Heated Barrel

Heated Barrel
Developer: TAD Corporation Publishers: TAD Corporation (INT), Fabtek (US) Platform: Arcade (Legionnaire-based hardware) Released internationally: November 1992 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden level select.

TAD Corporation's swan song, the autoscrolling four-player eight-directional run-and-gun Heated Barrel.

Debug Functions

Crash Handler

There's a basic crash handler in the game. To see it, crash the game. Have fun with it. Make it your own.

Income Report

On the TAD Corporation logo screen, press Up, Right, Down, Left, then hold 1P Button 1 and press Up, Right, Down, Left again. Due to the way the game handles demo input, you can skip the first Up, Right input if you do this after Demo #1.

Press 1P Start to exit.

Collision Display

To enable a collision display, put the following code in MAME's heatbrl.xml cheat file:

  <cheat desc="Collision Viewer">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pb@10065D=03</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.pb@10065D=00</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

This is actually always active and running. All this code does is disable the foreground and background layers, which makes the collision layer visible to the player.

Debug Flag

There are a few debugging functions tied to a flag at 0x00821A, but that address is normally set to zero. Put the following code in MAME's heatbrl.xml cheat file to set it to FFFF, which will enable all of the functions:

  <cheat desc="Debug Flag">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mw@00821A=FFFF</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mw@00821A=0000</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

On the title screen or high score screens, hold 1P Joystick in any direction for 30 frames to enable a stage select. You'll still have to insert a coin to start the game on that stage, though.

When the debug flag is set, some values related to the game's dynamic difficulty system will be printed at the bottom of the screen.

First Set

• White: Unknown.
• Pink: Number of enemies spawned.
• Yellow: Number of enemies killed.
• Green: Unknown.

Second Set

• Blue: 1P individual difficulty variable (ranges from 00 to 0F, increases over time, decreases if player dies).
• Green: 2P individual difficulty variable.
• Pink: 3P individual difficulty variable.
• Yellow: 4P individual difficulty variable.

Third Set

• Yellow: Total difficulty variable (calculated from all previous variables).

The Stage 1 boss and both forms of the final boss will print a number in the bottom-right of the screen (this seems to be overwritten if 4P is in the game). This is presumed to be the boss' difficulty level.

Stage Viewer

After booting the game but before the title screen, press any direction on 2P Joystick to access a stage viewer.

Unfortunately, there's not much to do here in any of the commercial versions of the game, since player input doesn't seem to be checked anywhere.

There are a few features that can be accessed by putting the following code in heatbrl.xml:

  <cheat desc="Stage Viewer - Option">
    <parameter>
      <item value="0000">Move Camera</item>
      <item value="0002">Choose Stage</item>
    </parameter>
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pw@1083D8=param</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.pw@1083D8=0001</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

"Move Camera" does just that, moving the camera to the right until it reaches the end of the stage. "Choose Stage" will trigger a 12345 option but, again, player input isn't checked so it can't actually load a different stage.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Developer Text

At 0x12D0 in the audio CPU is the standard Seibu Kaihatsu string:

START UP PROGRAM V1.02 (C)1986 SEIBU KAIHATSU INC.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Regional Differences

International	US

The US version removes the katakana バレル (Barrel) from the game's logo.

(Source: Original TCRF research)