Topic: Skull Knight could block?!

[TheouAegis]

Yup, I'm still around. Been distracted lately with girls and work. Hacking is boring stuff, too.

I went back to studying the boss coding in CV3. Messing around with a couple RAM offsets, I was able to understand a little better how the programmer assigned to the bosses handled things; it's a vastly different style from the normal enemies' programming. Anyway, while analyzing the Skull Knight (the first boss of CV3) code, I noticed an interesting line checking the controller state, specifically the attack key. Decades of gaming experience told me that could only be one thing -- a blocking algorithm. So I tested it. Sure enough, the Skull Knight can block. I probably saw it happening but was just too busy trying to kill him to notice. Anyway, it's pretty easy to force him to do it:

• You must be standing at the same height as (or less than 8 pixels from) his feet
• You must be closer than 80 pixels
• You must be farther than 48 pixels
• You must either press or hold the attack button
• He must be walking toward you, it won't work if you're behind him
• He must be between animations (walking is 4 frames long)

Also, his damage value changes in the Catacombs stage while blocking, I guess. Or maybe it's how CV3 handled immunity, I'm not sure on that yet.

It's pretty useless trivia though, considering if you try to make him block, he will attack you and typically you are close enough to get hit by his sword or nailed by one of his bones (in the Catacombs).

[X]

Skull Knight could block?!

You didn't know..?

Been distracted lately with girls and work.

Good excuse as any, lol!

Yup, I'm still around.

Welcome back TheouAegis

[TheouAegis]

I was never really gone, just bathing in the moat beneath the castle.

Like I said, I probably saw him block but never noticed because I was too busy killing him. Anyway, this post was mostly about how to force him to block. It's useful info, since it prevents him from moving. He will block for a moment and then attack, neither action allowing him to move. With practice, you can get block lock him without getting in harm's way.

[theANdROId]

I was never really gone, just bathing in the moat beneath the castle.

I thought I smelled lavender!! 

[X]

Usually it's just attacking him that would trigger the block move. But while he rarely does it in the beginning stage he will definitely block far more often in the cavern area.

[Inccubus]

Interesting tidbits as always. You ever look into where the code that draws the cross to the title screen is?

[TheouAegis]

Just the addresses I have already. I haven't delved into how vram is handled yet. Thanks for reminding me about that.

I just took a peek at the Cyclops. Bosses were definitely handled by somebody else. The same guy for some of them if not all of them. for enemies like sword skews and Dullahan, and whip skeletons, the collision points are calculated for the weapons based on the sprite, but bosses have a new object created solely for that. It us just like rookie programming in GM of melee attacks. No offense intended, it's the simplest logical method after all.

Oddly, the timelines for the skull knight handle his animation, the animation for the Cyclops is based on image speed like regular enemies. I'm not sure what that entails.

You can also tell the order bosses were programmed. $05F0 in the RAM is the timeline reference for each boss. Skull knight occupies #01 and {#09,#0C}, which suggests to me he originally just paced. then they later added jumping and attacking. Blocking seemed to come first (9) and backstepping (C) was an afterthought.