Donkey Kong And The Wrong Colours

edited October 2019 in Games
I vaguely remember asking this question many years ago, but it seems worthwhile in the context of the frankly amazing hack/mods I've just discovered recently like Mr Heli, Pac-Land and the Renegade games.

How possible would it be for someone to fix the colours in the licenced Ocean port of Donkey Kong? It's always annoyed me that for no obvious reason they were all wrong (particularly on the last stage), when the Speccy had a palette perfectly capable of rendering something that looked like the arcade game.

Below: the actual Speccy game on the left, one possible recolouring on the right. (Decisions, of course, would need to be taken about colour clash, but this is as close as you can get to the coin-op.)

speccykong-2.jpg

It's a pretty decent port, especially on 128K, but getting the colours right would make it twice as good. As it stands the C64 and (especially) Amstrad ports shame it, and given the miracles people have worked revamping other games, Kong seems like it could be a great candidate.
Post edited by Rev_Stuart_Campbell on
«134

Comments

  • Hi,

    Do you really want to see in new color ? The 1st room is ready and the others are easy to finish. There is a limit in the recolouring. See the 1st room:

    The hammer and the barrels are white in the game. On your plan one is white, others are yellow. They have to same color.

    The original game has special loader. I don't want to make new tzx only I can give you a snapshot if it is good.

    Pgyuri
  • edited October 2019
    {deleted}
    Post edited by colonel32 on
    Robin Verhagen-Guest
    SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
    NXtel NXTP ESP Update ESP Reset CSpect Plugins
  • edited October 2019
    Pgyuri wrote: »
    Hi,

    Do you really want to see in new color ? The 1st room is ready and the others are easy to finish. There is a limit in the recolouring. See the 1st room:

    The hammer and the barrels are white in the game. On your plan one is white, others are yellow. They have to same color.

    The original game has special loader. I don't want to make new tzx only I can give you a snapshot if it is good.

    Pgyuri

    Would love to see :)

    (I don't get any screenshots in your post. Personally I think I'd prefer the hammer and barrels both to be yellow.)
    Post edited by Rev_Stuart_Campbell on
  • Hi there,

    Here is the recoloured Donkey Kong.

    Limits:

    All room has same background color (default is black-white) and all objects, enemies have this colour and the lift in the room 3 uses this color too.

    The floor in the room 4 has only simple black-blue colour, can't combine blue-cyan colours (the holes must be black in the floor pattern).

    The others colours are ready, just 195 bytes fun (and many hours)! Some colour data was easy to hack, others were harder. To make other recolouring the program code must be rewritten.


    Bonus graphics:
    $D615 >> set 18 bytes to $43 purple border

    Kong graphics:
    $D6BB >> set 12 bytes to $43 purple Kong

    Princess place:
    $8C80 >> set the byte to $42 red floor under princess when Kong takes her

    Intro:
    $D42D >> set all 4th bytes to $45 until $FF cyan ladder
    $D325 >> set all 6th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor
    $D52A >> set all 4th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor at ladders
    $CB61 >> set the byte to $03 climber purple Kong

    Room 1:
    $D349 >> set all 4th bytes to $45 until $FF cyan ladder
    $D222 >> set all 6th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor
    $D442 >> set all 4th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor at ladders

    Room 2:
    $D386 >> set all 4th bytes to $45 until $FF cyan ladder
    $D282 >> change all 6th bytes value $43 to $42 until $FF red floor (yellow stays)
    $D48B >> change all 4th bytes value $43 to $42 until $FF red floor at ladders (yellow stays)

    Room 3:
    $D3C3 >> set all 4th bytes to $45 until $FF cyan ladder
    $D2B0 >> set all 6th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor
    $D4C4 >> set all 4th bytes to $42 until $FF red floor at ladders

    Room 4:
    $D3F4 >> set all 4th bytes to $45 until $FF cyan ladder
    $D306 >> set all 6th bytes to $41 until $FF blue floor
    $D4F1 >> set all 4th bytes to $41 until $FF blue floor at ladders
    $D6AE >> set the byte to $46 yellow traps in floor

    Final:
    $98C4 >> set the byte to $01 blue fallen floors
    $9928 >> set the byte to $43 fallen purple Kong
    $9971 >> set the byte to $41 blue floor under lovers

    If you have no time to type-in, download here:

    http://kerekasztal.sinclair.hu/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1013

    Have fun!

    Pgyuri
  • edited October 2019
    ...
    Post edited by Rev_Stuart_Campbell on
  • Wonderful :) :) :)

    Thank you so much :)

    How would we apply these fixes to the 128K version?
  • mzxmzx
    edited October 2019
    Great idea and very nice implementation!
    I made the TAP and TZX (with Mick Farrow's beautiful loading screen).
    TAP
    TZX with turbo loader
    Post edited by mzx on
  • edited October 2019
    Wonderful :)

    Just to finish the job off, here are a couple of tape boxes for the 128K and 48K versions:

    dkrecoloured.jpg

    dkrecoloured2.jpg
    Post edited by Rev_Stuart_Campbell on
    Thanked by 1Luzie
  • Inspired by this thread I started to modify some of the graphics using SGE and have come up with this so far, just need to tackle poor Mario next! Sorry, having trouble posting screenshots.

    dropbox.com/s/127hqomkzx9t53d/donkey%20kong%20%28gfxmod%29.z80?dl=0

    zxgraph page HERE

  • Nice! Loving the changes so far, can't wait to see the replacement for that uggo Mario :)
  • Some screenshots for people:

    newdk1.jpg

    newdk2.jpg

    newdk3.jpg

    newdk4.jpg
    Thanked by 1mickfarrow
  • Any more progress?
  • Still plugging away at it, when I can! Hope to update this week sometime.
    zxgraph page HERE

  • Better not to fix something that ain't broke. There was a good reason to use less colours in the Spectrum version, to avoid the unnecessary colour clash. Also some of the changes here look farther away from the original than the official ZX port. Srsly, Mighty Magenta Kong?? :)) It is brown in arcade version, so closest you can get on Spectrum is dark red. OTOH the platforms on 2 screens of the arcade are light pink, so in this case magenta was a good choice.
  • edited November 2019
    If you don't like it don't download it, man. Ain't nobody got a gun to your head.
    Post edited by Rev_Stuart_Campbell on
  • I don't like people spreading misinformation and calling the right things "wrong" on the whim.
  • giphy.gif
    Haha, excellent response!!!!
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • yes a pinky kong looks strange to me just like he lacked hair or something.
    Have you thought of using the excellent graphics of Gabriele Amore? You can find them on his facebook.
  • Maybe he is a 'strategically shaved monkey' :)
    Sod it!

    @luny@mstdn.games
    https://www.luny.co.uk
  • Donkey Kong and the RIGHT colours:
  • Perhaps to avoid confusion, we should rename the recoloured version to Wonkey Kong?

    *Gets coat
    Every night is curry night!
  • *Hands coat to Boozey and shakes head.
    Sod it!

    @luny@mstdn.games
    https://www.luny.co.uk
  • Lethargeek wrote: »
    Donkey Kong and the RIGHT colours:

    Give it a rest, mate. If you don't like the new version, stick with the crappy one.
  • Lethargeek wrote: »
    Donkey Kong and the RIGHT colours:

    Give it a rest, mate. If you don't like the new version, stick with the crappy one.
    Agreed. I'm with the Rev...

    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • Give it a rest, mate. If you don't like the new version, stick with the crappy one.
    It's an open forum, if you haven't noticed yet. You are free to call right and proper things wrong and crappy. I'm free to correct you out. The difference is i'm proving my point with factual evidence and you're not. So if you don't have anything better than "stop it", then better stop it.
  • But surely on the argument the Rev is free to say 'stop it' as much is you are asking him to stop it... I think?
    Sod it!

    @luny@mstdn.games
    https://www.luny.co.uk
  • I have a shed.
    Every night is curry night!
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