Hey,
I've got a 4P Simpsons cab... and the one thing that has really bugged me is the lack of free play on the game. I put credit buttons in the coin returns, but inevitably, someone presses it 20 times, adding a bunch of lives, then gets bored and walks away... leaving everyone else to kill off all those lives.
So... I decided to create a real freeplay ROM hack. This has the full attract mode, and to start, you simply press any button. It only adds 1 credit worth of lives (set in setup under "8-2.NUMBER OF PLAYERS") each time you start/continue, so if someone walks away, it's easy to kill them off. Of course you just press a button to join in or continue during gameplay.
Anyway, attached is the hacked ROM... burn it to a 27C010 EPROM and swap with the chip at location 15c (labeled J12). You must also set the "7. START BUTTON" setting in setup to "WITH START BUTTONS". This enables shared credits, which is required by this hack. The ROM is fixed to pass the ROM test.
This only works for the 4P ROM set, and it does freeplay only... there is no DIP or menu selection to enable/disable free/coin play.
I've only briefly tested it (both in MAME and on my dedicated cabinet), so if you try it out, let me know how it works and/or if you find any bugs. I probably won't run it start to finish until my next party.
DogP
I've got a 4P Simpsons cab... and the one thing that has really bugged me is the lack of free play on the game. I put credit buttons in the coin returns, but inevitably, someone presses it 20 times, adding a bunch of lives, then gets bored and walks away... leaving everyone else to kill off all those lives.
So... I decided to create a real freeplay ROM hack. This has the full attract mode, and to start, you simply press any button. It only adds 1 credit worth of lives (set in setup under "8-2.NUMBER OF PLAYERS") each time you start/continue, so if someone walks away, it's easy to kill them off. Of course you just press a button to join in or continue during gameplay.
Anyway, attached is the hacked ROM... burn it to a 27C010 EPROM and swap with the chip at location 15c (labeled J12). You must also set the "7. START BUTTON" setting in setup to "WITH START BUTTONS". This enables shared credits, which is required by this hack. The ROM is fixed to pass the ROM test.
This only works for the 4P ROM set, and it does freeplay only... there is no DIP or menu selection to enable/disable free/coin play.
I've only briefly tested it (both in MAME and on my dedicated cabinet), so if you try it out, let me know how it works and/or if you find any bugs. I probably won't run it start to finish until my next party.
DogP

