Baseball Stars (Neo Geo Pocket)

Baseball Stars
Developer: Saurus Publisher: SNK Platform: Neo Geo Pocket Released internationally: 1998 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has debugging material.

A black-and-white portable version of Baseball Stars. This game would later get a colorized port on the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

Build Text

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Check if there's any logic to display this text.

Present at address 0x2333E9 (file offset 0x333E9), then copied at runtime to address 0x2F0000.

BASE BALL STARS 
 POCKET LEAGUE01
Version 002.1000
Master Up Date: 
    16 Oct,1998 
Licenced  by SNK
Developed by    
SAURUS Tokyo/JPN

Debug Menu

Also present in Samurai Shodown! Pocket Fighting Series.

All its code is contained in segment 0x240000, starting with two pointers to unreferenced functions 0x240008 and 0x24001f. This menu would likely be enabled at runtime in any screen, since currently loaded assets (e.g. sprites) are used by debug functions.

Restore this menu with the following patch:

0x13a = 1b 00 ff 23  
0x2bd = 1b 10 ff 23
0x3ff00 = 1d 63 05 20 1d 08 00 24 1b 3e 01 20
0x3ff10 = c1 d4 68 3f 00 6e 04 1d f6 09 20 1d 1f 00 24 1b c1 02 20

The patch introduces some trampolines so that unreferenced debug functions are called as part of the main game loop, with initialization at 0x20013a, and interaction at 0x2002bd:

0020013a 1b 00 ff 23     jp         LAB_0023ff00

                     LAB_0023ff00
                     XREF[1]: entry:0020013a(j)
0023ff00 1d 63 05 20     call       FUN_00200563
0023ff04 1d 08 00 24     call       FUN_00240008
0023ff08 1b 3e 01 20     jp         LAB_0020013e

002002bd 1b 10 ff 23     jp         LAB_0023ff10

                     LAB_0023ff10
                     XREF[1]: entry:002002bd(j)
0023ff10 c1 d4 68        cp         (w_debug_init),0x0 ; avoid passing inputs to in-game screen handlers via function do_screen
         3f 00
0023ff15 6e 04           jr         NZ/NE,LAB_0023ff1b
0023ff17 1d f6 09 20     call       do_screen
                     LAB_0023ff1b
                     XREF[1]: 0023ff15(j)
0023ff1b 1d 1f 00 24     call       FUN_0024001f
0023ff1f 1b c1 02 20     jp         LAB_002002c1

Press Debugger (D) button to bring up a message with further instructions:

PAUSE
PRESS C TO MONITOR
PAUSE
PRESS D TO RETURN

Afterwards, press Option (C) button to bring up the menu itself.

DEBUG DIP

MEMORY

Hex dump of CPU RAM.

OBJECT

BACKGROUND

ACTION

Press A + Left or Right to select and play sprite animations.

MESSAGE

SPRITE

SCROLL

Top corner shows current X/Y scroll offset, adjustable with directional buttons.

PALETTE

CHARACTER

BANK

CLOCKGEAR

RESET