Play as Pauline in Donkey Kong

[meyer980]

Saw this video on YouTube, a little girl asked her dad if she could play as Pauline and rescue Mario in Donkey Kong, so he modified the NES Rom. I think it'd be pretty neat if someone did it for the original arcade version to be played in MAME!

[CoryBee]

Was just about to post this! You beat me to it. I love this hack!

here is a link to the story -

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/dad-hacks-donkey-kong-for-his-daughter-princess-pauline-now-saves-mario/

[meyer980]

Good link, I also found this on on Wired. It sounds like he used Tile Layer Pro to hack the NES Rom, but I don't think that works on MAME Roms. Is the only way with a HEX Editor?

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/03/donkey-kong-pauline-hack/

[ChadTower]

The DK code is out there for people who know assembly.  There have been a LOT of DK arcade hacks over the years. 

[Howard_Casto]

Imho, the real work in this hack was creating new sprites to use in the game.  If you know the memory locations of the graphic roms and the format (both of which can be found via mame's drivers) it's trivial to replace graphics. 

[DaveMMR]

Would he have had to create animation for Pauline as well? I don't remember her having any.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah that's what I'm referring to.  Pauline only has the "carried away" sprite and the two frame animation when she's standing on the platform. 

[Gray_Area]

Funny. That's one of the most accurate console ports I've seen.

[Howard_Casto]

Well it is Nintendo.

When they ported their classic arcade games to the nes they typically tried to use the original teams.  (Not sure if this is the case with DK)  Ports are usually done by a third party when other companies port their titles.