Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen(NES) (Gorby's Pipeline in English) FAQ/Walkthrough version 1.0.0 copyright 2007 by Andrew Schultz schultz.andrew@sbcglobal.net Please do not reproduce this FAQ for profit without my prior consent. However, if you write a polite e-mail to me referring to me(and this FAQ) by name, then I will probably say OK. But if I ignore you that means no--and I am bad about answering e-mail. Sorry. **** AD SPACE: **** My home page: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/2762 If anyone figured out the scoring, let me know. I just gave up and said "that's a lot, boy!" ================================ OUTLINE 1. INTRODUCTION 1-1. THE GAME 1-2. TRANSLATION PATCH INFORMATION 2. BASICS 2-1. CONTROLS 2-2. PIECES 2-3. LEVELS/STAGES 2-4. SCORING 3. STRATEGIES 4. VERSIONS 5. CREDITS ================================ 1. INTRODUCTION 1-1. THE GAME It's a game. With a Russian Dude. And blocks are falling! What a concept! Gorby no Pipeline Daisakusen features a Russian guy(specifically an amusing anime semi-caricature likeness of Mikhail "Gorby" Gorbachev, the final Premier of the Soviet Union) who is apparently trying to build a pipeline of, err, WATER from Japan to Moscow. This contradicts the English subtitle "Great Military Operation," but it's still funny. In order to build the pipeline, the player must build a series of pipes(bending and straight) that connect water from one side of the board to the other. Once you do, everything completely below it collapses. Water flows from the bottom of the right, then you place pieces so it goes to the left. If the water runs into a dead end(i.e. another block) then the next pipe up on the right puts water out. You have power ups to remove areas but the correct strategy is not intuitive, and the game ends when a piece of pipe reaches above the ledge you drop stuff from. What makes Gorby such an interesting game is that 1) each 2-block of straight and right-angle pipes is disproportiontaly likely to have 2 curves, forcing you to think ahead and not wish and hope for the right piece and 2) there is potential for gambling. The more you build your structure, the more points you get for stuff under it. While the game gets repetitive once you learn the moves, it's an interesting cross between two puzzle classics, Tetris and Pipe Dream, and as you get better there's real opportunity for risk. You need to complete 9 waves to get from Tokyo to Moscow. Later scenes go faster and don't have pipes at all heights on the left, so you have to plan how your curvy pipes go about. Later levels require you to create an additional pipeline. 1-2. TRANSLATION PATCH INFORMATION www.romhacking.net has an executable called Ninja. You will want to download it. Also, download the compressed Gorby's Pipeline IGS file from romhacking.net. If you have the NES ROM, which I won't tell you how to get(other than to mention that you are more likely to find it under the Japanese name,) you will want to unzip it and the IGS file. Apply the IGS file, then browse for the .nes to apply it to. Now your game should be in English! Not that you can't figure it out in Japanese, since there's not much to read. But still, without the translation, this guide wouldn't be here, because I'd never even have tried the game. 2. BASICS 2-1. CONTROLS The controls for Gorby are like pretty much any other simple block game out there. You can hold left/right to move to the side but at later levels that might not be fast enough. A/B rotate clockwise/counterclockwise. But against the edge of the board it can be tricky. You may not be able to. If you throw a block against the right you can't go clockwise. Left, counterclockwise. Unless you went the other way first. The initial bottom piece appears to be what the 2-block rotates around. Pushing down means move faster. Pushing up doesn't move slower, sorry. Any block can be rotated. For instance, you can rotate the wind pieces to take out 2 columns. Most importantly, if a block is on its side and half of it lands on the edge, the other half splits off and you can rotate it at will. Obviously this is very nice when you need to make a more surgical move. You can fill pieces of pipeline with both of them. At the title screen you can start at levels 1-7. 2-2. PIECES BLUE BLOCKS appear when you 1) make a pipeline and 2) there are blocks above the lower of the two ends of the pipelines. You get big points for them if you take out another pipe above them. The dripwater is good if you need to escape a level but not so good if you are trying to pile up points. The water bottle is useful to pile up points if you are almost done with a level. Drop it by an open pipe and 4 blue block rows will appear under. The above two pieces can only be used if they land next to an open water pipe. So you can just let them fall harmlessly, maybe contemplating your next move with them. The drills/wind gusts can be harmful if you are building up, but in the worst case, you can drop them on the very left or somewhere you made an easy mess up. You can use them to give yourself another chance to complete a pipe you were close to before a dumb mistake. But make sure there is a way across. Once you have the column, you can chip off half of the 2-block and drop it down the well to get the water flowing easily. Because you have 6 possible pieces(UD or LR orientation for the straight and the L-shaped have 4) there seem to be 36 possible pieces but in fact many are mirror images and you can mess around a lot. \t 0 UD 1 LR 2 UL 3 UR 4 DL 5 DR b\ \ \ | | | 0 UD | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1 LR | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | --- --- --- --- --- --- | | | 2 UL | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | | | | | | | -+ -+ -+ -+ -+ -+ | | | 3 UR | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | | | | | | | +- +- +- +- +- +- | | | 4 DL | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | -+ -+ -+ -+ -+ -+ | | | | | | | | | 5 DR | --- -+ +- +- -+ | | | +- +- +- +- +- +- | | | | | | Top-bottom 00 and 11 are unique pieces. 22~55 which mirrors 44~33 43 mirrors 52 34 mirrors 25 24~35 42~53 30~04 mirrors 05~20 50~02 mirrors 03~40 21/31 41/51 I am guessing that you get a 1/8 chance of any one half-block appearing, since they can appear so rarely. But just because two pieces aren't equal doesn't mean they can't be. You will be breaking off half of a piece a lot and rotating the other half, and so you can use a lot of pieces for that. Even though pieces are 2x1 you often will wind up using only 1/2 of the piece for what you need, except at the very beginning when you are laying the pipeline out. It's ok to chuck the other half and in fact if you always use only half, you'll get through the level pretty quickly. However, if you can use one half, break off the other half and twiddle it properly, you're well on your way to mastery of Gorby. 2-3. LEVELS/STAGES for level X you must complete X+1 pipelines from one side to the other. The scenes get slightly faster and the tunes change during each one. Here is what I think the cities are for each level. I used google images to find a map and looked for the rivers depicted in the game. Start: Tokyo Level 1: Vladivostok Level 2: Khabarovsk Level 3: Irkutsk Level 4: Krasnoyarsk Level 5: Novosibirsk/(Tomsk?) Level 6: Omsk Level 7: Perm Level 8: Kirov?? Level 9: Moscow On completing 9 levels, you see fireworks go off and then you start back again. If anyone knows the songs for the levels, let me know. I'm curious, though I recognize one or two from the arcade Tetris. 2-4. SCORING 100 points for each extra link of pipe beyond 12 in your path. The rest seems to vary with the number of bends you have and the number of squares and blue squares under what you have. It varies with the square of the last two factors. You also seem to get a multiplier by (level + stage * 9.) You only score points for when you complete a pipeline. Therefore, don't push down to go quicker unless you are sure of your move and you've looked at the "next" box enough to know what you want to do. When you complete a pipeline, all squares under the whole pipeline disappear, and you get no points for them unless they are blue. All squares that are to the left or right of the pipeline, but under some squares, turn blue--or disappear and add to your bonus if they are already blue. All squares with liquid in them also disappear for no points. So the later pipes are likely to get you more points, and you can't really do a lot with the first one without building up the playfield. You get a rocket up the center of the well for 100000 points, a balloon for 1000000. Nothing for 10000000. I checked. I cheated to check. The default high score list, for kicks. It's possible to get one entry on each side for a game. SCORE NAME STAGE NAME 1 250000 AKB 6 MOO 2 200000 NOP 5 TND 3 150000 MU 4 MU 4 100000 TND 3 NOP 5 50000 MOO 2 AKB It's worth noting that one connection at the higher levels can be more than the default high scores. The score is at byte c4(low byte) then c3, c2 etc. It is represented as a bunch of decimal digits sent to hex, and the ones digit is assumed zero, i.e. 00 45 20 means you have 45200 points. Incidentally you can also cheat by altering the playing field. It starts at x400(offset x454 in a FCEU save state) and is 16 wide. If you open a save state in a hex editor, you will notice that the well is 16x18. Don't touch either of the two side columns. 01=UL 02=DR 03=DL 04=UR 05=| 06=- 0c=blue box +10 to any byte=water in the pipe This is useful to set up a puzzle. I assume the "next" bytes can't be too hard to find, but a cursory check turned up nothing. 3. STRATEGIES The one most important thing to get straight when you start: +- -+ | | | | -+ +- Is much more likely to come by than --- ---, so you need to get used to that. Another important thing is that you should plan to work from both sides. Beginners may just wish to move from the right directly(well, with the zigzags above) to the left, but sometimes a piece will be better suited to tackle the left. Another important thing to do is to develop a sense of when you are saying "I just need the right piece." This often happens when I am trying not to be wasteful, or I have just slipped up with a pipeline I should've had. I try to put the Right Piece in the next available pipeline, but I can waste 6 or so 2x1's before I wake up and realize I should have just blocked up a few pipelines on the right and started where I could get a zigzag going. In that vein, when you chuck pieces, throw them against the right even if it means the next pipe will start higher. It is a case of losing squares now or later, and often with interest. Finally, for starters, remember that on the first level you can make a big mess creating the second pipe, since completing it clears the board and kicks you to the next scene anyway. Even when you need to make three pipes, you can create a big mess with pipe #2 and, as long as it doesn't bend too far down, you'll wind up taking out enough below your pipeline to give you space to plan the next bit. You will hear a hissing noise once a water pipeline is extended. This is useful to make sure you did things right. Don't worry about big points for your first pipe. Go for it all with your last one and cross your fingers(wait, no, that gets in the way of controls) for a water bottle when you are confident you can complete the levels with a few curves. Otherwise you may leave a mess behind. Also with the last one you can afford to chuck stuff in the UR. While it's good to take time to look at the "next" box if you are not sure what to do, don't get glued to it looking for a straight piece. However, if you don't have quite the right diagonal piece, you can see if the next piece is better, and you can chuck what you've got. And while going with diagonal connectors is best, beginners(or people facing a new level for the first time) will probably revert back to relying on linear pieces. Or they just might need one to connect the pieces of pipe that they worked from both sides. Let's say you have something like the following: +- ... -+ | | | | -+ +- All you need is a straight piece to complete it, right? Well, yeah, but if you get a piece like | +- --- Then you won't be able to fit the straight piece where you need it. The solution here is to junk half of a two-block below and then wait for the straight piece. In general, you don't want to have to be in a position of waiting for two straight pieces EVER(just use diagonal pieces as above to compensate) but if you build a pipeline quickly and just need one straight piece, that is ok. Or if you have space for 8 pieces to dump, you have no problem. What you need will come soon enough. One other thing that can catch you is when you are waiting a bit too long for a straight connector in the following case where you need to continue a pipe -+ | | | | | | -+ +- If only you had a straight connector, you could drop it in the gap and then follow up with a diagonal connector. But you may wind up chucking a lot. It's a lot more expedient to break up a piece and put an UL 1L1D of where the pipe stopped. The next piece will fill it and put it on its way. And this brings up another point, about the PARITY of the pipe connectors. It's sort of like the old checkerboard puzzle where you pull off opposite edges and 1x2 tiles can't cover it, because there are 32 red squares and 30 black, but 1x2 tiles get one square of each color. But it's a bit more in depth. Basically, you need to recognize that if one bent square in your pipeline points left, then to continue it the later squares will need to be: LRLRLRL RLRLRLR LRLRLRL etc. The other direction may be up or down depending on the path of the pipeline. Also implicit in the diagram above is that it is a bad idea to try to go straight down with a pipe or straight up. If you absolutely must on later levels, you may need to go straight up at the end to avoid turning the pipeline into the left wall at the final moment, but even there it is a last resort to complete a level where you just chuck pieces until you get something horizontal, then rotate, then cut and rotate a bent piece to win. Also, if you make a small mistake, it's worthwhile to gamble that there may be a drill coming by to wipe it out. Plan on the left accordingly, but leave yourself a way out above, too. One of the keys to the game is learning how to think diagonally. You should assume that curvy pieces will always come your way and plan accordingly. So you need to picture something as below: +- -+ +- -+ +- -+ | | | | | | | | | | | | -+ +- -+ +- -+ +- The wave up and down is the best way to progress. Of course, if you get something linear, take advantage of that, too. If you get one linear piece, you will need another linear piece to complete the puzzle, but that is okay. You can just keep dropping stuff on either the left or right side until you get it. Note that you can almost always move forward with creating a pipeline if you have one curved piece. You can chuck one piece off to the side, or lay it in a good position on the top, and then flip the other quickly. An example is below: | +- -+- Let's say you have a piece with two curves and want to land it on this. There's a possibility that no rotations will allow you to fit a D-L piece over the left square and drop the other half to the left. So just chuck that piece off to the right, set vertically. Wait for the next piece to come down and you can use the vertical tower you made to siphon off half a piece if need be. Note on an unbalanced board you can afford to chuck a bunch of pieces on the bottom to balance things out. Even if you want to use the zigzag described below, you still have a triangle where you can chuck pieces, i.e. planned v / ---- /