Post AsKakbIgl5Z8Gfromm by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) More posts by foone@digipres.club
(DIR) Post #AsKZ1bJhkcZVKjJxL6 by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:22:27Z
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proud accomplishments: * triggered the crash handler in the 1995 Super Nintendo game Addams Family Values
(DIR) Post #AsKZJrOohBH8QOQ1T6 by apodoxus@mastodon.online
2025-03-23T01:25:46Z
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@foone Priorities. 😅
(DIR) Post #AsKZPIsvvobb7O6KhM by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:26:47Z
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So here's a conversation snippet from the rom, which is expressed as 3 c-strings:"5NeverMind,$How`sThingsFester?""4Miserable!""5GladToSeeYou`reEnjoyingYourself!"
(DIR) Post #AsKZSLx2zHCFUsTmqm by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:27:20Z
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So the digits are used to select different character portraits for that line, and the $ turns into a newline.But notice the really big weird thing about this text?NO SPACES!
(DIR) Post #AsKZbgRs9HI7frLZ8y by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:28:59Z
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Here's the reason they don't use spaces, and are WikiWording EveryThing:
(DIR) Post #AsKZeTGrbCHLfoWiVE by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:29:08Z
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The game is in all caps.
(DIR) Post #AsKZeYKamlETMpJGVc by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:29:29Z
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THEY'RE ENCODING WHERE THE SPACES ARE INTO IF A LETTER IS CAPITAL OR NOT
(DIR) Post #AsKZjP06u2hJsT2esC by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:30:06Z
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"SoASentenceLikeThis" turns into:"SO A SENTENCE LIKE THIS"
(DIR) Post #AsKZmKC5EOp1q12HAG by darabos@mastodon.online
2025-03-23T01:30:54Z
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@foone Do you think they had a tool for converting normal text into CamelCase, or the writers had to write like this directly?
(DIR) Post #AsKZpUCuSTwVlKvhfE by Beckydog@hydaelyn.coerthansnowstorm.online
2025-03-23T01:31:28Z
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@foone surely you meanTHEGAMEISALLINCAPS
(DIR) Post #AsKZrjzyiWmhJlxLwe by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:31:31Z
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This isn't how the memory of the game while running is laid out. They have to decode the ROM contents into the all-uppercase contents, adding spaces along the way
(DIR) Post #AsKZupdcCsylg0yCkC by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:32:10Z
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but saving AN ENTIRE BYTE of this game's ROM every single time they needed to use a space character, just by only using uppercase for the game?that's brilliant and stupid in equal measure and I love it.
(DIR) Post #AsKZyKGkmEd5XwwVjk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:33:07Z
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@darabos certainly the latter. it was 1995
(DIR) Post #AsKa2PjYOyzleXMaFk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:33:53Z
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but here's the fun part: I have this game's entire script here.and I've already seen that there's a bunch of unused space at the end of the ROM...So did they even need this trick? I CAN FIND OUT
(DIR) Post #AsKaBE3zA5lK417bu4 by brouhaha@mastodon.social
2025-03-23T01:35:23Z
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@foone I prefer games that have a few resistors and transistors, too.
(DIR) Post #AsKaYP68IkJuwoB7Fw by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:39:37Z
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The game has 9342 bytes of unused space at the end of the 2 megabyte ROM chip it shipped on. They use this trick 2311 times in the ROM, saving 2311 bytes.NOPE. IT WAS UNNECESSARY!
(DIR) Post #AsKakbIgl5Z8Gfromm by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:41:50Z
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using zlib on lowest compression (not that they could have done that in <1995) saves 13 kilobytes, for comparison.So yeah. They tried to get clever and save bytes, but it only saved a bit over 2 kilobytes. Which they didn't need to save anyway.
(DIR) Post #AsKaxjjQiqcYBKdfTk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:44:12Z
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it has been zero days since I triggered the crash handler. (you can't view character #1 for some reason)
(DIR) Post #AsKfsvGGvYQ0GOWZ3w by rotopenguin@mastodon.social
2025-03-23T01:48:44Z
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@foone shh, nobody tell them that there's a whole "secret eighth bit" that could have been used for this.
(DIR) Post #AsKftLL7y7kd8yzoEy by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:52:27Z
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characters 1, 2,& 3 crash the game.but character 0 hangs the game. crucial distinction.
(DIR) Post #AsKftMRBt4CAY4qAKW by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:00:21Z
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I checked to see if one of their other 1995 SNES releases was the same way, but The Flintstones doesn't.Probably because it was made by a different Ocean.
(DIR) Post #AsKftNNgNaz1TUCsV6 by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:00:55Z
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Ocean Software published both, but they also made Addams Family Values. Whereas The Flintstones was made by Ocean of America
(DIR) Post #AsKftNXbmgvHyGqnyK by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:04:40Z
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Also not used on the Genesis version of Cutthroat Island, which had one of the same programmers (Robert Walker)
(DIR) Post #AsKftNzG7t2bM1mt4S by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:11:10Z
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They don't do it in the OTHER ADDAMS FAMILY GAME FOR THE SAME SYSTEM BY THE SAME COMPANY. (That'd be 1993's The Addams Family: Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt)
(DIR) Post #AsKftOFZ9G5KAbPuUK by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:24:31Z
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They don't do it in The Untouchables. I'm gonna stop checking SNES games by Ocean now.
(DIR) Post #AsKftObtoDwvHrrkIa by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:26:31Z
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BTW the other weird thing about this game is that they accidentally made L a vowel
(DIR) Post #AsKftPFxPHzZI6bjjk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:28:55Z
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They have the same four diacritics for A,E,O,U, and... L.
(DIR) Post #AsKftPbw5ZZaOGtHzk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:29:59Z
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so the valid characters I've discovered so far are:4,5,6,7,8,9,M M?! WHY ARE YOU GOING TO M WHEN 0123 AREN'T USED?
(DIR) Post #AsKftQ7UCGoHy7eUAi by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:30:45Z
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I'm gonna have to exhaustively search every possible byte to find these all (with emphasis on the "exhaust")
(DIR) Post #AsKftQUsnHWd8gbAdk by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:32:44Z
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just injecting all 256 possible bytes into the dialogue system by running the ROM with variations 256 times while capturing screenshots of each run is a very silly pointless thing to doand I have a prewritten script to do it
(DIR) Post #AsKftR0msf2ujdWeMy by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:34:47Z
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this may be a silly rodeo but it's my (by my rough count) 53rd time here
(DIR) Post #AsKfvATtJOu62sxu5Y by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:39:44Z
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@xarvos yeah. but I can't imagine too many. It's pretty easy to check and add spaces. maybe 100 bytes at most
(DIR) Post #AsKfvsbBHesYsEiLYm by CowboyWho@libranigans.com
2025-03-23T02:28:49Z
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@foone How do you even do that?
(DIR) Post #AsKfzfuSP4vmg4XYjQ by mjgardner@social.sdf.org
2025-03-23T02:40:33Z
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@foone Maybe they had other debug ROMs with extra code that needed the space?
(DIR) Post #AsKgAdcvEOwsmbZ9o8 by infosec_j@infosec.exchange
2025-03-23T02:42:32Z
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@foone oh man, I remember the Nintendo Power issue that had level maps for Scavenger Hunt. I miss trawling through Nintendo Power as a kid, it ruled.I legit love these rom hacking threads of yours.
(DIR) Post #AsKgDMS7Xbj2O2oPw0 by lukeshu@fosstodon.org
2025-03-23T01:48:43Z
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@foone 1. I've done horrible hacks to save space so that debug builds would fit within a limit. The hacks turn out to be pointless for release/production builds.2. Maybe earlier builds were bigger when the hack was added, but then something got cut, and it would have been more effort to remove the hack.
(DIR) Post #AsKgGaYPZJaszTIGVU by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:43:39Z
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@thetacola It's not the I, though. The I looks different:
(DIR) Post #AsKgHZNtP2QPeVqE52 by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T01:54:12Z
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@jo do I look like the kind of person who would check a company's entire release history just to see if they used one design pattern?
(DIR) Post #AsKgPBXRweWY0pwWVU by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:45:05Z
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@deepbluev7 @jo exactly! of course I'm that person!
(DIR) Post #AsKgdPnDkDCyHA6ZXc by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:47:46Z
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it's running. it's gonna take 51 minutes to run the game 256 times. so I'm gonna go do something else
(DIR) Post #AsKgg3PTQ7etj0FvIO by lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-23T02:47:47Z
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@foone, are you sure? There's no Unicode l̈, no Unicode l̀, no Unicode l̂ (those ones are done using combining characters in the range U+0300 to U+036F) – but there is a Unicode ĺ (U+013A).However.The diacritics of the first five fit Latin-1 characters 0xEB to 0xEF (which makes them ë ì à î ï) and the last one looks suspiciously like ð (eth). If I'm right, the next five are ñ ò ó ô õ (possibly not all of those, but there will be corresponding gaps if not).
(DIR) Post #AsKglMFanaEzbdAB4S by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:49:11Z
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heh. I was thinking "surely there can't be more portraits than the 6 I already have?"THERE'S AT LEAST 42 OF THEM, AND THE SEARCH IS STILL ONGOING
(DIR) Post #AsKgqn4aV6g4F5beCm by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T02:50:12Z
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@lp0_on_fire Yeah, but the I in this font doesn't look like that. The L does.
(DIR) Post #AsKgrKuUh8o1Bd94C0 by Beckydog@hydaelyn.coerthansnowstorm.online
2025-03-23T02:01:40Z
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@foone guess you’ll have to take it apart to……Sea
(DIR) Post #AsKkkJe7OcO53VOSUy by jannem@fosstodon.org
2025-03-23T03:07:48Z
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@foone @xarvos If it's in assembler it's more like a dozen bytes or less. AND a bit pattern, jump over next instruction if zero, emit a space.Not the most efficient thing but pretty good bang for the effort buck.
(DIR) Post #AsKkvXUGHA3PAU8PlQ by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:35:52Z
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74 characters
(DIR) Post #AsKkwVt9hjcMV4F8tc by lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-23T02:52:26Z
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@foone, I think that I need to see the full font, ideally with 32 characters per row.
(DIR) Post #AsKkwWVnO4WgQuK07k by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:04:44Z
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@lp0_on_fire fun fact: I have a script to do exactly that:python delinearize.py --across 32 ..\games\afv\afv-font.png
(DIR) Post #AsKkwXCgoapyZwOFyy by lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
2025-03-23T03:26:02Z
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@foone, I'm going to have to agree with @thetacola – I think that whoever drew them decided (for some reason) that the Is looked better that way (or, possibly, thought that they were Ls). I have to agree that that other one's Ò, not ð.I just don't see them being Ls, at least intentionally. Incidentally, what languages are available in that game?
(DIR) Post #AsKlLHbXwuCFRFolhQ by curtmack@floss.social
2025-03-23T02:52:50Z
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@foone I mean, there are four of them.
(DIR) Post #AsKlhpCjhr1A18xh7Q by jpm@aus.social
2025-03-23T03:44:31Z
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@foone is… is that a buttplug on the 4th row?
(DIR) Post #AsKlpWsjiH2TVXHTJA by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:45:59Z
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@lp0_on_fire @thetacola English, French, and German.
(DIR) Post #AsKmA5OL7HJ6KTrhRY by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:49:43Z
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@jpm I hope not
(DIR) Post #AsKmDfDiMYiUJobLhg by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:50:21Z
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now I gotta name them. Fortunately for all the items I can just look in game. I entered a password for "most items".(this game's passwords are 22 characters long)
(DIR) Post #AsKmHg92rnvuLRKdUm by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T03:05:08Z
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@zwol it's been suggested, but I haven't figured out what game that was yet
(DIR) Post #AsKnUuwFHAYVweDmi0 by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T04:04:39Z
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also I've now discovered I'm wrong, there's a total of THREE Addams Family games for the SNES. Just that one company and that console, three games.
(DIR) Post #AsKofpJwbRDXf44XBI by ketmorco@fosstodon.org
2025-03-23T04:17:46Z
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@foone tag yourself, I'm moustache baby. Or is that young gomez?
(DIR) Post #AsKtSESWqENNLMQNQe by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T05:11:21Z
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the manual has a list of enemy names, but no pictures to match them to the portraits with.
(DIR) Post #AsKy1tDNhj9BhHb70S by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:02:37Z
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the game uses the same text encoding in the genesis version
(DIR) Post #AsKy91gkb7Gi0Mjo9I by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:03:57Z
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I'm down to these last 8 unidentified portraits
(DIR) Post #AsKyHnU8m6PuYn1Q1I by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:05:34Z
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I've scrolled through a 3+ hour longplay to find the others. I'm gonna have to try ANOTHER longplay now
(DIR) Post #AsKyV6Ie8MQIg2zO8u by cxxvii@aus.social
2025-03-23T06:07:55Z
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@foone tag yourself im orange eyeball with hands
(DIR) Post #AsKznnzAY88HKiMUVs by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:22:29Z
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the guy in the second-from-right bottom position seems to have all of ONE line in the game, and it's just "go away"
(DIR) Post #AsKzwSkAtaDM3iTbCC by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:24:08Z
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lets try ANOTHER LETSPLAY
(DIR) Post #AsL0Z9oNDe16dRtKIy by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:31:06Z
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15 hours! this'll save me, hopefully.I found one already
(DIR) Post #AsL0bx1TDwHpqALjEm by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:31:34Z
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@NekoEd nothing to see, it just reboots the system after a few seconds
(DIR) Post #AsL13eJwLqGvwfCDuC by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:36:35Z
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I wonder if there's already a solution to automate scanning through the video. like I need to see all the frames where the frame looks something like a dialogue screen, which is a screenshot I can provide. It wouldn't be THAT hard to hook up something with ffmpeg and some visual similarity code, but I wonder if it's been done before?
(DIR) Post #AsL18rpJZ0I1HVML9U by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:37:34Z
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yes I am physically incapable of doing any repetitive task without thinking "how do I write a program to do this for me?"
(DIR) Post #AsL1vQscXV19th3zpw by fatlimey@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-03-23T06:46:16Z
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@foone Look up Histogram matching. Comparing the variance between histograms of adjacent frames is a good way to mark up cuts and fades, also for first-order matching.
(DIR) Post #AsL2jfoPIRWegg37Eu by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T06:55:23Z
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I'm now onto scrolling through youtube videos where I'm view number 7, and the video is two years old
(DIR) Post #AsL3idacAqVFSWfTXM by pipe_dreams@mstdn.social
2025-03-23T07:06:21Z
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@foone I'm somewhat of a Pool of Urgh myself 😅 love the Twees. Cutified names are the best. Do you know ErfWorld? It's a tabletop wargaming themed webcomic that has cutified names for every unit. Like "Gwiffons" and "Spidews" and "Gobwins".
(DIR) Post #AsL3rsBFILg1JmCo2y by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T07:08:06Z
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16 episodes and they didn't finish it. darn.
(DIR) Post #AsL3wdAkWPZ0DfF4jI by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T07:08:59Z
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I'm officially giving up. These two guys will be unknown1 and unknown2
(DIR) Post #AsL5lc88Fwibi4tOgi by pyromuffin@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-03-23T07:29:18Z
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@foone i have been receiving recommendations like this too recently.
(DIR) Post #AsLCAXkIIITv4n0rFw by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T08:40:56Z
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@archiloque it's certainly possible!
(DIR) Post #AsLK1Pl3QF5BKVWhJA by darkling@mstdn.social
2025-03-23T10:08:51Z
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@foone This is reminiscent of the symbol table in the ZX Spectrum, where the end of a symbol is marked by having the top bit set. No other terminator -- they just run on into each other.
(DIR) Post #AsLO9XtHT7HUgbVUpM by The4thCircle@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-03-23T10:55:16Z
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@foone I don't remember any of these guys from the movie...
(DIR) Post #AsLWlPuUO5gkZYdq8u by Pyxaron@dragonchat.org
2025-03-23T12:31:43Z
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@foone It's a trap because even if the program doesn't work, you've still replaced a boring problem with an interesting one.
(DIR) Post #AsM4P7dJ3e3lxR93dw by foone@digipres.club
2025-03-23T18:48:45Z
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@The4thCircle me either!mind you, I didn't see the movie, so I don't remember anything from it
(DIR) Post #AsMCqBO20dBD3FPmFM by The4thCircle@mastodon.gamedev.place
2025-03-23T20:23:16Z
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@foone In the movie all the monsters are just white bourgeois Americans. I guess that didn't really work for the game.
(DIR) Post #AsMH1ZVB5aXUqURZ7w by k@chaos.social
2025-03-23T21:10:03Z
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@foone I've used something like`ffmpeg -i vid.mp4 -vf "mpdecimate,setpts=N/FRAME_RATE/TB" unique_frames_%04d.png` to get all the unique frames.