Turrican 2 level viewer

[Exl]

A while ago I started poking around the Turrican 2 CDTV files, with this as the result:









Pre version 1.1 information:
It's not complete. World 3 (the shoot-em-up levels) uses a slightly different level format. As for the sprite graphics, they are inside the level files, but appear to be loaded by chunks of code inside those same files. I suspect the same is done with effects like the waterfall animations, boss fights, the wind barrier in L1-1 and general enemy behaviour. Any insights into that would be very much appreciated, as I am not of much use with assembly.

A zip with the required files (including the CDTV game files) and my notes in specs.txt; http://www.dvdflick.net/storage/turrican2spy_11.zip
Sadly still mostly written in Visual Basic, so might need some additional components. Source code is included though. Enjoy.

Edit: Move around by right-clicking on the map and moving the mouse. World + level at the top right, grid, zoom (2x size for easier viewing on hi-res displays), collision map rendering and object rendering at the top left as well.

Edit2: Updated with link to and screenshots from version 1.1.

[gilgamesh]

Nice! Very cool...

[BuZz]

that look great!

[Retro1234]

Excellent stuff EXL - I think I have edited the Waterfalls and the Copper Affect before - but searched and searched for enemy stuff with no luck.


I see youve mapped all the collision Wow.

Edit:Hang on What are Objects? are mapped the Enemy postions? Amazing!!

[Exl]

The objects were a fun bunch to figure out The level is divided into 32x32 subtiles blocks (where a tile is 32x32 pixels, and a subtile is an 8x8 pixel part of a tile). For each of these blocks it stores a list of items that are positioned inside that block, plus their location inside that block. This way the game only has to check a handful of objects to see if they enter the playing field and "activate" them. A nice little optimization trick.

The collision data is stored for each subtile in each tile in the tileset (not the level map itself). I've only seen solid, secret, destructible and damaging types so far.

[john4p]

How likely is it this viewer might evolve into an editor someday?

[gimbal]

biiiig respect for this. Really nice bit of reverse engineering!

[TCD]

Wow! Like john I'm very interested to hear if that means there will be an editor one day

[Exl]

No idea. I'd like to make one, but not all data is known yet, so writing new levels will be constricted to within the current map size and objet counts. But all is documented, so someone else might make one.

[Joe Maroni]

cool...looks nice..

[Bronko]

Hey, that looks cool! Good reason to register here. (Some of you might know me from the GAC. In this thread, I know Joe)

Sooo.... may I upload this nice little tool to http://bronko.turrican.eu ?
Or at least link to this thread?

An editor would be cool, which reminds me of another project, Joe here had... Maybe you two could revive it a bit, hm?

[Exl]

Originally Posted by Bronko

Sooo... may I upload this nice little tool to http://bronko.turrican.eu ?
Or at least link to this thread?

An editor would be cool, which reminds me of another project, Joe here had... Maybe you two could revive it a bit, hm?

Sure, upload away I'm working on it a bit still, so I may update it soonish.

An editor seems unlikely though. There's code in the levels that manages all the objects' animation and behaviour, which is hard to relocate since you have to rewrite the addressing in it. That's beyond me I'm afraid. The best thing possible is a level editor that works within the level size and object count restrictions of the originals. That takes a lot of fun out of it IMO.

[Bronko]

Thanks!

Yes, a limited editor wouldn't be that much fun, that's right. There is already the T2002 engine, but having custom levels on the Amiga, would be great.

[Exl]

Updated the starting post with version 1.1. Quite a few changes, most notable the viewing of world 3, graphic representations of all the objects on the maps, as well as the ability to export level, tiles and all graphics used in the game. It should also run slightly faster. Sadly there was not much unused information I could find. The only odd occurences are unknown objects in L4-1 (my guess is barriers that had to be destroyed) and some electricity bolts ("zap" graphic name) that were amongst the L1-2 fish graphics.



That's about all I can extract from the game. Enjoy!

[Retro1234]

Ill check this out -more great work

[Bronko]

Those "unkown" things are very interesting, as I know, what they are!
In Turrican II for the C64, those are the places, where there is an enemy, that is missing in the Amiga version!

Everytime, you shoot that thing, it moves in your direction.
When it explodes, it shoots two star-thingies at you...

What makes them really nice is, that in the C64 version the power blocks are NOT invisible in this level, and just look like that enemy!

A shame, they didn't implement it on the amiga... even more a shame, as it seems, everything was allready set up for it.



*edit*

Those zap's appear on the C64 version as well, in the water pools. But I remember seeing them on the Amiga, too.

*edit2*

Want to know more things, you are missing, when playing TurricanII on the Amiga?
[ Show youtube player ]
You can see the "Unkowns" in action in this video, too.

[Exl]

Originally Posted by Bronko

Those "unkown" things are very interesting, as I know, what they are!

Interesting. I wonder why they were removed in the Amiga version.

Those zap's appear on the C64 version as well, in the water pools. But I remember seeing them on the Amiga, too.

I've had a vague recollection of seeing them too, but perhaps only once. I can't coax the fish to do anything other than swim to the bottom and generally be dmb enemies, so I wonder where\how the zap is used.

[Bronko]

The zap's are just there, and you better don't touch them...

Oh, and you couldn't extract the lift locations in level 5-2 ?

[Adropac2]

This is perhaps the one game that deserves an editor the most.Turrican 2 revolves around it's fantastic atmosphere and being able to forge our own spaces would something very special

I'm suprised one hasn't already been done but hopefully this type of good work here will inspire one

Most of my time spent playing Oids on the ST is while in the editor making my own maps and it's a very satisfying thing to do.Same to with Halo Forge mode but you can't craft single player experiences from that one

[Exl]

Originally Posted by Bronko

Oh, and you couldn't extract the lift locations in level 5-2 ?

Those are hardcoded in the level's code blocks. I'm not going there, there be dragons

Originally Posted by Adropac2

This is perhaps the one game that deserves an editor the most.Turrican 2 revolves around it's fantastic atmosphere and being able to forge our own spaces would something very special

I'm suprised one hasn't already been done but hopefully this type of good work here will inspire one

Most of my time spent playing Oids on the ST is while in the editor making my own maps and it's a very satisfying thing to do.Same to with Halo Forge mode but you can't craft single player experiences from that one

As I mentioned before, it's possible, but with some big limitations. Maybe someone will figure out the rest one day. I'd really like to see an editor for this game, ever since I was bt a wee lad It's really satisfying to be able to craft an entire world a player can explore and move around in, and consequently play through a carefully crafted gameplay experience. I build Doom maps from time to time; there's still a very active community around that, with editing possibilities increasing year after year.