean instant death.

The point would be taking advantage of the other aspect of that 7x7 grid, which is more firing directions (ie instead of 8 directions total while the stick is all the way, you now have 24 directions or sections of the circle (computed 24 off the top of my head, not sure) either way its a decision for the programmer whether the guy's speed actually changes

You could also have movement that did vary by speed, which wouldnt be a bad thing... And even bullets that vary by speed which would be weird... No matter what the game would play very differently since you base your gameplay on the restricted firing and moving directions now)

But anyway, the closer to analog directions was the point, similar to if you play geometry wars on a modern console
 
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