Maps of all three DKL games

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Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Blaziken257 » February 28th, 2013, 9:48 am

I know that some people have wanted to see this for a while, but I present to you all... maps of the entire DKL series! I used custom ripping tools to accomplish this -- the tool for DKL2 and 3 can be found here, and I'll eventually release the DKL map ripping tool.

These maps cover every level (excluding bonus levels, at least currently). UPDATE: Bonus and warp levels are now covered! They currently only cover terrain (i.e. background tiles), not sprites, but I'm slowly working on researching sprite data in the games. Even though they only currently cover terrain, I still think this is a huge step forward, considering that before, the only option was to take multiple screenshots, and then do some hacking to get to normally inaccessible terrain.

Other notes:
  • For all three games, GB and SGB formats are included. I personally like the SGB palettes, but I know people who don't like them, hence why GB versions of maps are also included. For DKL3J, naturally the GBC format is used.
  • For any levels that contain terrain or other non-sprite differences in the Japanese version, these are also included. There are no such terrain differences in the Japanese version of DKL, but in DKL2, Kreepy Krow is different. (Bramble Blast and Parrot Chute Panic also have fewer Zingers, so once I have sprites figured out, I'll include those maps too!) In DKL3, since all levels are in color, maps of both English and Japanese versions are included.
  • Similarly, for Tundra Blunda in DKL3, the map for English v1.0 and the one for English v1.1 (the level was extended with an added pit) are both included. (If you're curious, the Japanese version has the same layout as English v1.1, but in color.)
  • All prototype maps for DKL3 are included as well (some of them are identical to English v1.0, though, and other versions too).
  • In DKL2 and DKL3, normally you can't see the uppermost or leftmost 32 pixels in-game, but they're shown in these extracted maps.
  • Some levels in the DKL series have some incomplete off-screen terrain. In DKL, this includes Riggin' Rumble and all three temple levels. In DKL2, this includes the volcano levels (since the uppermost 32 pixels can't be seen in-game). In DKL3, this includes the mill levels. This is not due to a flaw in the map extracting job, but rather oddities in the games themselves.
  • In Skyscraper Caper and Oil Drum Slum, the ropes look a bit glitchy (namely, the downward ropes, and shadows of all ropes). This is due to a bug in the game itself: before the tiles start to animate, two of the tiles are swapped by accident. The animation starts while the screen is blank, at which point the glitch fixes itself. If these maps bug people, I can rip them again with tiles in their proper locations.
  • In Lockjaw's Locker, Lava Lagoon, and Glimmer's Galleon, the water looks different from how it looks in-game. This is because before the water animates, it uses different tiles which are not seen in-game. (I guess the programmers originally intended to use different tiles here?) If you want to see these odd water tiles for yourself in-game, open a DKL2 ROM in a hex editor, go to offset 0x7CF21, and change it from 01 to 00. Then, enter one of these three levels. (More information here!)
  • In Tyre Trail, there are some glitchy tree graphics above one tree. This is also a bug in the game itself -- if you hack to force the game to scroll up, you can see these glitchy graphics. It has no effect on the gameplay anyway, as you can walk through them and they're never visible normally.
    Spoiler!
    Image
  • Various bonus stages in Donkey Kong Land use the same layouts, but with different sprites and Super Game Boy palettes. It seems that Rare was really tight on space in the first DKL, so they reused the same maps over and over. This is exemplified with the Kong Token bonus stage, where other unrelated bonus stages use this same terrain. There are also eight levels that have the Kong Token bonus stage, with 4 different SGB color palettes, so some of these palettes are used more than once. (In particular, Simian Swing's second bonus is 100% identical to Tyre Trail's first bonus, as well as Fast Barrel Blast's first bonus. Also, Rope Ravine's first bonus is 100% identical to Congo Carnage's second bonus, as well as Collapsing Clouds's second bonus. Fascinating!)
  • Similarly, a few bonus stages share the same terrain as boss stages. (Specifically, Pot Hole Panic's second bonus shares terrain with Wild Sting Fling, Skyscraper Caper's bonus has the same terrain as Seabed Showdown, and Collapsing Clouds's first bonus has the same terrain as K. Rool's Kingdom.)
  • This is more obvious, but in DKL2, Pirate Panic's warp stage is identical to that of Gangplank Galley's, and Mainbrace Mayhem's warp stage is identical to Topsail Trouble's (which is obvious from the No Animal Sign at the beginning).
  • There are many bonus stages in DKL (and Mad Mole Holes) whose maps are padded with empty, black space on the top and/or bottom. This is a quirk in the game itself, not something that I did. My guess is that Rareware intended to make these bonus stages longer, but filled them with black spaces, either because of lack of time, or lack of space.

And finally, the links (files updated May 10, 2013 with bonuses and warps!):

http://www.mediafire.com/file/jkho3od8j ... L_maps.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/idw9pbe4x ... 2_maps.zip
http://www.mediafire.com/file/g6f5bapm9 ... 3_maps.zip

That's a long list, but I hope you enjoy these maps! Like I said, I do plan on supporting sprites sometime in the future.
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Cyclone » February 28th, 2013, 1:40 pm

Good stuff. DKL is my fave of the DK Land games and it's nice to see the maps.
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby leo_core » April 17th, 2013, 2:25 am

Great! This will be really useful for our DKC4 project. Saved me a lot of work, thanks for share!
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Markster » April 17th, 2013, 6:07 am

I've been waiting for this for a few years.

Thanks.
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Qyzbud » April 17th, 2013, 11:56 pm

Anyone who's keen to take a peek at the fruits of Blaziken's hard work in a convenient, web-based format; I've started maps for all of Donkey Kong Land's levels in the DKC Atlas LMV:

DKC Atlas presents...
.
The DKL Mapping Project!


DKL2 and 3 maps (terrains) will be added soon, and sprites for all three games will be added eventually. :)
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Blaziken257 » May 11th, 2013, 10:03 am

I know I've said this to Qyzbud before, but now I'll say it to everybody: I'm really glad to finally see DKL maps on this site! I also like that, for the first time, boss stages have been added to the site! (At least for DKL, anyway.) I do hope to see the other two games soon.

Now for the main reason why I'm posting this... I would like to mention that the links have been updated with bonus and warp stages. That's right, every one in the entire trilogy! Since some of the prototype version of DKL3's bonuses differ from other versions, those are included too. Enjoy! I added some notes to the first post, just to be aware of a few things. (By the way, how hard would it be to add bonuses to this site?)

And finally, every time I try to hack sprites, I get slightly closer to being able to figure out how their data is stored in ROM, but the more I dig, the more confusing it gets for me. So, it will be a long time until I extract data for them. I'd also rather rip them from the ROM using a tool rather than doing it all by hand, due to the massive amounts of time it would involve to do everything by hand. So, this will require lots of patience!!
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Super Luigi! » May 16th, 2013, 8:30 am

My eyes, THEY ARE UNWORTHY! Well, what's to say here? Oh, I know.

Excellent job so far, Blaziken/Qyzbud! I love it! It's great! Wonderful! I see much promise in this mappy lad! Qyzbud has been giving away his banana hoard to everyone, but that's not related to this topic, so instead I shall once again congratulate such a noble mapping effort!
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby VideoViking » June 22nd, 2013, 12:24 pm

Blaziken, do you plan on doing a rip for Necky Nutmare?
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Blaziken257 » July 3rd, 2013, 12:02 pm

I have considered ripping DKC GBC maps at some point (thankfully, from what I've seen, DKC GBC's map compression format is easier to understand than the format that the DKL games use). I've been busier than I used to be, though, so you will probably have to wait a while before I get around to it. Having a map of Necky Nutmare would be nice to see, though!

(And just to mention this preemptively, I am very unlikely to rip maps of any of the GBA games. My GBA hacking skills aren't that good, and I don't think it's worth it anyway, except for maybe Pacifica.)
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Blaziken257 » November 21st, 2013, 3:39 pm

I realize progress has been slow lately -- part of the reason is because I haven't spent a whole lot of time on Donkey Kong in a while... but in any case, I've slowly been working on extracting maps for DKC GBC. This game, unlike the DKL games, fully takes advantage of the GBC hardware, meaning it uses 512 8x8 background tiles instead of just 256, and it uses horizontal and vertical flipping of some tiles, and I had to take all of this into account. (At least the map compression format is far less confusing!) While I haven't been able to dump every map properly yet (mainly due to height and width issues), I've nevertheless been able to dump maps of a few levels. Here are some of them.

Jungle Hijinxs:
http://i.imgur.com/Yi0Kegp.png

Winky's Walkway:
http://i.imgur.com/2IeqhG3.png

Necky Nutmare:
http://i.imgur.com/Icfa5gp.png

I'll get around to dumping other maps later on... but I'm not sure when I'll be able to finish them all. Don't expect them anytime soon, though.
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Qyzbud » November 21st, 2013, 8:05 pm

Well now, we may have to rethink the title of this topic if you'll be sharing DKC GBC terrain maps, too. :swanky:

Great work yet again, Blaz... and I agree that Pacifica might be worth mapping at some point — even if I have to do it by hand. ;)
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Gaz » November 22nd, 2013, 2:19 am

Awesome! I really wanted to see the maps of DKC GBC extracted! :D It's much easier to extract maps like Donkey Kong's treehouse and such.
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Re: Maps of all three DKL games

Postby Super Luigi! » November 23rd, 2013, 2:53 am

Thank you for taking time out of your busy life in order to provide these maps for us, Blaziken257, and I hope you will continue to impress and dazzle us on your own time!
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