C H A C K 'N P O P for the Nintendo Entertainment System Game copyright 1985 TAITO Corp. Licensed by Nintendo *Version FINAL* This guide copyright 2006 Matt Toothman. This guide is for individual use only, and only to be found at GameFAQs.com. If necessary, you can contact me at: matt dot toothman at gmail dot com. Replace the appropriate words with the appropriate characters. Please mention the title of the game in the subject line. If you have comments, corrections, or additions to this guide, then by all means let me know. ----------------- Table of Contents ----------------- 1. Version History 2. Story/Controls/Misc. 3. Points 4. Levels 5. Credits/Outro ------------------ 1. Version History ------------------ .1 061106 Began work on guide. 1.0 061106 Submitted to GameFAQs. Final version unless anything new comes to light. ----------------------------- 2. Story/Controls/Intro/Misc. ----------------------------- Chack'n, the eponymous hero, must traverse 14 levels to find and marry his girlfriend. Thus motivated, let's get to the meat of the guide. The goal in each level is to get to the top floor. Chack'n destroys the bricks blocking his path by destroying the cages holding hearts that are scattered around the level. Once all the hearts have been freed, the path is opened and Chack'n must simply climb to the top to complete the level. Destroying monsters is completely optional. Chack'n is further constrained by a time limit: although not numerical, the ghost pushing the green object at the top of the screen represents a time limit. If the ghost reaches the right edge of the screen, Chack'n will lose a life. You can tell when this is about to happen, as two other ghost figures come to help push the green thing as the last few seconds tick off. -------- Controls -------- D-Pad: Controls Chack'n. LEFT and RIGHT are obvious. If Chack'n is on the floor and there is a ceiling within reach, pressing UP will cause him to turn upside down and walk on the ceiling. If he is on the ceiling pressing DOWN will return him to the floor, regardless of distance. The controls for horizontal motion are fairly loose: Chack'n will continue LEFT or RIGHT with one press of the button, but you can press UP or DOWN to stop him in place. Chack'n cannot horizontally traverse a pit of any size. In other words, you can't jump. Nor can you adjust your direction while falling. A+B: Rolls 'hand grenades' to the left (A) or right (B) of Chack'n. The resulting explosion can kill both enemies and Chack'n. Only one grenade can be on the screen from a side at a time (one per side= 2 grenades onscreen at a time). Grenades obey the law of gravity and will fall straight down at Chack'n's side if he is on the ceiling. They also will roll a fair distance and will only stop if there is a good-sized flat landing place. The explosion will curl down and around pieces of floor, so being directly under an explosion will not always protect you. START: Pauses the game. SELECT: Selects 1 or 2 players (TITLE SCREEN), otherwise no use. ------------- Miscellaneous ------------- Monsters can be destroyed in their 'egg' form before they hatch. White eggs are not about to hatch, green ones will hatch shortly, and red ones are hatching. If Chack'n is killed and a grenade explodes, enemies can still be killed in the short interval before the level resets. Any hatched enemies return to their eggs when Chack'n is killed, although they take less time to hatch. The order in which monsters hatch is fixed for a particular level. Killing multiple monsters will yield bonus fruit or vegetables. Two bonus fruits/vegetables cannot exist simultaneously. If you get a second multi-kill while the first fruit is still onscreen, it will cause the first fruit to disappear. The purple whale-like creatures and the ghost-looking character at the top of the screen can both be found in later Taito games (Bubble Bobble, etc.) as MONSTA and MIGHTA, respectively. To my knowledge, these characters first appear in CHACK'N POP. ------ Points ------ Destroying a monster in its egg: 50 pts. Destroying a monster after it has hatched: 200 pts. Freeing a heart from its cage: 1000 pts. Moving platform squashes monster: 800 pts. 2 monsters with one explosion (pepper appears, collect): 400 pts. 3 monsters with one explosion (cherry appears, collect): 600 pts. ? monsters with one explosion (?????? appears, collect): ??? pts. Destroying all monsters, 0 eggs: 5000 pts. Destroying 0 monsters, 0 eggs: 20000 pts., plus an extra Chack'n ------ Levels ------ 1: 1 heart to be released, 6 Monstas You should be able to, with practice, get an easy 0-kill bonus (20000 points and an extra life) on this level. The route is straightforward. 2: 2 hearts, 6 Monstas You should definitely get the 'kill all monsters' bonus here. The level is set up in such a way that you can move almost anywhere you want. Get the left heart first. 3: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas To destroy the left heart-cage, you must jump and roll bombs to the left and right. Each bomb will destroy half of the cage. 4: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas Jump and roll a bomb left to release the lower heart. Rolling a bomb right only destroys half of the cage. The monsters tend to congregate around the upper heart, making a multi-kill very possible. 5: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas The platform will probably kill at least two or three of the Monstas here. Standing on the solid wall above the platform and dropping bombs is very effective here. 6: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas Go for the left heart first. Getting the right heart first and backtracking takes too long. 7: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas Destroying the yellow walls allows Chack'n (and enemies!) to wrap around from one side of the screen to the other, Pac-Man style. You can stealthily throw grenades through the passage, too. It's just you and Solid Snake, baby. 8: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas This level should be very easy. Although the route is longer, go for the left heart first: it will lure more enemies into the moving platform. It is possible to have the platform kill all eight enemies here. 9: 2 hearts, 8 Monstas Destroying the two small bricks under the lower heart means you can't collect it and you'll have to intentionally lose a Chack'n. Pause the game when you first get to this level and plan out your path. Other than the bricks that *directly* block your path, try not to destroy anything. I usually lose at least a life on this level, even after knowing which bricks to destroy. 10: 1 heart, 6 Monstas For some reason, this is a repeat of the first level. The only change here (and in the other repeated levels) is a slightly different, and faster, hatch order. The time limit seems shorter as well. Take this opportunity to get the 0-kill bonus and get back one of the Chack'ns you probably lost on level 9. 11 (see level 2) 12 (see level 3) 13 (see level 4) 14 (see level 5) 15 (see level 6) 16 (see level 7) 17 (see level 8) 18 (see level 9) 19 (1) 20 (2) This is as far as I have managed. I fear there is no end. If anyone can provide any information to the contrary, I will happily slog through more levels (this game isn't hard, just incredibly tedious). *Update to the above, 062206: from Adam (email address withheld) CHACK'N POP (Taito) -A rather difficult definition for a finish here. Basically, the game continuously loops the same 9 levels/mazes, which means Maze 10 will be the same as Maze 1, then Maze 19 will be the same as Maze 1...you get the picture. Anyway, using an emulator so I would not have to play through each tedious level I determined the address that controlled the level value ($003B) and figured out the address value for Maze 99 (the value being 168). When you finish Maze 99 it goes to Maze 0 (which is value 176). I would technically consider this Maze 100, as there isn't room for 3 digits on the Maze indicator. Anyways, you can keep playing and the Maze number will keep going up until you reach "Maze 44" which is really Maze 144. The HEX address value at Maze 144 is 248. When you finish Maze 144 the game goes on to Maze 1, the very first maze of the game. The HEX address value for Maze 1 is o, so this is the true Maze 1, meaning you finally looped back to the beginning of the game after finishing Maze (1)44. Since a HEX address value cannot go over 255 the last HEX address value the game registered before hitting that mark was 248 (Maze 144). So this game has absolutely no ending and loops back to the beginning after going through 144 levels/mazes. For those of you using an emulator who will be using that HEX address, note that Maze 1 has a value of 0. Maze 2 has a value of 1. Hence, Maze 9 will actually have value 8. However, Maze 10 will have a value of 16. For some reason the HEX address value jumps by 8 between every "Maze 9" that you finish. If you plug in any value between 9 and 15 you will get garbled screens. In all you will have to play through the 9 Mazes 16 times in order to return to Maze 1. *This is apparently excerpted from Adam's NES Game Endings FAQ here on GameFAQs. ------------- Credits/Outro ------------- A hearty THANK YOU to: Nintendo: for producing the most innovative, fun, and influential games out there. Taito: This isn't the worst game I've ever played. My mother for not throwing out my old issues of Nintendo Power. Matt Conte, for the .NSF Winamp plugin. Adam for saving me from the 145th maze. This document is legal and intellectual property of Matt Toothman, 2006 fin.