How does Pong work?
List of Video Chess glitches
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Nov 1, 2022
0
#3
justbefair wrote:
How does Pong work?
I have played the version of Pong on Video Olympics with a knob-based controller. You turn the knob left and right ot control the paddle.
Nov 2, 2022
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#4
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. As long as I have an answer, I'll share it with you. Please note, though, that my controller for my emulator holds down B while on, which makes it impossible to launch a game. I can override this by holding down A during the power-up, but this activates a hidden debug mode which changes B from "2P Difficulty" to "Quit Game". Even if that wasn't the case, when holding down X, Y, or B, the emulator freeze-frames the game until the button is released. Therefore, I cannot execute any more tests.
Nov 15, 2022
0
#6
Thanks. It actually took me two hours to type all of that. I found this through trial and error. Fortunately, I was helped by the fact that my emulator has one overwritable savestate and rewind for up to 7 seconds.
I am not reading that first post. Way to long
Dec 2, 2022
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#9
It lists just about every glitch I could find in the game in detail.
Dec 3, 2022
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#11
hotcrystal1 wrote:
What’s Atari 2600?
The Atari 2600 (also known as the Video Computer System) is a very old game console; in fact, it was one of the first.
Dec 29, 2022
0
#14
I was using the AtGames Flashback Blast! Vol. 2 emulator to test the game. It was originally $15 to buy the HDMI dongle, but I got it on rollback for $5. You can probably test the game in other emulators as well for additional glitches, either branching off from existing ones, or new ones I will not be able to discover. The emulator I used had a built-in savestate that could be re-used when an attempt failed to perform the next attempt much more quickly. The sound that an actual Atari 2600 would output is higher in pitch and slightly faster, and the screen would normally flash a different color each frame (instead of the emulator using a still-frame) while the computer thinks.
Here is a list of all of the glitches I discovered in Video Chess for the Atari 2600:
- The computer cannot capture en passant or castle long. It can still castle short, however.
- The game only checks the first king in memory to determine if moves should be restricted due to check, but does check all kings for check. This, if abused, leads to the game corrupting itself.
- It is possible to capture the enemy's king after checkmate.
-Switching to black is only accurate if the position is fully symmetrical.
- Multiple glitch levels have been found using the previous method, such as cʘ, ̅㇇¬, ♔, ♙, and ন. ন will self-corrupt if an enemy king is present on the board. There are other levels with this same property; I only listed a few examples. Each remaining level imitates a normal computer level: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8.
- Placing a piece on a8 with no enemy pieces present will cause the piece to become an enemy piece, with the exception of a king, which will cause the game to self-corrupt instead. If a mated king is placed there, the computer will continously play Mc8 (from a8) on every move until you delete it with the board-editing mode or sacrifice another piece to a8, since you cannot capture the enemy's mated king.
-If your last piece is placed on a8 with no enemy pieces present, various results can occur. If it is a king, the game self-corrupts like before. If it is a queen (or pawn, since they automatically promote to a queen the frame before the next calculation), or a rook, the game will default to checkmating you and flash a lag-reduction object between two points on the screen. Holding "Game Select" will move it to the right-hand corner of the screen. If it is a bishop, the game defaults to checkmating you, but nothing else glitchy happens. If it is a knight, the game pretends you still have an additional piece and checkmates the opponent, although you have no moves. I did not test mated kings, since these are not easy to get on the a8 square and are only possible to get there through causing the game to corrupt itself or by hacking one in (the built-in board-editing mode does not allow you to place mated kings or cursors). Cursors generally act the same as mated kings, but are far rarer to get on the board at all, and I have never had one on a8, so I do not know if that is even possible without hacking. The game simply uses whichever cursor is first in memory for selection.
- There is a seventh mostly-unused piece that only appears during the animation for check/checkmate on your king. The enemy side also has one, but this one never appears. I call it the mated king, since it appears as a king flipped upside-down. Neither sides' mated kings have any moves (unless the enemy's is on a8), but you cannot capture an enemy mated king. However, the opponent can capture yours. My guess as to why it isn't used is that the game would transform a king into a mated king after checkmate, but would end up self-corrupting after allowing the mated king out of checkmate and the game tried to transform it back into a king.
- In a few corrupted board positions, such as one you can get by placing kings (on your side) on a8, b8, and c8, triggering a glitch from earlier, and playing Nf3, then holding down "Fire" while the game self-corrupts (since "Fire" can usually influence the corruption pattern), there are two mated kings (on your side) on the back rank, in this case, on a1 and e1, and placing a king on g1 and castling long is a legal move which deletes the mated king on e1 and moves the mated king on a1 to f1.
- Placing a piece on b8 when no enemy pieces are present has a strange effect after at least one move has passed. A king on b8 will cause the game to self-corrupt on even the first move. A queen on b8 will transfer a7's glitchy effects down to a6, and some of a8's down to a7, potentially. A bishop on b8 after one move has passed will also cause the game to self-corrupt, likely due to attempting to place an enemy king on b6. A knight on b8 will place an enemy queen on c6 (Try beating the computer like this for ultra-hard mode). A rook on b8 will place an enemy bishop on d6. A pawn, following the pattern, would presumably place a knight on e6, but it automatically promotes after reaching b8, so this is only possible with a self-corruption and extreme luck. A mated king on b8 will place a rook on f6 (I did actually test this one).
- The a7 square also has strange properties. Except for when a queen is on b8, it will delete anything that moves onto that square once at least one move has passed since the last enemy piece was captured, including your king. However, as an example, if a queen is on b8 and a bishop is on a7, then the last enemy piece is captured, the bishop on a7 will be moved to a6 for one move, and will be deleted next move if not moved off of the a6 square. This gives an opportunity to get two light-squared bishops without using the built-in board-editing mode or hacking. Since the a7 square does not always delete pieces (I have yet to find the specific criteria, but it tends to work after 4 moves at most), there is also a chance that the game does not self-corrupt after placing a king on a7 with a queen on b8 (I actually had this happen once on accident; I nearly had a heart attack after realizing my mistake and was shocked when nothing happened).
As a side note, the first time I discovered a self-corruption is when I decided to replace all pieces at the starting position with kings on my side. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the game self-corrupted (from the kings on a8 and b8), since I had no idea that would happen, and the effect is sudden and loud. In addition, self-corruptions very easily get caught in a glitched loop, so there is a decent chance the game doesn't return to the board. The board will also always have a corrupted position after a self-corruption, and data beyond it (such as the lag-reduction objects and board graphics in some situations) can become corrupted also.
Here is a list of various forms of corruption I have stumbled upon:
- The level is automatically set to a glitch level (although I have had the game set itself to Level 3 and Level 7 before).
- Piece graphics are mirrored vertically on specific or all files, although this is only visible for the knights. This also can cause pieces to clip outside of their squares by a few pixels, allowing two pieces to overlap (although the "Venetian Blinds" technique keeps the graphics from actually overlapping).
- Glitched lines running vertically across the entire screen are placed at random screen locations and affixed there (unless you cause the game to self-corrupt again). The color and pattern of these lines vary based on the board position.
-Half of the graphics for the a-file (but not the pieces on it) are deleted.
- The background gains a corrupted pattern, based on the corruption pattern.
- Glitched beeps virtually always play in the background after a self-corruption, some louder than others.
- The lag-reduction objects disappear, also removing the glitch effect from before, involving no enemy pieces and moving the last piece of your own to a8.
- The graphics from the c- and d-files (specifically, the pieces) are copied onto the g- and h-files. The actual pieces and their positions on those file are unaffected, however. The game defaults to using the opponent's palette if there is no piece present on that square. If the cursor moves into either file, its graphics become corrupted until it is moved out of those files. The level number's graphics are mirrored over, as well. As black, the piece on the b1 square marks the brightness of the black-to-white colors used by the mirrored level number.
- The c- and g-files have corrupted graphics marking what piece (and its side, based on the palette) is on a specific square. The h-file has nothing to mark what actually is present on the file.
- A set of slightly warped line graphics appear in the mid-right section of the top of the screen, which change their width based on what piece occupies the g1 square, possibly merging into one graphic. An additional set of straight-line graphics appear at the bottom of the g-file, which also change color based on the side of the piece occupying that square.
The final three effects in this list are only present in the strongest corruptions (which I call Super Corruptions). One way to reach Level ন is to perform the three-king setup mentioned before, but place a pawn on e5, removing the one on e7, then playing e4 and hoping you get lucky enough for the game to return (of which the chance is quite slim). This level has also produced the "Scary Crash Screen", which, to me, looks like an angry face with a knife and fork. The buzzer sound that accompanies this can make it more unsettling. If "Mono TV" is enabled, this screen will be pink-and-white instead of pink-and-blue (since the blue section, the "face", "knife", and "fork" all use the background palette). There is a chance that the previous corruption pattern didn't leave the game in the proper state for this to work, but you can trigger it with an approximate 50/50 chance by resetting the board and playing e4.