TEHKAN WORLD CUP: A GUIDE TO CREATE MODIFIED VERSIONS/CLONES -------------------------------------------------------------------- There are other original clones of Tehkan World Cup apart from the one in MAME. I personally have played two of them, but there might be more. Still, there are ways to change some of the settings to make this great game even more interesting. For instance, you can change the power of the "long high shot" so that the ball will never go out of bounds again (at least if you are not near any lines!). You can create plenty of variations by changing some analog settings in MAME 0.34. Alternatively, you may download MAMEHKAN.EXE or even use the tehkan.c file (which was corrected by Steph from The Ultimate Patchers) in the MAMEHKAN page to compile a new MAMEW (or TINYW) containing an analog bug free Tehkan World Cup. By modifying the TWC drivers, it is possible to create many interesting clones including the ones in the MAMEHKAN project page. The following testing is about the player 1 settings. Changing the player 2 settings is identical, but independent from the player 1 settings. Moreover, we can keep the player 2 settings unchanged, and change the player 1 settings which for example can give an advantage to player 1. Very useful, when we want to increase/decrease the speed of whichever team we want or to have a better shooting ability. This can define home or away games, or even balance the outcome of a game whenever one of our opponents is less (or more) skillful. INTRODUCTION TO THE TESTING -------------------------------- You don't have to change all the analog settings to create something special. More specifically, there are four main parameters (for player 1) that have to be changed, namely: Trak X Sensitivity, Trak X Key/Joy Delta, Trak Y Sensitivity, and Trak Y Key/Joy Delta. We will use abbreviations to make things easier. Notation: Trak X Sensitivity: Xs Trak X Key/Joy Delta: Xd Trak Y Sensitivity: Ys Trak Y Key/Joy Delta: Yd (X denotes the left/right direction, while Y denotes the up/down direction). (NOTE: If you use MAMEHKAN, The word "Delta" is replaced by "Speed") Defaults (just in case you wish to change them back): Xs=Ys=100%, Xd=Yd=63 After some testing there were the following results: TEST 1 ------- Here we will set Xs=Ys=100%, Yd=63 and will play around with Xd. By having Xd between 4 and 25, our player walks like a crab when going up or down. The smaller Xd is, the slower the player will run towards left or right. By having Xd between 26 and 31, our player will still walk like a crab, except when running Up-Right. Again, the smaller Xd is, the slower he will run left or right. By having Xd between 32 and 38, our player will run like a crab, only when directed Down-Left. As usual, the smaller the Xd, the slower our X direction (left and right). Finally, by having Xd 39 or bigger, our player will run normally. And yes, the smaller the number, the slower the X direction...! Further Conclusions: The slower a player goes to a direction, the less further his shot will go to that direction too. This means that we can make the player's left and right shot from very strong to very weak. The smaller Xd is, the smaller the power of the shot. This can be quite useful as we can make the power of the high long shot weaker, so that most of the time it will remain inside the bounds (instead of going out of reach almost every time). Also, the player's shot will be less directed to the left or right (meaning that if Xd is low, the shot will look straight rather than diagonal when trying to score!). TEST 2 ------- If now we set Xs=Ys=100%, Xd=63 and play around with Yd, things will be EXACTLY as above, by replacing "Up" with "Left" and "Down" with "Right". TEST 3 ------- By combining and changing Xd and Yd, we can create some very interesting versions/clones of Tehkan World Cup. If Xd and Yd are both less than 63 for player 1 and player 2 has default settings, then player 2 will move faster on the field (and maybe player 1 can score with more ways than player 2!). An interesting example is when we set Xs=118%, Ys=100% and Xd=Yd=33. This looks very much like one of the clones I have seen in Greece, but it is not my favorite one. :( Here the controls seem to help to have some nice goals which could never be achieved when playing the "default" version. TEST 4 (including all four parameters) -------------------------------------------- After some endless testing, the conclusion is that the parameters Xs and Ys act in a similar (if not identical) way with the parameters Xd and Yd. In other words, a low Xd combined with a high Xs can actually behave like the default value as they cancel each other (of course, if both Xd and Xs are low this will significantly decrease the speed and direction, as expected). In order to make more and better changes (for example to attempt to emulate my favorite version where the player is running slow towards right and fast towards left), we will need to introduce two parameters "Xd Left" AND "Xd Right" instead of a single Xd for both left and right directions. Same rule applies to the Y direction. IDEAS --------- Imagine if we could have a combination of Xd,Yd as some extra buttons for Tehkan World Cup! (in other words, to be able to assign them to keystrokes). Having buttons that can increase/decrease the speed of the player AND the direction/speed of the ball, will make this game even more challenging!!! And this is certainly something possible, because during my testing, all the changes were happening in REAL TIME! Since Xd (left/right) and Yd (up/down) represent four directions, they can easily be translated to a (second) joystick which adjusts the "speed and direction" of the ball and the speed of the player (at the same time). In simple, instead of playing Tehkan World Cup with a joystick and a "button", we would have a joystick and a "joystick with a button". One joystick for the direction of the player and the other for the speed of the player together with the "speed and direction" of the ball. The second joystick should also have a fire button on the top! Something like a flight simulator directing rockets to the base! (airplane=player, rocket=ball, base=goal). Or if you prefer, something like Crazy Climber in a Maradona shirt! Like Gustavo said: "Another great thing could be buttons to make banana shots!" Well, this is indeed very possible! The game could reach an unbelievable status as you will be able to pass AND score with INFINITE ways (and not only 11 million!). The only thing needed, is like I said, to map the Xd and Yd to four keystrokes!!! EPILOGUE ------------ Note, that the Xs,Ys parameters without the Xd, Yd parameters DO NOT affect anything. And unfortunately current versions of MAME do not carry Xd and Yd (and thus no change is possible). Unless you compile them by yourself with the new tehkanwc.c file!!! :) Oh and by the way, if someone familiar plans to make any negative comments, AT LEAST check whether or not my testing is correct, instead of claiming that my perfect joystick is actually a broken and dirty trackball!!! (I really can't stand anybody abusing my dear blue-ball-top home-made arcade joystick!) :) Until the next testing (that is, whenever new analog parameters pop up), have fun! :) Master Peter C.H. (kastellorizo) If you wish to view examples of goals that can be scored in modified versions, (more specifically where Xs=118%, Ys=100% and Xd=Yd=33) please visit the GIFs section of the Tehkan page (http://www.powerstrike.net). For any comments send e-mail to tehkan@powerstrike.net