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Jul - The Cutting Room Floor - Hey You, Pikachu (N64) Help New poll - New thread - New reply
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natsamtan246
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Posted on 11-24-12 09:59:18 AM Link | Quote
Hello, I would like to try working the N64 game "Hey You, Pikachu!", although my first problem I have run into is the fact that I need some sort of adapter for my mic to be able to use it on the game. The only thing I've read that works is this Adaptoid thing. I already have a mic and VRU (I also have a working N64, but I'm fairly sure there isn't a way to use cheat engine directly on the N64). It's kinda impossible to progress in the game without a mic, so a lot of the codes I would like to figure out are impossible to get without a working mic.

1.) So my first question being, has anyone heard of any other way, would the other "N64 controller port to USB" off-brand things work, or is it only Adaptoid? I have emailed Adaptoid makers and seeing if they respond, but I doubt it.

2.) My second one being, is there any way you could look at the programming inside the VRU?

3.) My third being, has anyone heard of ASCII art in video game coding? I translextioned Hey You, Pikachu! and I swear there is art hidden within the coding. I have to wonder though, is there any possibility they could use the shape of the coding to create images rather than programming actual pictures into the game for whatever reason. I will post a few of the ones I found here, there of course will be more, I just picked the ones I could positively identify.

(I tried just posting them on here, straight from hexdump, but it kinda ends up looking weird, so here's
the URLs to the pictures of them in Translextion.)

Here's one of some sort of logo or something, haven't quite figured out the text yet.I think it's Pikachu, and Help! with an odd reverse filter on it. It's kinda like fill in the color books where they number the colors. I think this is also in the game when you talk to pikachu... just don't remember the help one. (I recommend going to 2048 size and either downloading it or zooming in on your browser, the sites were quite picky with this one. I guess I could post just the individual ones if anyone wanted a higher res shot for whatever reason.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37842397@N04/8212712537/sizes/k/in/photostream/

Here's a flower and a cross or x.
http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq224/natsamtan246/flowerandcross.jpg

Here's a sun and some sort of half sad half happy face.
http://i450.photobucket.com/albums/qq224/natsamtan246/somefaceandsun.jpg

I mean did they have so much left over room that they just put ASCII art in for fun? But it's quite apparent it was meant to be seen as the bytes and not what the bytes translate to.

4.) And lastly there's is a lot of mention of the word debug in the games code, one looks like it might be a menu option as it is next to save and sound options, so I think that one method of changing the cursor would work for this game.
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Posted on 11-24-12 12:50:38 PM Link | Quote
You could always use a gameshark with the game if you wanted to work from console.
Voice recognition is software-side. There's a whole library for it.

There is the occational piece of ascii art, but in this case you're probably just viewing a greyscale image or indexed image.
The greyscale formats are i4 and i8, ranging from 0-F and 00-FF respectively. If aligned to the same width as your editor (0x20 or 0x10, again respectively) it will look a bit like ascii art. Now, if the only valid range is between 0x20 and 0x7E then it probably would be ;*)
Same goes for many indexed images, since they are effectively an i* image with a palette, though for it to look proper it really needs to have been encoded from darkest to lightest.

As an example, roll down to 0x4DE3E0. 0x4DE3E0 through 0x4DE5E0 is the index for a 32x32 image. The 0x20 bytes following it (0x4DE5E0 - 0x4DE600) is a 16 color palette. It's a gold glowing round light thing.
natsamtan246
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Posted on 11-24-12 06:34:23 PM Link | Quote
Does it work that way, I mean, does the Gameshark come with a memory watcher/editor? I mean I know it can edit known values, but does it have the search function?

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you meant by that voice recognition thing. Did you mean someone already posted the programming for it somewhere?

I included that thought, that it might be used as an actual image, but I thought that was the most unlikely thing. I mean, I figured they would just program a picture rather than go through this stuff. Does it save room or something?
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Posted on 11-24-12 08:05:32 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by natsamtan246
Does it work that way, I mean, does the Gameshark come with a memory watcher/editor? I mean I know it can edit known values, but does it have the search function?
That depends on the version of the GameShark/Action Replay software, and you need an Expansion Pak. There's a guide here on using it.

Originally posted by natsamtan246
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you meant by that voice recognition thing. Did you mean someone already posted the programming for it somewhere?
Voice recognition is done by the game software, not by the VRU.

Originally posted by natsamtan246
I included that thought, that it might be used as an actual image, but I thought that was the most unlikely thing. I mean, I figured they would just program a picture rather than go through this stuff. Does it save room or something?
That's what it looks like to "just program a picture". There's nothing special there, it's just raw 4bpp image data. It is not ASCII art.

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Posted on 11-25-12 01:42:27 AM (last edited by CJ Miller at 11-25-12 01:43:21 AM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by natsamtan246
1.) So my first question being, has anyone heard of any other way, would the other "N64 controller port to USB" off-brand things work, or is it only Adaptoid? I have emailed Adaptoid makers and seeing if they respond, but I doubt it.


They probably won't because the Adaptoid's been out of print for so long you can't even find it on eBay. NINJA UPDATE: I guess they started making it again because hey look website with this year on it.

Last I heard, you need to have the Adaptoid in order to play Hey You, Pikachu! in an emulator, but who knows? I could very well be wrong. Doubt it, though.

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Posted on 11-25-12 07:58:01 AM Link | Quote
Post #4921 · Sun 121125 035801
Well, no reason an emulator couldn't support microphones without it, just nobody has bothered to figure out how it works.

I had a copy of this game once, and Gameshark never worked right on it. Again, nobody bothered to figure out how to get it working, so...

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natsamtan246
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Posted on 11-25-12 09:59:32 AM (last edited by natsamtan246 at 11-25-12 09:59:53 AM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by Joe
That depends on the version of the GameShark/Action Replay software, and you need an Expansion Pak. There's a guide here on using it.

I have an expansion pak already, and I happened to already have a DB25 cable, so all I need to get is a Gameshark with that port on the back.
Originally posted by Joe
Voice recognition is done by the game software, not by the VRU.

I figured Voice Recognition Unit meant that, it took what you said, deciphered it and decided what you said, sending a number 00 - FF input as if it were a controller. That's why I thought it hadn't been put into a plugin yet, but that would make sense as to it being possibly used for multiple games, so each one must include it's own translation stuff.
Originally posted by CJ Miller
NINJA UPDATE: I guess they started making it again because hey look website with this year on it.

Yeah, that's what I seen too, sent an email, but I got a failed sending notice.
Originally posted by Rena
Well, no reason an emulator couldn't support microphones without it, just nobody has bothered to figure out how it works.

I once tried to get this game on the emulator, cause I had it in my childhood, but found out I needed all this complicated stuff. I luckily had a N64, controller, my old VRU and mic, so all I needed was the cartridge. But I think it would be nice to have it made so people can play it.

I figured that they must have an address for the word received. So I thought the best way to start a plugin like that would be to find all the codes and assign them to all the keyboard buttons and add a second screen to the bottom detailing where the words are, or maybe just type the words you want to say, if you have fast typing. Then from there get some free source code of some voice recognition and have it recognize only those words.
Or is it much more complicated than that?
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Posted on 11-25-12 08:27:11 PM (last edited by windwakr at 11-25-12 10:47:36 PM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by Joe
Originally posted by natsamtan246
Yeah, I'm not quite sure what you meant by that voice recognition thing. Did you mean someone already posted the programming for it somewhere?
Voice recognition is done by the game software, not by the VRU.



The game sends a list of words to the VRU, and can then tell it to start/stop recognition. After stopping recognition, the VRU can send back a list of words from the list it thinks the person said and the ranking of them(how likely it is that is the word they said).

Check out N64 SDK, there's a VRU example and it's in the documentation.



There's also this patent that goes into detail and explains how the VRU does its recognition:
http://www.google.com/patents/US6538666?printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false




EDIT: The VRU actually does TTS on the list of words it gets sent to do the comparison with what the user spoke into the microphone.
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Posted on 11-25-12 09:47:02 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by natsamtan246
I have an expansion pak already, and I happened to already have a DB25 cable, so all I need to get is a Gameshark with that port on the back.
Beware, not all GameSharks have working ports on the back. There's more information here.

Originally posted by windwakr
Check out N64 SDK, there's a VRU example and it's in the documentation.
I've never seen that part of the SDK before. I'll have to look for it some time.

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Posted on 11-25-12 11:02:59 PM (last edited by windwakr at 11-25-12 11:26:18 PM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by Joe
I've never seen that part of the SDK before. I'll have to look for it some time.


For the example:
"NINTENDO 64 OS2.0K\usr\src\PR\demos\voice\"
or
"NINTENDO 64 OS2.0L\src\PR\demos\voice\"

The only difference between the two is the readme file.





Originally posted by natsamtan246
....

2.) My second one being, is there any way you could look at the programming inside the VRU?

....


Sure. "Just" decap the chip in the VRU that holds the program ROM, and read out the bits from it(then figure out the DSP used and it's instruction set, then disassemble the code you read out). This sort of thing has been done to many chips in older consoles/arcade machines to get information that would be otherwise impossible to obtain. But it can easily cost $300+ to do, at the cheapest(that's just for the decap + die images, you'd be on your own for deciphering them).
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Posted on 11-26-12 09:59:26 AM Link | Quote
Post #4922 · Mon 121126 055926
Oh wow, that's a lot more complicated than I thought o.o I expected it'd just be a mic-to-N64 adaptor and the game itself would be responsible for reading the audio and figuring out the speech from it.

That does mean it should be much easier to write a plugin that just lets you pick a word to send back, though...

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Posted on 11-26-12 01:58:45 PM Link | Quote
I have a VRU sitting around. I opened it up. It's got three chips inside it: an ADC, a DSP, and a microcontroller. The ADC is a NEC µPD9930. The DSP and microcontroller are both Nintendo-branded, but probably based on NEC chips.

Nothing useful there.

I also dug through Hey You, Pikachu! in search of the word list(s) that are uploaded to the VRU, but I didn't see them. I did see a bunch of text left over from debug functions.

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Posted on 11-26-12 03:09:28 PM Link | Quote
...Perhaps it uses waveforms instead of written words for that?
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Posted on 11-26-12 03:43:52 PM (last edited by windwakr at 11-26-12 03:52:19 PM) Link | Quote
Originally posted by Joe
I also dug through Hey You, Pikachu! in search of the word list(s) that are uploaded to the VRU, but I didn't see them. I did see a bunch of text left over from debug functions.


They seem to start around 0xB0010. Make sure your ROM is in Z64 format(big endian).


http://i.imgur.com/ElLsE.png
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Posted on 11-26-12 07:56:06 PM Link | Quote
That looks like debugging text. The Japanese ROM has something similar, but it also includes the spelling used on the VRU. It's at 0xB0AF0 encoded as EUC-JP. It's pairs of words: the first indicates how the game will interpret the word, and the second is the spelling programmed into the VRU.

I don't think either of these lists are programmed into the VRU, but I don't have time right now to investigate.

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Posted on 01-28-13 07:09:28 PM Link | Quote
I FINALLY got a Gameshark v3.3 along with a D25 cable because I apparently had the wrong one. I got everything hooked up and I am having two problems getting started.

First one being that every time I click Auto-Detect or try to use the Game Software Codes Creator or N64utils, the Gameshark will freeze, and the text will look all weird and the program will say it lost connection or something to the device.

My second one being that apparently the Gameshark has a code-maker that does not need a computer. I found that the Gameshark button is used to activate this menu. However when I try it in Hey You, Pikachu, I am unable to get an effect. I have tried it on Mario Kart 64 and the GS button does work in that game, except in that game, the LED counter thing is spinning while in Hey You, Pikachu, it is not. I thought maybe it was because I had codes for Mario Kart so I made some fake codes for Hey You, Pikachu, but it doesn't change much, the LED counter becomes a dot.
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Posted on 01-28-13 07:38:21 PM Link | Quote
Originally posted by natsamtan246
First one being that every time I click Auto-Detect or try to use the Game Software Codes Creator or N64utils, the Gameshark will freeze, and the text will look all weird and the program will say it lost connection or something to the device.
The GameShark is extremely picky. Try changing the parallel port mode in the BIOS. (Mine is set to ECP+EPP, but I hear it's supposed to be something else.) If you can, you should also try using a different computer or cable.

Originally posted by natsamtan246
However when I try it in Hey You, Pikachu, I am unable to get an effect.
You need this code for it to work:
F1057550 2400

F10560EC 1000

F10560E0 2400

F104DC40 1000


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