Help to resurrect a never-released game

[Tesseract]

Check this out:
www.worldofmule.net/tiki-index.php?page=Sega+Genesis

Not sure how many of you recall the game M.U.L.E., but there was apparently a sequel in the works that never got published 'cause EA wanted to 'spice things up'.

The ROM is in the hands of the curator of this website, who was given it with the blessing of the creator herself, Dani Bunten. The only thing holding him back from releasing this prize on his website for download is that he needs to wedge in a sort of copyright notice into the ROM.

This sounds like a relatively simple process for someone who's familiar with Genesis programming (AKA, NOT ME.) Perhaps one of you folks could contact Christian at worldofmule.net to offer assistance!

[jlf65]

M.U.L.E. was one of my all-time favorite games. I still play it via emulation. I'd love to see Son of M.U.L.E. make it out someday.

[FragHeadFred]

Hi, I was reading your post and thought about a program created by DevSter. The program is called "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" which could be used to apply a Intro and/or Copyright Screen to the beginning of the ROM. If you would like i would be more than happy to create said intro, as long as your received Dani Bunten's permission. Please let me know.
Again, I am not sure it would work but it would be worth a try, but if that is all that is needed to have a public release it would be a quick and simple procedure if it worked.

[jlf65]

fragheadfred said:

Hi, I was reading your post and thought about a program created by DevSter. The program is called "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" which could be used to apply a Intro and/or Copyright Screen to the beginning of the ROM. If you would like i would be more than happy to create said intro, as long as your received Dani Bunten's permission. Please let me know.
Again, I am not sure it would work but it would be worth a try, but if that is all that is needed to have a public release it would be a quick and simple procedure if it worked.

Uh... Dani's dead. Been dead for almost a decade. Also, you can't add code to an existing cart via a BASIC compiler. First, you need to determine what free space is available in the ROM image, hack in a jmp to the new code at the start of the ROM, stick the new code into the free space and have it jmp to the real beginning of the cart once it's done.

You'd do that with straight assembly to keep the size down so as to better fit in what space is available. Plus, it makes it easier to control the address of the code. Just do absolute addressing based on the cart addresses in question. This would be pretty easy for some of us Amiga old-timers. ;D I used to do pure 68K programs on the Amiga all the time.

[FragHeadFred]

jlf65 said:

fragheadfred said:

Hi, I was reading your post and thought about a program created by DevSter. The program is called "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" which could be used to apply a Intro and/or Copyright Screen to the beginning of the ROM. If you would like i would be more than happy to create said intro, as long as your received Dani Bunten's permission. Please let me know.
Again, I am not sure it would work but it would be worth a try, but if that is all that is needed to have a public release it would be a quick and simple procedure if it worked.

Uh... Dani's dead. Been dead for almost a decade. Also, you can't add code to an existing cart via a BASIC compiler. First, you need to determine what free space is available in the ROM image, hack in a jmp to the new code at the start of the ROM, stick the new code into the free space and have it jmp to the real beginning of the cart once it's done.

You'd do that with straight assembly to keep the size down so as to better fit in what space is available. Plus, it makes it easier to control the address of the code. Just do absolute addressing based on the cart addresses in question. This would be pretty easy for some of us Amiga old-timers. ;D I used to do pure 68K programs on the Amiga all the time.

Sorry, I did not know she was dead. I never said I would use a Basic Compiler (BEX) to create an intro/copyright screen. I said, I would use "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" not "BasiEgaXorz". "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" uses basic code compiled as a Sega CD program and then injects it for you. Much like you were saying. Luckily I do not need to know much assembly to do this, just the jmp command. ;D Here is a link to prove I can. Has the name "FragHeadFred" in it, can not miss it. Wait 10 - 15 seconds and the game will start.

www.megaupload.com/?d=1IV53AR5

Again, Tesseract if you or anyone else would like to know more please feel free to pm me.

[GiGaBiTe]

Rather disturbing to find out that "she" was actually a "he", but everyone has their reasons I guess.

[jlf65]

fragheadfred said:

jlf65 said:

Uh... Dani's dead. Been dead for almost a decade. Also, you can't add code to an existing cart via a BASIC compiler. First, you need to determine what free space is available in the ROM image, hack in a jmp to the new code at the start of the ROM, stick the new code into the free space and have it jmp to the real beginning of the cart once it's done.

You'd do that with straight assembly to keep the size down so as to better fit in what space is available. Plus, it makes it easier to control the address of the code. Just do absolute addressing based on the cart addresses in question. This would be pretty easy for some of us Amiga old-timers. ;D I used to do pure 68K programs on the Amiga all the time.

Sorry, I did not know she was dead. I never said I would use a Basic Compiler (BEX) to create an intro/copyright screen. I said, I would use "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" not "BasiEgaXorz". "BasiRomEgaHaXorz" uses basic code compiled as a Sega CD program and then injects it for you. Much like you were saying. Luckily I do not need to know much assembly to do this, just the jmp command. ;D Here is a link to prove I can. Has the name "FragHeadFred" in it, can not miss it. Wait 10 - 15 seconds and the game will start.

www.megaupload.com/?d=1IV53AR5

Again, Tesseract if you or anyone else would like to know more please feel free to pm me.

Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up. I still think assembly would be better, but whatever works.

If you really wish to help him, just email Chris at World of MULE, or Eidolon's Inn. I'm tempted to ask if I could help reverse engineer the rom. I did quite a bit of reverse engineering on the SEGA CD BIOS. Much of the info in the SEGA CD faq is from my work. It was also before the SEGA SDKs all leaked.

If you noticed in the emails on World of MULE, she said she was getting ready for another round of treatment for her cancer. She died shortly after that, so that's why Chris wasn't able to pursue it further. It was such a big loss, too. The games she made were of a class you don't see often.

@gigabyte - people's personal lives are just that, personal. I don't let such things affect my appreciation of their work. As you say, he probably had reasons for the change, although some folks claim she regretted it later. It's not my place to say. I just hope her final works don't get lost to her adoring public.

[FragHeadFred]

You are right, assembly would be better, as the resulting "Hacked" ROM is 2MB in size. But it would be better than nothing, and would at least have a public domain ROM, which would allow people to enjoy her unreleased work. Maybe even put a little tribute to her in the intro as well, to commemorate her life as well.

[oompa loompa]

it's just a little copyright message, right? you don't even need assembly for that, you can probably code it by hand (68k) with hexadecimal, blind-folded, on a 286 computer. depends on what kinda message you want to display

in my sega cd things, i didn't want to make custom display routines just for a loading screen, so i just did something like:

move.l #$400000,($C0004)
move.w #'H',($C00000)
move.l #$400002,($C0004)
move.w #'I',($C00000)

that is totally wrong though, lol, but someone will get the picture of what's happening

and if you can't find a place to place a jmp, you can just modify the 68k start of execution address thing, and pad on to the end of the rom, just like what basiromhacks does (or whatever it's name is )

if you wanna add in a mini-game into the rom, or something that's more bizzare than a copyright message, then use basic (joking)

[jlf65]

Or you could also modify the existing title screen for the copyright message you wish to display. There's many ways of handling this.

Yes, I'd modify the reset vector in the rom header to the new code (if new code were added), then make the jmp at the end to the original vector.