Trivia on Plane & Tank Battle + Simulator soon

[eltiopool]

EDIT:
I have a copy of this game now so you may ignore the requests for some coolaborations. Found some inaccuracies in the info presented in this trivia, not big deal, but you should know I'm correcting it in a few days. Also going to announce the simulator release in some days too.
END OF EDIT

Hi! I'm Diego from Argentina, new on this place. Wanted to share some stories/projects with you all.

When I was 7 / 8 years old, I was given this game as a present for going well at school, after I've been begging for it quite some. What a surprise when I saw it on my parents hands!

I spent hundreds of hours playing with it. And even used to study it, just because I found it amazing, and wanted to know more about it.

Sadly, I don't have it anymore. It was stolen from me after almost three years after I got it.
I still keep its box. Time went by and later I had my NES, Genesis, PC, ... you know, almost forgot about it.

Thing is a few days ago, I accidentaly found it on the web. That got me a little nostalgic and wanted to find more info on this. Searched the web and there found it, again. I could buy it new, in unopened box. But I don't know since it is somewhat expensive.
But also found some simulators, and as it lacks one, I decided and started writing one.

Here is where you can help: If anyone has Plane & Tank Battle and could send high resolution pictures/scans of screen, both with and without segments shown ("sprites"), better if BMP, that'd be appreciated.
Also needed are 44Khz WAV sound samples: those emitted when bombs move, those when tank crosses bridge, when you hold DATE button to start new game, that cricket like sound when tank is destroyed, etc.

Other important samples: 30 secs length sample of normal PRO1 AND PRO2 game, this could be MP3, this one is because my memory could be out of sync after this years not seeing the game.

I prepared some trivia info I found from my game, which you could find interesting. When you see ## replacing a datum, it means I don't remember that. "word?" means I'm not sure if that is correct.
Appreciated if you could enlighten on such items.

This trivia includes OBVIOUS INFO and NOT SO OBVIOUS INFO (cheats, bugs, etc.)

TRIVIA ON PLANE & TANK BATTLE

OBVIOUS INFO
* Bombs usually appear on the empty air, and not under planes.

* The bridge has a constant period, ## seconds up, ## seconds down, repeat.

* The screenshot shown on box, appears true to the original, but looking at it closer, you'll find lcd segments("sprites?") are only black silhouettes, but in real game, they are very detailed images.

* There is a master clock wich has a tick frequency, the planes move once every tick in PRO2 mode, and once every "two?" ticks in PRO1 mode. Bombs are sync'ed to planes moves, every time planes move, one column of bombs move, then next, and so on.
So planes/bombs move ratio is 4:1 IN GAME MODE only.

* There are really THREE bombs speeds (Not 2): In time mode, planes keep PRO1 initial speed, but one bombs column move every ## plane moves. VERY SLOWLY. Maybe they initially wanted to make PRO1 even slower with three different speeds as score increased. Thanks they didn't include the slowest speed.

* In PRO1 mode, after 999, score return to 0 and speed returns to slow, but this speed reduction doesn't happen at exactly 0 points, never could find out if it depended on the time clock or what, because it slowed down when you had 50 points, 180 points, etc. Difficult to find out what it based on. Maybe some code executed once per minute, like when you update minutes in the clock? I mean, I never played with a digital watch synced to the game master time and having it by my side to take note the moment in which bombs reduced speed.

* You would think maximum number of tanks is 6, even it says so in a *.txt online manual I found on support.radioshack.com (or something like that), but not true, read below. Also, that manual has some other inaccuracies, maybe incorrectly written or game has been rereleased and redesigned to save costs.
(That manual implies you have option to play without sound. Not true on mine.
To activate alarm, it says you have to press LEFT and RIGHT together. On mine it was RIGHT and MODE.
Some other differences... )

NOT SO OBVIOUS INFO
* Cheat: Normally, tank automatically gets out of cave after 5? secs if you don't move.
Cross the low bridge to get 10 points, but hold right button down, your tank will never get out of the cave until you release the button. Pretty boring but fine if you can't defeat your friend's highscore. You can rest the right thumb if you change buttons, without leaving all of them released at the same time.
MODE button wasn't included? One of three little buttons wasn't included. Can't remember which one.

* No need to press all five buttons to see all segments on display and reset game.
DATE? button could be released.

* One would swear bombs appear randomly.
"NOT SO" true. And true.
You have five PREDESIGNED BOMBS PATTERNS. Every time game ticks, the next bomb (or empty space) is taken from the CURRENT pattern. And new bombs are placed atop, in the currently moving column of bombs, right under planes line of flight, joining the bombs already falling.
Here is what makes it random: The current pattern is SELECTED FROM THE TANK POSITION. As you would never do the same exact moves, and even if you try, couldn't make it at same ticks, you end up with a random sequence.
How did I find it? In time mode (game demo) it is obvious you have always the same pattern repeat and repeat, that's because the tank is always at the same position.
Now play the game, with low score, <100, cross low bridge and make tank stay under cave using the trick I showed above. Boilá! You have the same sequence as in time mode. And it repeats and repeats.
That gave me THE CLUE. Now when tank is in other position, it is not so easy because you have to move or get destroyed, but I started making tests trying to stay the longer I could at every position before I moved, and remember having slowly recognized small portions of different patterns.
And so I proved it to myself.
Important:
When you move the tank back to a position, that pattern doesn't resume from where it left but rather it resumes at the position it'd be if you never moved away from that position, that is, the MASTER CLOCK is increasing a MASTER INDEX into the patterns.
When tank crosses low bridge, and it is at that position where you see only half of it, it doesn't count, as it will be there only until it is time to move the bombs, when it will return under cave. Sometimes you crossed bridge just when bombs are about to move and you almost didn't see that half a tank.
So for practical purposes, position 6 is the same as position 1. (Counting from 1, under cave)
Are these patterns actually 5? Could be only two, four, Anybody knows someone who worked designing this game? We need the patterns!!!

Why try it with score <100?
The same pattern increases difficulty as score increases, and looks like anew pattern! Read on.
You shold imagine a bombs pattern as a bidimensional grid of blank squares. Four columns width and ## rows height. (never counted the number of rows, sorry)
Now write some 1's in some of the squares, leaving most of them blank. Next write some 2's
in spaces still blank. Finally write 3's also in still blancks, this time
leaving just a few blank squares.
Write 0's in the remaining cells.
0's represent empty places where you never pick a bomb.
1's represent bombs that APPEAR AT ANY SCORE.
2's represent bombs that appear at ONLY scores >200? (>100?, >300?, can't remember.) .
3's represent bombs that appear at ONLY scores >600. This one I'm sure.

I'm quite sure it had ONLY THREE LEVELS of increasing difficulty.
So if you do it with low score, you can inmediatly recognize the pattern from time mode. When you have 400 points (example), stay under the cave and it is still the same pattern, but some new bombs. After 600 points, still the same pattern, even more new bombs.
You think you see new patterns. They are the same with new bombs replacing empties.
This predesigned bombs patterns discovery was one of my biggest discoveries on this game at age 7/8,
23 years ago!

After 600 points, game becames virtually impossible to play, unless you keep an eye on the sequence of bomb column moves. Many times you have to wait until the column of bombs to your left move, and immediatly move your tank there. Pretty difficult technique, but I dominated it. It's easier if you place the game on a table and use index fingers to control. After getting more than 999, score returns to zero, and when you get 200 points again, you get an extra tank again.
Thus sometimes I got 9 tanks when reaching 2200 points. (Only read 200 at screen).
Whenever you get an extra life, game pauses for a moment to emit the extra life sound. I can't remember exactly what happened when you had the maximum 9 lifes. Do remember it didn't increase lives anymore, but I think game didn't either pause and/or play the sound efect.

* There is a bug in the time clock. Usually when setting the day, it automatically returns to 1 after day 30/31 (or 28th), depending on month number set.
The bug goes as follows. Enter time setting mode. Select months.
Set month to 3 (or any 31 days long month). Set day to 31. Now set month to 2.
There you WOULD think you have it.
"February, 31st". (Just in case you forgot February is only 28/29 days long).
Now set time to 23:59 (PM 11:59) (could be PM 11:58 to have more time.)
Now press MODE button to return to normal time display. Wait until 11:59 55 secs.
Press DATE button, you would see date 31 in place of seconds.
Wait until 12:00 o'clock. There you have it! February, the 32nd. After days go by,
it will keep on counting until "February, the 99th". Nice trick to delay your birthday
and to not getting old, I guess.


Now, for my simulator, I think it could be impossible to track down all patterns configurations, maybe the solution would be to play without crossing the brigge and see how much score you get after two minutes, multiply by 3 (3 bombs = 1point) and design the patterns with that average quantity of bombs.
Then repeat with higher scores.

Ok, If I remember anything new and I see you interested on this topic, I'll post.

I hope to recieve some feedback, thanks for your time.
Greetings, Thanks for the colaborations!

Matías##xxxx##Diego##xxxx##Domínguez

[kisember]

Not sure I understand clearly, did you discovered all these facts when you were 8 years old?
Btw, I always thought that Plane and Tank is a clone (or licensee) of Helmet (Nintendo G&W) and there are many other similar games. Did you checked in that scale if they run the same program or just they have the same gameplay?
_________________
www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.

[eltiopool]

That's correct, I was 7/8 when I found these things. Although back then, it was difficult(impossible?) to me to explain it.
As a matter of fact, it is easier to me to explain it now in English than then in native Spanish. In that time, I didn't know anything about programming as I know now. So what I understood/saw about this game were only behaviours, things I knew I should expect if I did this or that.
As I said, it was a little thing which I found fascinating and used to STUDY IT, NOT ONLY PLAY WITH IT. I used to pay more attention to this kind of secret things I discovered, and those stayed in my memory more easily. But I didn't focus too much in obvious things, that's why I don't remember very well things like the time/seconds the bridge remained up/down.
I even discovered other things which only happened if you forced it to malfunction using certain technique, but I don't want you to try this because you can kill your device, actually, back then a friend of mine killed his doing the same. It kept on working but the image was like if it had an almost dead battery even with new battery.

About Nintendo Helmet, I'm not familiar with it, going to check up the web for it. But this things apply to other games in the same line. I remember I had convinced these friends of mine to interchange the LCDs in their games, and they ended up with new games in same devices. A few days latter they put them back to normal. These games were SEA RANGER and the other, I think its name was SPACE ALIEN, both devices had the same look, the same clock including seconds, and I even think they both had the same MODEL 737 imprinted on back (Mine was MODEL 737 too).
I'm confused with this SPACE ALIEN name because I remember I saw two games with space ships, but other was about pointing and shooting down an UFO, which is a different engine.

All the things I wrote in prior posts are things I knew back then, using my "ACTUAL" words, I tried to be clear in the concepts but it was difficult 'cause I didn't want to make it extense.
Then I knew there are 3 different quantities of bombs per pattern as score increased. Why? Didn't know that then, but years later, learning C/C++/Java programming and basic assembly I know that bombs with codes in range 0-3 are binary friendly, and you can put 2 bombs in a nibble (4 bits, as the data handled by those processors) and it finally made sense!

If I get the help I'm needing, you know, the graphics and the sound samples, I know that this simulator would have the sense and feel of an "emulator". Pretty sure about that. Now I have working without proper samples and using some rudimentary graphics and it is not too bad, but not still finished.

Finally, I'm pretty sure many people know many things about their devices, maybe they should take the courage and write about them, and I mean CHEATS, TRICKS, BUGS, this kind of info. I was surprised some days ago because I thought I'd find such informations flooding the web, but it is null, at least for this game, didn't really look up for other games I didn't have. I found my game, but only in auction sites for sale but not trivia at all. I hope we get more info soon.
Also, I was amazed by the topics by the inventors (I'd say designers), perhaps this kind of sites should be translated to chinese/japanese, so we could get more news from other designers themselves as well. Too bad I don't speak chinese! Well, I got too extense again...See ya!

[kisember]

What is your plan about implementing the emulator, which language, what is the target platform, business model and such?
Is it for browsers in html5-javascript, or a paid iPhone app, or what?
_________________
www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.

[eltiopool]

It will be a SIMULATOR. I only used the word emulator meaning how accurate I want this to be.

I'm making two versions:
One's a Java MIDlet intended for cell phones.
The other is an executable for PCs written in C++, open source and free for download.

I was first thinking about making the PC version in native DirectX 7, but then changed my mind and started working in Allegro, which is going to make it easy to third parties to port to other platforms. Moreover, Allegro makes it easier for me to implement new features, for example, simulating battery level of charge, regulated by user using a slide bar and implemented using alpha blits. Other nice feat: segment shadows toggle.
Although those extravagant features will be incorporated since version 2 on.

Finally, maybe I will incorporate a 3D model of the device, allowing you to zoom in/out and rotate it by clicking and dragging. That'd be nice for version 3. I'm taking care in the current code so in the future it'd be easy to implement those. 3D code will be handled in software, my PC doesn't do 3D in hardware, that is another point in favor to Allegro.

[kisember]

I think most people nowdays are too busy to download content and fear of running 'untrusted' native code on their PC so I just recommend to implement some kind of browser version too.
Anyway, PM me with your postal address and I will send you a P&T game, it would make your task easier I believe.
_________________
www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.

[eltiopool]

Thanks kisember for your help and interest on this idea. I just PM'd you.
Now that you say about a browser version, and as I'm about to write MIDlet when I'm done with the C code, I can use almost all the same code from the MIDlet to write a java applet, run inside a browser.

One thing I should add is that the MIDlet version will be just plain, no fancy features as those I'm including in the PC version, because cell phones probably don't need so many features, and also don't have big display resolutions.

Lastly, the executable version will have source code available for those who know how to compile.

[kisember]

It's your decision but I don't recommend to trouble with j2me version. Write once run anywhere ain't apply on phones, the implementations so fragmented that you will have serious issues with different resolutions and controls. If you use 3D or SVG API then you might eliminate the resolution issue but controlling will be still a pain. Not to mention that you lose the chance to easily port it to applet. If you target mobile devices I think the best option is to port it to Android, all (?) device has touchscreen, supports OpenGL, and you might use most of the C++ code.
_________________
www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.

[eltiopool]

[eltiopool]

[kisember]

Seems you have enough experience to develop for j2me.
Controlling with touchscreen is very easy, I wouldn't left it out.
iPhone doesn't have jvm, it is strictly forbidden to develop any virtual machine, it would allow to install applications from other sources than appstore so they wouldn't earn share.
_________________
www.HandheldEmpire.com: open vintage hand-held game database and collectors' site.