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The Secret Code That Helped Me Defeat SEGA's Quality Control

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In this latest episode of Coding Secrets I reveal code I added to Puggsy in 1992 to improve our chances of getting through SEGA's Genesis (Mega Drive) approval processes.
Punching Sonic Video - • Why does PUNCHING Soni...
Puggsy Intro Music by Matt Furniss. CD arrangement by Blythe Joustra.
This video was originally posted on my "Coding Secrets" channel.
/ codingsecrets
Is That You or Are You You by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
Source: chriszabriskie....
Artist: chriszabriskie....

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4 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 191

@jasonblalock4429 3 года назад

1:17 Seriously, we *NEED* an episode about how the hell you made this spaceship flyby look so smooth. It's been bugging me ever since you posted this on your other channel.

@mcbpete 3 года назад

I think what helps with the illusion of the smoothness is that the background layer (the stars) moving every frame, whereas the spaceship itself moves only ever other frame (You can check this with the ',' and '.' buttons on RU-vid to step forward and background one frame at a time). Think the brain then mushes together the two framerates together to make the whole motion seem buttery smooth !

@BoxoSpoons 3 года назад

The game was available on the Sega/Mega CD. It was probably just plain fmv.

@AltimeterAlligator 3 года назад

I would imagine the fly-by camera angle allows for more frames overall. Because Puggsy's ship is super-small until it zooms by, most of its sprites might squish into compact blocks. Check out its flight path, too -- the ship doesn't overlap any background elements until the last second, suggesting transparent shadows in most frames. Adding to mcbpete's comment, the ship's onscreen position updates per-frame, which helps sync it with the background motion. That trick's older than dirt and twice as useful.

@marscaleb 3 года назад

It's actually a live 3D rendering using the Mega Drive's hidden specular-based rendering engine. It's a little-known function that starts at memory address $1A80FFFF0000

@noop9k 3 года назад

Why 60 FPS wouldn’t feel smooth?

@NanaKyoto 3 года назад

The intricate programming that are put into these older games is always fascinating to look into.

@runninggames771 3 года назад

Wtf is your pfp bro

@gustavohab 15 дней назад

The fact that programmers did awesome games with fucking assembly back in the 90s with just a fraction of research sources compared to this day is also incredible

@Ali-Britco 3 года назад

While I love this idea, I especially.am interested in how Jon and co. Animated that spaceship, it looks near 3d and way more high quality.

@MrXabungle 3 года назад

It seems like the 3D ship was rendered in a scaled down resolution and stretched out to make it look bigger for memory reasons

@martinevans1206 3 года назад

Yes, I was impressed with this and at first thought it was a Saturn game!

@T3sl4 3 года назад

It looks more impressive than it is, because the starfield is drawn conventionally; only the ship needs to be animated, and it's kept relatively small for good reason! At least, that's my assumption. For a more aggressive method, see the video on 3D Blast's intro video -- extremely compressed and low frame rate, but full screen video nonetheless.

@Tomsonic41 3 года назад

I wouldn't mind seeing how Puggsy's anti-piracy screen was coded. If it detects it's being played on a copier or emulator, it locks down into a 'demo' mode and won't let you play more than the first 3-4 levels of the game.

@forple8930 3 года назад

It's very simple. The TCRF article shows how it's so simply coded. All they do is try and write to save memory that doesn't exist on the official cartridge. Obviously, when it tries to read it back, it won't work since said save memory doesn't exist. On copiers, and even emulators, they tend to default to a set amount of save data for every cart, (or just have cart SRAM available in general) so the write passed when read back, leading to the game going "Hey, we've been copied/modified!"

@KaylaJoyGunn 3 года назад

It's very simple. Every time you fire up Pugsy, it dials Jon's home phone, and while the logo screens are playing, he hacks into your network and checks to see if there's any record of a legal purchase.

@Larry 3 года назад

Is there a rumour the game also broke Sega's TMSS anti piracy lockout and doesn't work on later models of the Mega Drive/Genesis?

@sirkastic 3 года назад

You know nothing

@cartmansfat123 2 года назад

@@sirkastic 🤨

@sirkastic 2 года назад

@@cartmansfat123 No U

@superrayman3 2 года назад

I have the last pre-VA7 revision of the model 1 and have owned 3 different model 2 systems as well as a Nomad and Puggsy has worked perfectly on each system I've tried (no TMSS or Anti-piracy issues at all) so unless a model 2 that's later than mine, a Genesis 3 or any other revision has this issue whoever started such a rumor (if one does exist) has absolutely no idea what they're talking about.

@sirkastic 2 года назад

@@superrayman3 Not sure you have any clue what you are talking about

@papisenpai5994 3 года назад

the real question is how did they like the idea of having different ways to show the sega logo? did they take your idea and use it for other games?

@cjshields2007 3 года назад

Yes good question, what was their feedback?

@weirdboo 3 года назад

The answer is in the final game lol, they loved it. Plenty of other games on the Genesis have intros like that.

@grn1 2 года назад

Sonic 3 also has an animated Sega logo though not quite as fancy so definitely some first party games using it.

@scotts918 3 года назад

GH: Hey Sega, you can just change this version number to get it how it should be, and then let us know yeah? Sega: .....Refused, three week further waiting period. Also we won't tell you which version to use.

@CNash85 3 года назад

Yeah, things must have been a little more lax in those days. Try this on Sony, MS or Nintendo as a third-party publisher today and you’ll get chucked right out of the certification process. They won’t touch your code at all, just make you resubmit.

@weirdboo 3 года назад

@@CNash85 it’s a bit different when you can just use a hex editor to change a couple bytes in compiled ROM lol. GH was just showing the code that he wrote. You can clearly see the switch to hex editor halfway through the video, as he shows what Sega would’ve done to change the fake version number. Takes literally 5 seconds to do since it’s near the header

@CNash85 3 года назад

@@weirdboo right, but I could do the same thing today: submit a build of a PS4 game to Sony, and tell them "if the logo breaks your compliance guidelines, there's a config file you can edit inside the package" - which would be just as easy as hex-editing a Mega Drive ROM was back then - and they'd reject my build just the same. My point is that back in the 90s, platform holders were more inclined to do this kind of thing for third-party developers, and that these days it's a lot more strict and formalised. On the plus side though, Sony publishes complete guidelines on trademark and logo usage.... :P

@weirdboo 3 года назад

@@CNash85 gotcha

@wakannnai1 3 года назад

@@CNash85 It's also no longer necessary. Certification issues are addressed in more real time and marketing isn't nearly as inflexible as it was back then

@ghospeas9625 3 года назад

Wasn't this uploaded on the Coding Secrets channel as well? It sucks that it hasn't gained enough traction over there yet

@rjgscotland 3 года назад

There's literally a banner within the first 20 seconds of the video explaining just that.

@Davesoft 3 года назад

The quantum video thing is confusing, I saw 'one of that guys' videos and immediately searched for gamehut.

@pleasedontwatchthese9593 3 года назад

Thank you for this video. This is the kind of insider knowledge that I never hear about.

@TyroKitsune 3 года назад

Having had to deal with this sort of nonsense, this hits home.

@PotbellyPunch 3 года назад

I'm trying to solve a mystery about a TT games release- toy story 2 on ps1. It had a Mexican bandito style enemy in one of the last stages that was deemed offensive and Activision pledged to change it. However when we look at the releases that exist today, all black label copies in the US contain the offensive version. There is a collectors edition released 3 years later in 2001 that changed the enemy. There's also a greatest hits version with the enemy changed, but the release date is unknown and this version is extremely rare with only 10-20 copies known to collectors. Do you know if TT games changed the enemy and why the greatest hits version that changed the enemy was either not released or released in an extremely low quantity?

@jammygamer8961 3 года назад

the word you looking for at the end isn't "Quality" but "Quantity"

@PotbellyPunch 3 года назад

@@jammygamer8961 thanks

@KopperNeoman 3 года назад

The other word isn't "offensive" it's "politically incorrect". Simply being "offensive" doesn't get anything changed.

@yugimumoto1 3 года назад

@@KopperNeoman aka why South Park still exists.

@t3hOutlaw 3 года назад

@@yugimumoto1 South Park has nuance. It's no longer offensive just for the sake of it. There is method in the madness.

@Marenthyu 3 года назад

Waaaait a second. I already watched this video on the other channel. Ah well, time to watch it again.

@cjshields2007 3 года назад

Still enjoyed it!

@TheSonicFan4 3 года назад

What other channel?

@Marenthyu 3 года назад

@@TheSonicFan4 Coding Secrets - it's mentioned in the opening of the video

@mink03 3 года назад

I thought I was experiencing some supernatural form of deja vu

@NicolasCageIsActuallyARobot 3 года назад

These are the types of things that make a brilliant programmer. Making code easier to manage is a thankless job, but we all reap the benefits of it.

@NafenX 3 года назад

Man, PUGGSY! THAT GAME WAS MY JAM! I now have the music in my head already.

@roberto1519 3 года назад

The Genesis/Mega Drive has more than a hundred great quality titles, but there are tons of horrible, badly programmed, badly executed, badly designed, I wonder how those passed, or even if SEGA had a really strict quality control, wow, even some of their own titles like Thunder Blade, Outrunners and others were horrible. From the 700+ titles, you can say that at least 250~ have quality, the others, not at all.

@LaatiMafia 3 года назад

SEGA isn't interested in the actual gameplay quality, just that the games actually work as intended and don't crash after 42 seconds of playing.

@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 3 года назад

@Laatikkomafia Same even with Nintendo back then. How did the NES get plagued by so much shovelware?

@ventisette. 3 года назад

@@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 just like every single other Nintendo console made since…

@freddiejohnson6137 3 года назад

People mistake quality testing of a game for only approving good games. It only means that it is an official licensed product that won't crash your system pretty much instantly. The same goes for the Nintendo seal of quality. People seem to think reintroducing that for the Switch would stop all the shovelware being released on the eshop and when I told them that all the games would get it as they are all officially approved in the first place it seemed to go over their heads.

@ultrairrelevantnobody1862 3 года назад

Nintendo: We have to make sure to avoid another video game crash. Low tier developers: We're just trying to stay afloat. Nintendo: Okay, here's your seal of approval.

@emoboy2008 3 года назад

You know who else has dementia? You know who else has dementia?

@Karanthaneos 3 года назад

It's just a burning memory

@emoboy2008 3 года назад

@Juanecio Fernandecio I'm pretty sure this vid was posted before. Probably a reupload or something. UPD: My blind ass should've read the description before posting.

@Lightblue2222 3 года назад

I should maybe unsubscribe to one of his channels to stop getting the same video twice. But idk what one is better lol

@emoboy2008 3 года назад

@@Lightblue2222 I haven't really checked whether they do post different content or not. Still, why posting same vid two times? Even if this is done on two different channels.

@TechGamesAU 3 года назад

Haven’t we already seen this

@TheUKNutter Год назад

I’d love to see some Twinsanity videos. My favourite game to play as a child, even if I found it annoying that I could only warp to the different world a finite number of times.

@marzzbar 3 года назад

That's good coding at its best - identifying what might change based on requirements, and making it easy to change in one place.

@jordancobb509 3 года назад

The ironic thing is that the home user would care less about the TM logo or the license by Sega verbiage. So why is it a cause for rejecting the game.

@mechanismeight9565 3 года назад

It likely has something to do with differing copyright laws in different countries. For example, I *think* that the SEGA logo on Japanese games actually have a registered trademark symbol and not just a TM, because TM doesn't exist in Japan. Don't take my word for that though, I don't remember.

@NeilHighley 2 года назад

Clever way of satisfying client requirements wihtout submitting new builds

@CreepyboomGamer 3 года назад

Didn’t you already make this video?

@PROPLAYEN 3 года назад

i was gonna comment this

@jessragan6714 3 года назад

Okay, here's the real mystery. What the heck is that fox/bat/lion thing sitting next to the milestone in some of the earlier Traveler's Tales logos?

@rodiroddude6204 2 года назад

I sometimes don't even understad what are you talking about in the video. I just like to watch your stuff for some reason :)

@mazterarius 3 года назад

That was actually brilliant.

@freddiejohnson6137 3 года назад

So simple yet effective and saves you time on removing and swapping the logo.

@baardbi 3 года назад

I'm getting déjà vu here. Hasn't this video been publised earlier.

@DOSBrony 3 года назад

@Kurvinox Nope, this one about the sega logo was already uploaded

@Lettendo 3 года назад

It was uploaded on the Coding Secrets channel.

@baardbi 3 года назад

@@Lettendo There you go. That's where I've seen it.

@picoultimate7707 3 года назад

@@baardbi The info has even been put at the start of the video about it being on the Coding Secrets channel.

@baardbi 3 года назад

@@picoultimate7707 Oh! My bad.

@Houndawesome 3 года назад

GameHut has been busy working on the latest Bubsy installment; that's why he hasn't posted as much.

@BR-jw7pm 3 года назад

Missed the narration my good man!

@TheSektorz 3 года назад

I'm still curious how do you start developing for SEGA without asking or having any idea how their logo should be displayed? Were they this unresponsive to your questions? Considering you were a valuable developer...

@Chriva 3 года назад

He did mention that it was their first game for Sega. Communication wasn't as easy back then. Barely no internet (We had it but it sucked). Google/Google translate didn't exist and those electronic word translators were even worse. Japan was infamous (and to some extent, still is) for not knowing English. Could definitely see this happen :)

@greatsageclok-roo9013 3 года назад

@@Chriva "Communication wasn't as easy back then." Nor is it now, if what happened to Sonic Boom is anything to go by.

@YHUAN01 3 года назад

@@greatsageclok-roo9013 Nah, there was communication. The fuck up was wasted time on getting Multiplayer for different render targets and scenes on a game engine not designed to do that. Majority of dev time was that and that aspect didn't even have all of that ironed out.

@greatsageclok-roo9013 3 года назад

@@YHUAN01 Really? From what I heard, SEGA/Sonic Team didn't properly communicate with Big Red Button, resulting in a game that had to be quickly rushed just so it could even FUNCTION on the Wii U.

@YHUAN01 3 года назад

@@greatsageclok-roo9013 lol no that game wasn't rushed. THere was a literal contract with Nintendo and the game had a set time frame from the jump to be released by no later than 2014. It was part of the 3 game deal SEGA had with Nintendo for Sonic games. Sonic Lost World, and the 2014 Winter Olympics Games were the other two.

@onedrrgames 9 месяцев назад

That's actually pretty genius.

@vectormantudeidad 2 года назад

Me encanta como en la versión de Sega CD, las escenas FMV están muy bien coloridas que parecen de que pentenecieran a un juego de PS1/SATURN.

@m.3.3.w 3 года назад

So you guys made Puggsy. Damn. Welp. I landed on the weird side of youtube. Still awesome!

@legendsflashback Год назад

Thorough

@karisasani7006 2 года назад

This reminds me of the 1st Vectorman game and how lets just say its Sega logo is actually considered the one you can interact with the most. If you ever come back could you talk about that game and its sega logo?

@Mviews-hb4ib 2 года назад

Beautiful

@JunkerDC 3 года назад

can you talk about how it was poring it from cart to cd and what you have to change and what was added

@linterniGamer 3 года назад

That is modding stuff 😯

@ninjacat230 2 года назад

i realized you forgot the shine effect on the SEGA logo

@marscaleb 3 года назад

Would you really be able to just tell them to alter the code? I thought you'd still have to re-send them a product. I just can't imagine their corporate process being such that they would allow a licensee to just call them up and say "change these digits and ship that instead." Maybe I just need more information on how the publishing side of things worked back then.

@grn1 2 года назад

Considering how long it would take to send another version over I presume they allowed multiple prototypes or versions to be sent. Changing the version number probably wasn't too hard though I don't know how common that particular method was.

@Nathan-rb3qp 3 года назад

Please talk about the rumored cancelled Swat Kats game for the Mega Drive.

@brianshaw1697 3 года назад

I know zero about coding how does a bun ch of random numbers make a detailed logo? Is it pre drawn by hand first and the numbers just assign where it shows up on the screen?

@woopi8003 3 года назад

The random numbers don't do anything on their own, they just tell other parts of the program to do stuff. If you say "James Bond" to someone out of the blue they won't do anything (aside from acting confused), but if the context is that they're asking you for a movie recommendation then they'll go and watch it. So the other part of the code asks those random numbers what to do, and then because of the established context the Genesis knows what to do with each of them.

@BubbledDEV 2 года назад

Basically there are different aspects of the logo that are changed depending on what values are added. For example, if the second digit is a 0, then there is no "Licensed by Sega" text at the bottom of the screen. But if the digit is a 1, the Licensed by Sega text will appear. If Sega did not like the combination submitted, they could just change the values to be what they wanted. Digit 1: Blank data, will do nothing if you change it. Digit 2: 0 means there is no Licensed by Sega text, 1 means there is. Digit 3: 0 means the logo is not animated, 1 means it is. Digit 4: 0 means the sequence is skipped entirely, 1 means there is no trademark next to the logo, 2 means there is a trademark next to the logo.

@IgnoreMyChan 3 года назад

> This video was originally posted on my "Coding Secrets" channel. Ah, yes, I thought it was a re-upload.

@dancinninja 3 года назад

Brilliant!

@ls190v2 7 месяцев назад

SEGA vs Puggsy Fight!

@RCL4958 3 года назад

You are one smart son of a gun!

@Leynx-Et-Fenrir 3 года назад

Thank you!

@BluShiGuy Год назад

Epic

@edbiaggio3660 3 года назад

anyone ever used the full potential of the sega cd ?

@Vince7724 3 года назад

i miss your coding secrets channel

@shadowopsairman1583 3 года назад

Be nice to know the tune used

@ExiledQ 3 года назад

Pretty cool

@joeytribiani2023 3 года назад

Brilliant

@TheVisualComposer 2 года назад

I've been thinking about this for years now, but what do you use to capture your old games good sir? Because it looks crispy and clear.

@PierreLorandin 3 года назад

Very smart!👍🏻

@Spazbo4 3 года назад

is this a reupload?

@digidev 3 года назад

[Is this a reupload?] edit: Nevermind it was uploaded first on your other channel as described. Sorry! 💙

@maritoguionyo 3 года назад

Quality

@jack54guy 3 года назад

Why was this not included in the Sega/Mega CD version?

@WrathOfWood 3 года назад

So which one is the correct one? Also this feels like a reupload

@arashikou6661 3 года назад

At 1:40, he says the version he's showing there (before we get into specifics) is the final version. It's the same version you see in the code when he first cracks it open, the one with everything turned on. In the end, it turned out Sega didn't mind any of it.

@arashikou6661 3 года назад

Oh! I just noticed it says "Used in Final Game" at 4:22 as well. That's… more obvious than what I said before. 😝

@607 3 года назад

So wait, with what version number did you submit initially?

@markostherandom15 3 года назад

Ótimo Vídeo 👍👍👍

@izaacreatherishere Год назад

I have a question! How long does it take to code a logo animation for the game?

@Innocuils 3 года назад

Your link to Coding Secrets is broken, you have an extra full URL in there.

@cheater00 3 года назад

Why do you keep re-uploading the same videos? It just makes people disregard your genuinely new uploads, because it feels like they've seen them. Also, I'm sure it's not intended, but it's kind of disrespectful of your audience. I like your videos a lot, but this is such a negative aspect of your channel.

@SellTheWorld 3 года назад

I think it's a good thing. The video is a relevant now as it was when it was first uploaded. This is just to keep it alive, we all know the older a video is the less likely it is to be suggested to new viewers.

@VladQuake 3 года назад

How would sega change the version number?

@NoSpamForYou 3 года назад

open the file in their dev environment

@stevep9177 3 года назад

Is this a reupload? I swear I've seen it before

@AFourEyedGeek 3 года назад

What happened to the Ratchet and Clank video?

@airattoz 3 года назад

I am the only one who saw this already?

@mattman92 3 года назад

Make a sonic r remaster

@metalskizzo 3 года назад

reupload? def watched this before but is dated yesterday?!

@metalskizzo 3 года назад

dur, apparently the other channel....but a little weird uploading same video to both...

@f.k.b.16 3 года назад

Too bad some of SEGA's own games evidently bypassed their own Quality checks!

@daninbox 2 года назад

Serious question. Why not just call Sega and ask about the logo rules?

@grn1 2 года назад

Sega was very unresponsive to phone calls and email. It was the early days of the internet, translation between Japanese and English was less than perfect (it still is but far better now than it was. They probably mailed (snail mail/not email) disk to Sega for verification since internet transfers were very slow, limited, and probably expensive (not sure if they had dial up or were still connecting directly to other computers via phone lines). It was also their first game for Sega so they didn't have as much value/credibility with Sega as they did with other publishers.

@daninbox 2 года назад

@@grn1 Fair points. Does seem silly, but I guess I can understand it.