bombjack: MAME ROM Information.
History:
Bomb Jack (c) 1984 Tehkan.
Bomb Jack is a fast-moving platform game in which the aim is to collect all of the bombs on each level before progressing to the next. A variety of constantly spawning mechanical enemies patrol the platforms and airspace so the longer a player takes to collect all of the bombs, the more difficult progress becomes.
Extra point bonuses are awarded for collecting bombs with their fuses lit. Only one bomb at any time has a lit fuse, and collecting twenty or more of these lit bombs on any given level will earn the player points bonus (see TIPS AND TRICKS for details). Jack is pursued around each level by the spawning enemies and when he gets killed, he drops down to the nearest platform, always landing on his head.
A 'Powerball' appears at semi-regular intervals and moves diagonally around the screen. If the player manages to grab this, all of the level's monsters are frozen for several seconds and can then be killed by having Jack fly into them (similar to the 'Powerpill' feature in "Pac-Man"). Collecting the Bonus 'B' symbols will increase the amount of points awarded for collecting bombs with their fuses lit. Picking up an 'Extra' symbol awards the player with an additional life, while catching the 'Special' symbol will give the player an extra credit.
Each of Bomb Jack's levels feature one of five different background pictures, some of which represent famous historical landmarks. They are: the Sphinx in Egypt, the Acropolis in Greece, Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, skyscrapers and a cityscape by night. While the backgrounds themselves are repeated as the game progresses, the platform layouts for each level are completely different. At least until level 18, after which the levels are repeated.
The basic play mechanic of collecting objects to clear a level, as well as the powerball feature, is hugely reminiscent of Namco's seminal "Pac-Man".
- TECHNICAL -
Main CPU : Z80 (@ 4 Mhz)
Sound CPU : Z80 (@ 3.072 Mhz)
Sound Chips : (3x) AY8910 (@ 1.5 Mhz)
Control : 8-way joystick
Buttons : 1 (JUMP)
- TRIVIA -
Released in October 1984.
The original idea for Bomb Jack was conceived by Michitaka Tsuruta, lead designer for Guzzler and Solomon's Key, under the supervision of Kazutoshi Ueda, the genius behind Mr. Do, Lady Bug and other Universal coin-ops.
Curiously enough, the infamous Sphinx in the opening round was not rendered by the graphic designer of the game, but by Shigenori Masuko, the sound designer. Tsuruta-san recalls how roles in Japanese development teams were quite interchangeable, in those early years.
Round 1 music is the ending song from the Japanese animated cartoon series 'Spoon Oba-san', sung by the ultra-popular Mari Ijima (Lynn Minmay's voice in Macross). The anime was aired in 1983... at that time, Bomb Jack development was just starting : something more than a coincidence, then.
Round 2 features the music of 'Lady Madonna', by The Beatles. Tsuruta-san, recalls that rights were paid for the licensed music at the time; still, later ports (PS2 and Xbox) come with a replaced soundtrack (mostly the Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack score).
"Bomb Jack II" has nothing really to do with Tekhan or Tecmo : it was developed by British Elite Systems for European home computers only, in an attempt to follow the huge success of the Bomb Jack coin-op conversion. They basically bought the license for the name, and then proceeded to create a mediocre maze game.
Giauco Bondavalli holds the official record for this game with 20,010,960 points on November 3, 1984.
Alfa Records released a limited-edition soundtrack album for this game (Tecmo Game Music - 28XA-95) on 25/09/1986.
- UPDATES -
The older version (set 2) says 'YOU ARE LUCY' instead of 'YOU ARE LUCKY'.
- SCORING -
Jumping, hitting a wall or falling from a platform : 10 points x bonus multiplier value.
Normal bomb : 100 points x bonus multiplier value.
Firebomb : 200 points x bonus multiplier value.
(P) Power : 100 when blue, 200 when red, 300 when purple, 500 when green, 800 when cyan, 1,200 when yellow and 2,000 points when grey x bonus multiplier value.
(B) Bonus Multiplier: 1,000 points x bonus multiplier value.
(E) Extra Life : 1,000 points x bonus multiplier value plus an extra life.
(S) Special : 1,000 points x bonus multiplier value plus a free credit.
Killing monsters while (P) is active : 100, 200, 300, 500, 800, 1,200 and 2,000 points. These are all multiplied by the current bonus multiplier value.
End of level bonus :
23 firebombs defused : 50,000 points.
22 firebombs : 30,000 points.
21 firebombs : 20,000 points.
20 firebombs : 10,000 points.
- TIPS AND TRICKS -
* A little information about the appearance of the powerball : the rule is very simple and you just have to look at the colour at the left and right of the multiplicator number, its size grows as you collect bombs.
1) Take a 'lit bomb' and you get 1 point ahead for the next Powerball. Take a non-lit bomb and you'll get 0.5 point for the next Powerball. When you achieve 10 points, the powerball appears. Your powerball points don't grow if either the powerball is there or if the 'power music' is playing, so avoid collecting bombs when it's not necessary.
2) The powerball can have different score values when taking it. When it appears, jump or hit a wall and its colour will change. The colours and score values are blue (100 points), red (200 points), purple (300 points), green (500 points), turquoize (800 points), yellow (1000 points) and grey (2000 points).
3) The 'B' bonus coin adds 1 to the multiplicator value and appears each 5,000 points, but only if you 'pass' these 5,000 points when not taking a 'B' coin. For example, your multiplicator is 2x, your score is 9,000 and you take a 'B' coin; giving you 1,000x2 = 2,000 points which makes a total of 11,000 points. A 'B' coin should then appear because you have passed the 10,000 points, but doesn't because you took a 'B' coin to achieve this score so you'll have to wait for 15,000 points to get a new 'B' coin. The multiplicator limit is X5.
* An important piece of information to remember is that you can pick up the bombs in a certain order to earn maximum points. If you pick up most of the bombs while their fuses are lit, you get the following bonuses :
20 - 10,000 pts.
21 - 20,000 pts.
22 - 30,000 pts.
23 - 50,000 pts.
So of course, you'll want to try to get 23 each time (This is of course, VERY difficult!). The P (Power) coin appears after every ninth bomb is collected. The points value of the P coin ranges from 100 (Blue) to 2,000 (Silver). Since the color changes each time BJ jumps, you can control the bonus level by making small jumps until the coin turns silver.
* The B (Bonus) coin appears every 5,000 points, and advances the bonus multiplier by 1. There is a maximum of 5 B coins per level.
* Picking up the S (Special) coin awards one free credit. It will also take you to the next level automatically.
* You can control where the mechanical bird appears by holding the joystick in the opposite direction. Example : Hold the joystick to the Right as soon as the round starts and the mechanical bird appears on the left of the screen. If the stick is held diagonally, the bird appears in the opposite corner.
* When you start a level, and directly go to left or right, bird(s) will appear on the other side : it's useful to put them where you want in order to make this level easier, levels 7, 8 & 9 are good examples for that.
- SERIES -
1. Bomb Jack (1984)
2. Bomb Jack II (1986, Commodore C64)
3. Vs. Mighty Bomb Jack (1986)
4. Bomb Jack Twin (1993)
- STAFF -
Director : Michitaka Tsuruta
Programmer : Michishito Ishizuka
Music & Sound Design : Tsukasa Masuko
Graphic & Character Design : Rie Ishizuka (aka Rie Yatomi)
Producer : Kazutoshi Ueda
- PORTS -
* Consoles :
Sega SG-1000 (1985)
Nintendo Game Boy (1992)
Nintendo Game Boy Advance (2002, "Bomb Jack World") [Prototype]
Sony PlayStation 2 (2004, "Tecmo Hit Parade")
Microsoft XBOX (2005, "Tecmo Classic Arcade")
* Computers :
NEC PC8801 (1985)
Commodore 16 (1986)
Commodore C64 (1986)
Sinclair ZX Spectrum (1986)
Amstrad CPC (1986)
Atari ST (1988)
Commodore Amiga (1988)
Amstrad CPC (1989, "12 Top Amstrad Hits")
* Others :
Mobiles phone [Nokia 3410] (2002)
- SOURCES -
Game's rom.
Tsuruta Michitaka's Web Site; http://www.turu3.net
MAME Info:
0.35b13 [Nicola Salmoria]
0.09 [Mirko Buffoni, Brad Thomas, Jakob Frendsen, Conny Melin]
Artwork available
NOTE:
- Press fire to skip the ROM/RAM test at the beginning.
WIP:
- 0.145u8: Phil Bennett fixed missing sprites in Bomb Jack and clone.
- 0.144u1: Corrado Tomaselli confirmed and adjusted clock speeds for Bomb Jack from PCB. Changed Z80 CPU2 clock speed to 3MHz.
- 0.133u1: Renamed (bombjac2) to (bombjack2).
- 0.126u4: Andrew Gardner merged memory maps in Bomb Jack.
- 0.126u2: Fabio Priuli added DIP locations to Bomb Jack.
- 9th September 2007: Mr. Do - Some more instruction cards for more games courtesty of Tormod: Bomb Jack.
- 0.118u2: Stephane Humbert improved dipswitches for Bomb Jack.
- 0.104u3: Adam Bousley added save states support to the Bomb Jack driver.
- 25th February 2001: Olivier Galibert added save states support to Bomb Jack. However, the driver needs to be updated to include the save states.
- 0.35b13: Nicola Salmoria added Bomb Jack (set 1). Changed 'Bomb Jack' to clone '(set 2)'. Renamed (bombjack) to (bombjac2).
- 0.22: Nicola Salmoria improved color palette emulation in Bombjack which has now perfect colors. Bomb Jack doesn't have a color PROM, it uses a RAM to generate colors and change them during the game.
- 0.18: Bomb Jack is much faster on a 486. Now runs very well with -frameskip 1 on my 486/100 [Nicola Salmoria].
- 0.15: Jarek Burczynski submitted a sound driver for Bomb Jack. The game is now a bit slow on my 486/100, -frameskip 1 is almost good but not quite [Nicola Salmoria].
- 0.13: Nicola Salmoria fixed a couple of minor bugs in Bomb Jack background colors and added high score saving to Mario Bros.
- 0.12: There is a bit in the sprite attributes which I don't know what means [Nicola Salmoria]. Dipswitch menu: SPECIAL refers to how often the (E) and (S) coins appear.
- 0.10: Nicola Salmoria fixed a small graphics glitch in the background of Bomb Jack's third level. Thanks to Philip Chapman for the report.
- 0.09: Mirko Buffoni added Bomb Jack (Tehkan 1984). Game is playable with accurate colors and no sound. Control: Arrows = Move around and CTRL = Jump. Thanks to Brad Thomas, Jakob Frendsen and Conny Melin for the hardware info on Bomb Jack. Note: Bomb Jack doesn't have a color PROM. It uses 256 bytes of RAM to dynamically create the palette. Each couple of bytes defines one color (4 bits per pixel; the high 4 bits of the second byte are unused). Since the graphics use 3 bitplanes, hence 8 colors, this makes for 16 different color codes. MAME currently doesn't support dynamic palette creation. As a temporary workaround, we create here a 256 colors (8 bits, vs. the original 12) palette which will be static, and dynamically create a lookup table at run time which approximates the original palette. In the dip switch menu, DIFFICULTY 1 refers to the speed of the mechanical bird, while DIFFICULTY 2 to the number and speed of enemies. Known issues: Colors are accurate, but not entirely: the original machine uses 12 bits (4 bits per pen), while I currently use only 8 bits (3 bits for red and green, 2 bits for blue). Is the sprite priority correct? For example, during the demo, should GAME OVER be in front or behind other sprites? There is another bit in the sprite attributes which I don't know what means: It seems to be set only when the (B) materializes. For the DIFFICULTY 2 setting, EASY and MEDIUM might be swapped. Anyone can confirm? The INITIAL HIGH SCORE setting doesn't only set that, it does something else as well - but I don't know what.
LEVELS: 99 (endless)
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Romset: 112 kb / 16 files / 54.2 zip
MAME XML Output:
| | <game name="bombjack" sourcefile="bombjack.c"> |
| | | <description>Bomb Jack (set 1)</description> |
| | | <manufacturer>Tehkan</manufacturer> |
| | | <rom name="09_j01b.bin" size="8192" crc="c668dc30" sha1="51dd6a2688b42e9f28f0882bd76f75be7ec3222a" region="maincpu" offset="0"/> |
| | | <rom name="10_l01b.bin" size="8192" crc="52a1e5fb" sha1="e1cdc4b4efbc6c7a1e4fa65019486617f2acba1b" region="maincpu" offset="2000"/> |
| | | <rom name="11_m01b.bin" size="8192" crc="b68a062a" sha1="43bae56494ac0202aaa8f1ed5c1ed1bff775b2b8" region="maincpu" offset="4000"/> |
| | | <rom name="12_n01b.bin" size="8192" crc="1d3ecee5" sha1="8b3c49e21ea4952cae7042890d1be2115f7d6fda" region="maincpu" offset="6000"/> |
| | | <rom name="13.1r" size="8192" crc="70e0244d" sha1="67654155e42821ea78a655f869fb81c8d6387f63" region="maincpu" offset="c000"/> |
| | | <rom name="01_h03t.bin" size="8192" crc="8407917d" sha1="318face9f7a7ab6c7eeac773995040425e780aaf" region="audiocpu" offset="0"/> |
| | | <rom name="03_e08t.bin" size="4096" crc="9f0470d5" sha1="94ef52ef47b4399a03528fe3efeac9c1d6983446" region="chars" offset="0"/> |
| | | <rom name="04_h08t.bin" size="4096" crc="81ec12e6" sha1="e29ba193f21aa898499187603b25d2e226a07c7b" region="chars" offset="1000"/> |
| | | <rom name="05_k08t.bin" size="4096" crc="e87ec8b1" sha1="a66808ef2d62fca2854396898b86bac9be5f17a3" region="chars" offset="2000"/> |
| | | <rom name="06_l08t.bin" size="8192" crc="51eebd89" sha1="515128a3971fcb97b60c5b6bdd2b03026aec1921" region="tiles" offset="0"/> |
| | | <rom name="07_n08t.bin" size="8192" crc="9dd98e9d" sha1="6db6006a6e20ff7c243d88293ca53681c4703ea5" region="tiles" offset="2000"/> |
| | | <rom name="08_r08t.bin" size="8192" crc="3155ee7d" sha1="e7897dca4c145f10b7d975b8ef0e4d8aa9354c25" region="tiles" offset="4000"/> |
| | | <rom name="16_m07b.bin" size="8192" crc="94694097" sha1="de71bcd67f97d05527f2504fc8430be333fb9ec2" region="sprites" offset="0"/> |
| | | <rom name="15_l07b.bin" size="8192" crc="013f58f2" sha1="20c64593ab9fcb04cefbce0cd5d17ce3ff26441b" region="sprites" offset="2000"/> |
| | | <rom name="14_j07b.bin" size="8192" crc="101c858d" sha1="ed1746c15cdb04fae888601d940183d5c7702282" region="sprites" offset="4000"/> |
| | | <rom name="02_p04t.bin" size="4096" crc="398d4a02" sha1="ac18a8219f99ba9178b96c9564de3978e39c59fd" region="gfx4" offset="0"/> |
| | | <chip type="cpu" tag="maincpu" name="Z80" clock="4000000"/> |
| | | <chip type="cpu" tag="audiocpu" name="Z80" clock="3000000"/> |
| | | <chip type="audio" tag="mono" name="Speaker"/> |
| | | <chip type="audio" tag="ay1" name="AY-3-8910A" clock="1500000"/> |
| | | <chip type="audio" tag="ay2" name="AY-3-8910A" clock="1500000"/> |
| | | <chip type="audio" tag="ay3" name="AY-3-8910A" clock="1500000"/> |
| | | <display tag="screen" type="raster" rotate="90" width="256" height="224" refresh="60.000000" /> |
| | | <input players="2" buttons="1" coins="2"> |
| | | | <control type="joy" ways="8"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Coin A" tag="DSW1" mask="3"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/1 Credit" value="0" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/2 Credits" value="1"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/3 Credits" value="2"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/6 Credits" value="3"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Coin B" tag="DSW1" mask="12"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="2 Coins/1 Credit" value="4"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/1 Credit" value="0" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/2 Credits" value="8"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="1 Coin/3 Credits" value="12"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Lives" tag="DSW1" mask="48"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="2" value="48"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="3" value="0" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="4" value="16"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="5" value="32"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Cabinet" tag="DSW1" mask="64"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Upright" value="64" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Cocktail" value="0"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Demo Sounds" tag="DSW1" mask="128"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Off" value="0"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="On" value="128" default="yes"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Bonus Life" tag="DSW2" mask="7"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Every 30k" value="2"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Every 100k" value="1"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="50k, 100k and 300k" value="7"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="50k and 100k" value="5"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="50k only" value="3"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="100k and 300k" value="6"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="100k only" value="4"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="None" value="0" default="yes"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Bird Speed" tag="DSW2" mask="24"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Easy" value="0"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Medium" value="8"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Hard" value="16" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Hardest" value="24"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Enemies Number & Speed" tag="DSW2" mask="96"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Easy" value="32"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Medium" value="0"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Hard" value="64" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Hardest" value="96"/> |
| | | <dipswitch name="Special Coin" tag="DSW2" mask="128"> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Easy" value="0" default="yes"/> |
| | | | <dipvalue name="Hard" value="128"/> |
| | | <driver status="good" emulation="good" color="good" sound="good" graphic="good" savestate="supported" palettesize="128"/> |
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