Sega genesis aladdin game genie archive#
Sega genesis aladdin game genie code#

ThatвЂ™s 10 days later than the build date of the Japanese distribution, which is September 20, 1993.

Sega genesis aladdin game genie archive#

However, I was able to reproduce the missing data without much trouble to get a usable binary building again.ДЄlthough content otherwise seems to match the retail distributions of Aladdin, modified dates for some of the source files in this archive are as late as September 30, 1993. A few of the data dependencies were missing in the archive, which was a little surprising, with the game having been built out of this very workspace at some point.

Sega genesis aladdin game genie code#

The archive containing Aladdin is laid out such that it looks to have been someoneвЂ™s working copy of the gameвЂ™s source code and data, as opposed to being a shared repository of any sort. For simplicityвЂ™s sake, though, IвЂ™ll continue to refer to this build as the CES demo build when the material IвЂ™m discussing relates to the build in some way. This is far from conclusive (we have no way of knowing if source art continued to be modified after being removed from the Chopper database), but supports the idea that the CES demo build may have been produced from an active development branch on June 27th, 1993, rather than being further developed on a branch of an earlier development snapshot. Referencing our source archive, we can see that some source art was modified as late as mid June, and is already removed from ROM in the CES demo build. This indicates that the build was produced several weeks after the show had taken place. The CES demo build is labeled as a Chicago CES demo, but as noted in the buildвЂ™s TCRF article, the SNASM-generated timestamp reflects June 27th, 1993. This reveals a few interesting things exclusive to that build, including some additional sketch material that does not appear to be accessible in the build through normal gameplay. ItвЂ™s also worth noting that Noesis can dig the Chopper data back up out of the Aladdin CES demo build. While it wonвЂ™t give you access to the materials that didnвЂ™t actually make it to retail, it will allow you to flip through frames and observe tile usage in the finished product. The resulting data can then be viewed directly by Noesis. It includes a script, fmt_virginmd_chopper.py, which will allow you to dig all of the Chopper tile data out of any known (commercial or otherwise) Aladdin ROM image. In case you arenвЂ™t familiar, in short summary, itвЂ™s a tool built on a framework to assist in reverse engineering and exploring all manner of data.

If not, well, there are pictures! (and you can skip straight to the cool section) You might also want a copy of Noesis on hand to explore along with me. Hopefully you like technical talk, because IвЂ™m not holding anything back. That includes finding a plethora of unreleased material, and even re-implementing entire objects and enemies that had been removed by the time Aladdin saw its commercial release! IвЂ™m going to walk you through the journey and reveal my discoveries at each step of the way. I quickly started piecing processes together, and began working on getting the source code (which is written entirely in M68K assembly) built into a working binary. ItвЂ™s also a large part of what made it such a joy to discover an archive featuring the complete source code for the game in the Video Game History Foundation collection! In addition to being a treasure trove of data, this archive represented a great opportunity for me to begin establishing standards for source code archival, curating practices, tool dependency tracking, and a lot of other process-oriented things at the VGHF.ДЄlmost all of the development tools and materials were still intact in this archive.

This unique blend of artwork and technology is a large part of what gives Aladdin a special place in video game history. It did so not by leveraging any particularly fancy raster effects or obscure hardware techniques, but rather by pairing effective artwork and design with just the right technology.

AladdinвЂ™s beautifully hand-crafted, surprisingly well-quantized artwork set new expectations for many in the realm of what could be accomplished on Genesis hardware. Powered by what eventually became known as вЂњDigicelвЂќ technology, along with a solid selection of middleware and some impressive talent, Aladdin managed to set itself apart from other Genesis titles of the era. When it was released back in 1993, DisneyвЂ™s Aladdin for the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive, depending on which side of the pond you lived on through the early 90вЂ™s) was really a visually striking game.