_animal land.txt

MURDER IN ANIMAL LAND
=====================
conman from ##japanese has expressed interest


http://www.d1.dion.ne.jp/~gake/koryaku/animal/animal.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20130510133857/http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~t-suzuki/sousyuhen/so_animal_land.htm


There shouldn't be a keypress between the last two "WE WANT PEACE!"s.


The mole ends everything with "jo". Find out what this means, and note it on the wiki.


Make sure our PNG to MSX conversion tool is intelligent about colors. E.g., if red is foreground, it should be foreground throughout the image. Do this by prioritizing colors, so that the higher priority color is considered foreground.


"Dare ni" is sometimes "Whom?" and sometimes "To whom?" in the script. Are we making the distinction correctly?


Game does not work correctly in blueMSX in MSX2 mode. The Japanese version does.


Buggy behavior with C-BIOS MSX2+ JP setting in openMSX. Background color is black in the main game. May be related to the RAM region we're using.


The けいさつ/ALPD graphic begins at $0b8ed ($98ed in memory space). The pattern data begins at $0b8f0 and runs to $0bfd4, exclusive.

The tilemap begins at $0bfd4 and runs to $0c0de, exclusive.


A character holds a sign in Japanese in the ending (しゃくほう　しろ！！, "Let us go!!").


The ending (at least) loads bank 15 ($1e000-1ffff) into $6000. I think there's code there. We may want to consider leaving this bank alone.
(Hmm, is this actually true?)


<furrykef> Mm, what's the best place to get docs on the MSX, again?
<~GuyveR800> map.grauw.nl

http://www.z80.info/


Release checklist
-----------------
* All passwords work
* All passwords given in monospace font in game script
* Correct pointers are loaded for each password
* Correct passwords are given at the end of each chapter
* All menu item names correct and sensible in context
* No menu item names overflow
* No "Translation goes here" in script
* All dialogue has speaker tag
* All dialogue has <end> tag
* <contd> tag always appears where needed
* <contd> always followed by <nl>, <key>, or space
* Make sure I've never mixed up Kokon and Konta
* Password text input never overflows on-screen boundary
* No significant @TODO@'s in code or script
* All lines in main script conform to one of these regexes:
    ^$              [blank line]
    ^//             [comment]
    ^<[A-Za-z]+>$   [nametag]
    <nl>$
    <key>$
    <end>$
* hacking notes on wiki are up to date
* readme.txt has proper word wrapping
* readme.txt and README.md are up to date
* Game uses safe region of RAM for its variables


When done, submit to MSX sites:
* msx.org
* http://www.generation-msx.nl/software/enix/animal-land-murder-case/translations/886/


tcrf:
* Porn magazine
* Gonkichi's rival (chapters 1 and 2)
* Human graphic in chapter 6
* Ending password
* Unused menu items in chapter 1

TV Tropes:
* Cigar Chomper
* Dummied Out
* Gainax Ending (or Trippy Finale Syndrome, or The Ending Changes Everything)
* Honest Axe
* Pun


Hacking notes
-------------
http://bifi.msxnet.org/msxnet/tech/megaroms.html#ascii8 -- mapper info

Several codes print out multiple characters. The code that does this can possibly be leveraged for our own text compression.

The bank at $6000 seems to always be set to ROM bank 0 ($00000-01fff). We can probably safely swap it out and back in during the text routines.


RAM variables
-------------
<~GuyveR800> furrykef, It's a MSX1 game, so you can use the "RS232" area in the system RAM
<~GuyveR800> it's a few hundred bytes
<~GuyveR800> that RS232 area was repurposed for MSX2, because it remained unused for MSX1
<~GuyveR800> so none of the routines the game uses will make use of it
<furrykef> what region is that? I can't find it in these docs ^^;
<~GuyveR800> FAF5-FB34
<~GuyveR800> hmm not as large as I thought
<~GuyveR800> (those addresses are inclusive)
<furrykef> Ah, thanks
<~GuyveR800> I think FAF5 means all kinds of things for the Kanji mode and stuff which was added in MSX2+ and/or MSX-DOS2
<~GuyveR800> but again, none of that will be used by that MSX1 ROM game
<@BiFi> FAF5-FAF8 are MSX2 addresses
<@BiFi> FAF9-FAFD are kanji basic related and FAFC contain a few MSX2 and MSX2+ related things


Text blocks
-----------
All ranges are inclusive

006A0-00903   -- intro text
02C80-0363B   -- menu commands (miru, toru, shiraberu...; names of objects; etc.)
14000-1F92E   -- main script [no discontinuities at page boundaries] (wow, 46k!)
1FD20-1FDF3   -- end credits (ASCII) [starting offset approximate]
1FDF4-1FFFF   -- garbage (looks like text, but is just repeat of earlier stuff)


Bank identification
-------------------
00000: 41   - page 0
02000: C3   - page 1
04000: 21   - page 2
06000: 3E   - page 3
08000: 6F   - page 4
0A000: 02   - page 5
0C000: 0F   - page 6
0E000: 03   - page 7
10000: 01   - page 8
12000: 00   - page 9
14000: FE   - page A
16000: 76   - page B
18000: 60   - page C
1A000: 0E   - page D
1C000: 7E   - page E
1E000: 7F   - page F

No duplicates. So long as we don't change these, we can identify a bank by its first byte.


Credits
-------
Kef Schecter - hacking and translation
Torbjorn - translation
geishaboy - translation
conman - translation checker
BiFi (#msxdev) - found code for making text bold so I could disable it; helped with password routine; helped with graphics compression
tepples - logo (unused)
Raijin - part of final logo

Font is a variant of Tau's Custom Font

Special thanks:
* ##japanese on freenode
* #romhacking.net on synIRC
* #msxdev on Rizon


Beta testers
------------
* I.S.T.
* EvilSonic will no doubt be interested (drew Animal Land fanart): https://www.weasyl.com/~evilsonic
* Kitsune Sniper
* Raijin
* krom (from #snesdev)


Character and place names
-------------------------
People:
  ゴンきち (murder victim)              - Renard [gon = fox noise] -- name suggested by Aerdan
  おいどん (canine partner)             - Andy
  ココン (Renard's younger son)        - Kit
  コンタ (other son)                   - Red
  リンリン (female panda)               - Ling-Ling [name is Chinese: 陵陵 Ling-ling]
  ヌキ (a tanuki)                     - Nuki
  ピョンコ (bunny; Kokon's girlfriend)  - Bunnie
  タージ (turtle)                      - Pokey
  ペルー (Persian cat)                 - Persia
  ツネコ (female fox)                  - Vixen
  コアラ                               - Koala
  ベアス (bear)                        - Teddy (Bjorn? Ursula? Can't tell if female.)
  ドラクレ (tiger)                      - Tyger (Draco? Drago? Drake?)

Places:
  どうぶつの　むら              - Animalville
  コンコンこうせきてん            - Foxy Jewelry [konkon = fox noise again] - name suggested by Saeko
  迷いの森                  - Lost Woods


Passwords
---------
Chapter 2: あるまじろ (armadillo)
Chapter 3: こびとかば (pygmy hippopotamus)
Chapter 4: あふりかぞう (African elephant)
Chapter 5: ふくろおおかみ
Chapter 6: つきのわぐま
Chapter 7: おおありくい
Ending: えンテ゛ィンク゛ (secret password!)

[use right ctrl to type ン in openMSX; use Page Down to type it in meisei]


Possible English passwords
--------------------------
CALICO
FALCON
MAMMOTH
MARMOT
CRICKET
SNAIL
COYOTE
BEAGLE
NAUTILUS
BASILISK
PENGUIN
SEAGULL
COLLIE
ORCA
MACAW
NEMATODE