Rygar. Strange problem

[Bones]

I play Rygar (mame) a lot. A few times per week and have done forever.....

Last night at the end of an average scoring game the screen went all crazy. The colours all changed and I was promted to enter my hi-score. Usually Rygar has positions for the top 50 high scores but now it is only showing the top 5 scores. The score I just got was also put into first position even though it was a low scoring game. At the time I could see my previous high score at position 2 so the hi score file is obviously still talking to mame....

Also...... Where the score used to show while playing it now shows "LAYER" in replace of the game score.

A few things... I desperately want my hi score file back, I worked hard to get that 850,000. Secondly, how do I get rid of this strange LAYER wording? I have deleted everthing except the hi score data file and the ROM but nothing seems to have changed.

I was wondering if I somehow stumbled onto an Easter Egg or an inbuilt cheat or something... I find this really strange because nothing like this has happened before and I have litrally played the game 1000's of times.

Some interesting pics are attached.

[FrizzleFried]

Did you somehow load up a CLONE of Rygar by accident?   How can a 50 slot hiscore screen turn to a 5 slot?

EDIT:  Corrected spelling of Ragar...I really didn't mean to spell it Rygay.

[Bones]

No... I have made no software changes in over 12 months. No updates, nothing!

It is super strange.

[Kremmit]

Rocket!

[horseboy]

Rocket!

That is usually the answer.