Ten Pin Alley/Saturn All Easter Eggs, PSX/Saturn diff list, and more.

This document Copyright 1998 Nathan Mates, programmer of TPA/Saturn. This document was created from notes taken during development, and is NOT officially sanctioned by ASC Games (publisher) or Adrenalin Interactive (developer). All mistakes, misrepresentations, etc are purely my own.

I wrote this after my leaving employment at Adrenalin, and was done purely to archive off some notes more than a year after release of this game. The Saturn was a neat machine to develop for, but TPA was released in its dying days in the US, thanks (in my opinion, not speaking for any company) to severe mismarketing of the Saturn in the USA. Sales probably weren't that great of TPA/Saturn (I never saw final numbers), but I hope someone else bought a copy so you can enjoy the MANY small easter eggs and polishing touches I threw in.

Nathan Mates
email: nathan.j.mates@gmail.com
http://www.matesfamily.org/
First written: 11/13/98
Last update February 5, 2000

Easter Eggs:

0) Taunts: during the meter + animations of a player, hold down the taunt enabler (Left trigger + X + Y), and then select a direction with the D-pad: right left or down. A sound effect will play. Note that you cannot taunt yourself, so either another controller must be used, or if only one controller is available, taunt CPU players. Taunts not available in tournaments.

1) Wait reactions - all characters do interesting things if left alone from the 'walk character left/right' screen for about 20 seconds without moving them. Holding down the left trigger button should cut that time in half, holding down the right button makes it never happen. After roughly 30 wait reactions, characters will begin to spin in 3D for their wait reactions. See #13 to speed this up.

2) Lane transparency pulsating: posn 4: 'Refract' This was done as a response to the PSX programmers complaining that they didn't have "good" transparency level controls on the more transparency-friendly PSX, so I showed off what the Saturn could do. Note that such transparency leveling was normally doable only if you were making a whole 2D plane transparent, which the lanes and score display backgrounds were. Making anything else transparent was a major PITA.

3) Swap head and ball models for all characters: Posn 4:'Ichabod' 5:"Crane" Inspired by the 'Dufus/Rufus' easter egg code in the PSX version, but that was only for the Chucky & Dutch characters, not everybody, and the ball still rolled down the lane, not their heads like in the Saturn.

4) Kyoko: (bonus anime character) 3:'FEIF', 5:'DEI', 6:'gdbg' This code is given at the winning of a pro tournament, and is an obscure Caltech reference. Those are the slogans of 3 of Caltech's dorm houses (Fleming, Dabney, and Blacker), and the positioning of them reflects their geographical positioning. Once these codes are entered, and any character is loaded, a 13th character type, 'Kyoko', is selectable from the new/edit player screen. This character type appears just before Chucky in the list, and has a *ahem* unique *ahem* bowling style :)

5) All character parts made up of bowling pins in a skeletal form 1:'Vector' 2:'Pins' This code is given at the winning of an amateur tournament.

6) Shadows 3:'Vorlons' Cheezy TR-like shadows appear under the character. Blew the framerate, so never made it except as an easter egg.

7) Display all characters, and newly loaded alleys in Grayscale. 5:'1950s' 6:'TV'. The ball, pins, and certain other decorations will remain colored, as they're constantly loaded and never refreshed. Alleys [re]loaded only after changing them (from main menu), or swapped out to rotating sign.

8) Big head mode 1:'Hi' 2:'AM2' 3:'Big' 4:'Heads'

9) Scrolltext comments from the programmer. Hold down TL (i.e. left trigger button), X, Y when selecting credits with A or C buttons. Warning: this goes on for a while, and was mostly written when working late at night, so is a bit too raw in places.

10) Force character saving to a different memory block, even if previously saved: hold down TL,TR when selecting save character.

11) Babylon 5 screen spinning. Really fun to play in this mode Posn 3:'Babyln5' 4:'Spinmde'

12) Vectrex mode-- everything is in wireframe only. [Trivia note: Adrenalin Interactive is current name of the company which produced the Vectrex hardware]. To get this for everything, hold down TL+X+Y (taunt) while booting after the movies until the TPA logo inverts, or 0:'Vectrex' 1:'Mode1' If this is done during boot, everything will be wireframe, else only loaded characters and alleys will be, but lane decorations won't. 0:'Vectrex' 2:'Mode2' for no backface culled wireframes.

13) Faster 3D waitmodes 5:'3DWait' This code given at the winning of a beginner tournament.

14) Make all CPU opponents bowl perfect 300 games 4:'CPU300' I wrote the AI for the bowlers, so whose side am I really going to go with?

15) Extra killer tournament players- taunt (TL+X+Y) while hitting A or C at the Tournament's 'X Welcomes you to Y' screen. A pins crashing sound will play if done successful. Basically, this adds in the extra, tougher players, to the list of possible people for a tournament; they're not guaranteed to be in, as they're selected randomly. See below for listing of all possible CPU opponents.

16) Manual selection of CPU AI level- there are 5 internal levels for AI. 1 is Rookie, 2-3 is Journeyman, 4-5 is Pin King/Queen. Normally, there's no easy way to tell whether a CPU opponent for practice or open play is at within the level, but if you hold down both shoulder triggers (TL+TR) while hitting A or C on the skill selection box, you will increment one AI level at at time, rather than 2.

17) Ignore accuracy meter selection, but still generate a foulup reaction if you blow it too much: 1:'ICant' 2:'Play' 3:'Legally' This is as close as you'll ever get to a cheatcode, as it lets you get aim exactly as set up by moving bowler & arrow around, rather than modified from the accuracy meter.

18) A lot more happy reactions: 5: 'Happy1' All reactions are measured on a -2 to +4 scale, 0 for no reaction, and with 1 and 2 randomized between the two. With this code, the reaction is +1 what it would otherwise be.

19) A lot more sad reactions 4: 'Downers' -1 to the reaction table

20) Reset all codes enabled by specific player names: 1:'Reset'

21) Options Plus and More Options Plus menus: either enter the options menu 200 times over the course of time (this counter saved with other options menu settings), or 'taunt' (TL+X+Y+ [A or C]) the options menu item from the rotating sign screen. When available, 'Options Plus' will be the listing at the rotating sign screen, and 'Options Plus' and 'More Options Plus' will be listed in the options screen under Sound/Music.

Options Plus screen:

21B) Postal Edie - [default: off] with this on, get a -2 sad reaction [easy way: use #19 and throw a gutter ball as first ball of game] with Edie as the character, and listen after she walks off camera. The PSX version has on this by default, and was sanitized for regular Saturn version, but I and sound efx guys really preferred it this way.

21C) Scoreboard Contrast - [default high] when set to low, the scoreboard display is black text on a dark gray background, which looks better on certain TVs than black on white. Done to make some artists happy.

21D) Meter Foulup Guides - [default off] when on, the meter gets extra coloring showing when a press would be an early or late foulup reaction.

21E) Allow Uneven Teams - [default off] When off, a teamplay game must have the same # of people (1-3) on each side. The PSX allowed uneven teams, but like 21B above, mgmt thought it was a 'bug' to allow it. Thus, the option to let the players have the control they should have.

21F) Beginner Tournaments - [default on] Lets beginner tournaments be selectable from the main menu. Was initially off until beta testers needed to get to beginner tournaments to be able to win one.

21G) More lane decorations - [default off] When on, puts a foul line and aim arrows on the lane to the right and left of yours. Used to be on, but someone thought it was a 'bug'. May cause slowdown with Chucky or Dutch as the bowler during the meter; don't remember.

More Options Plus:

21I) Meter Visible - [default on]. When off, the spin/power/accuracy meters do not appear onscreen at all. See if you can still play by pressing the button as the character animates-- the meters were synchronized to the animations. This is another idea for the PSX that never made it into the final code.

21J) Alley Color Cycling - [default on] When off, disables the flashing 'Ten' 'Pin' 'Alley' and cycling colored stars in the other alleys.

21K) Flashing TPA Sign - [default on] When off, the rotating TPA sign at the top menu will never flash on or off.

21L) Animated Alley Load - [default on] When on, as characters are loaded the first time an alley is loaded, the camera pans from looking down at the foul line to the pins. [Note that this pan takes slightly different amounts of time as the characters are slightly differently sized on disk.] When off, a blank screen is presented, just like the PSX version.

21M) Pan Camera with Aim - [default on] When on, the view slides slightly left and right as the aim arrow is slid left and right, just like the PSX version. Some people didn't like this, so option to freeze the camera was added.

22) Semi-translucent looking bowling balls. 3:'Glass' 4:'Balls'

Incomplete list of differences and tweaks between TPA/Saturn and TPA/PSX.

- [Noted, v1.03] In versions 1.0 to 1.02 of this FAQ, description on code #4 wrong on the character name, and confusing as to how some things worked. Fixed.

- [Noted v1.02] Using a ball weight different from their 'default' weight (set when you change characters in the Bowler Setup screen) makes the ball roll slower or faster than 'normal'. But, the effects of missing the accuracy meter are magnified if the ball selection is more than one pound off the default weight.

- [Noted v1.02] TPA/Saturn runs in 352x224; PSX/Saturn in 640x220 mode. For 640 or 704 mode on the Saturn, all polygons must share the same 256 color palette, but that would have required way too much work and reduced graphics detail to be worth it.

- [Noted v1.02] Wait animations for all characters if you leave them for too long (~30 seconds) on the walk left/right aim screen. After a number of wait animations (shorter if you use the '3DWait' code (#13)), the characters begin to spin in 3D, which is totally unrealistic, but definitely fun.

- [Noted v1.02] The bowling alley in TPA/Saturn is subtly unrealistic. In TPA/PSX, as in real alleys, there is an alternation of wide/narrow gutter dividers. TPA/Saturn, to help fit the lanes (which are a 2D sprite rotated in 3D) in vram, lane #6 or #7 (counting #1 as leftmost) has a wide divider on each side of it.

- [Noted v1.0, but made explicit here] See the Options Plus / More Options Plus descriptions above for a few more items which differed from the PSX version, but user choices were placed in.

- In the rotating character selection screen, they rotate opposite directions. Totally unintentional, and once I found that out, I left it in as a telling difference.

- Practice mode and Beginner tournaments also only in Saturn version.

- Palette problems made Dean only have 3 skin colors in the Saturn version.

- Level 1 and 2 happy reactions made interchangeable in the Saturn version, which changed logic to generate reaction code slightly. Also, level 2 sad (-2) reaction on PSX was loaded off disk, but ram-resident on Saturn, so made more common. These changes made a greater variety of animations appear.

- Sidestep animations when moving a character into place, no more floating characters.

- Tournament roster for Saturn selects (64 minus the number of humans) NPCs out of a table of 111 or 132 (if taunted) NPCs, instead of 64-NumHumans out of 64. This gives much more variety of opponent names and likenesses instead of the same few players always winning. Also, in first round of tournament, all CPU players have -1 to AI level (if >1) to make it easier to survive that first round. Max AI levels always remain constant for NPCs, though. [See below for full table]

- In the Professional tournament level, the kids (Jill/Chip) should never appear as NPCs. Just a tiny nod to 'realism'. You can still enter a player as Jill/Chip in such a tournament, though.

- TPA/Saturn Demo mode picks either the official character names (~15% of the time), or picks a name and likeness from the 132-entry NPC table. However, the AI level is *random* instead of the tableentry, and NPCs will foulup, which they never do in any real game mode. Foulups never happen twice in a row, making it seem "more" random than the PSX version which could get a streak of foulups.

- Saturn specific tweaks, like the 'Press Start' semi-menu, also the Sound/Music options screen. Also, as per Sega rules, the option to Load/Save a game or player not available if no savefiles are detected.

- The car crash sound if you left the PSX version in 'Load Player/Game' screen never made it to the Saturn. Also, only 3 taunt sounds made it instead of the 4. [Either didn't want to compress the sound or out of ram; can't remember]

- All animations are ram-resident, allowing better playing of them, but the level 3/4 happy reactions have audio as CDDA tracks, giving a slight delay and a break in the music. [Sorry, Saturn had much smaller soundram size, and that was the best way to get things working]

- The 'Ichabod Crane' code is sorta-present on the PSX version, but only with Chucky/Dutch, and the head doesn't roll down the lane and hit the pins. My animation player was designed to be able to do that after I knew of that code.

- Pop the TPA/Saturn CD into a PC or Mac (or anything else that reads ISO9660), and look in the BONUS folder for some pre-production art sketches and other things unavailable elsewhere. Look in the README folder for something else you should take a good look at.

- No Hall of Fame movie in the Saturn version, thanks to no builtin movieplayer on the Saturn. The cheezy intro movies of the animated ASC, Adrenalin exist only because I got annoyed enough one afternoon at the lack of movies that I coded my own cruddy one as a hack.

- In PSX tournaments, the roster was created to make the first round (and most subsequent rounds) have the human bowl first, and the CPU after them. Some thought this was unfair, as it "gave the CPU something to shoot for to win". [Absolutely untrue in terms of AI-- the CPU never cares about opponents; it simply looks at the standing pin arrangements and modifies its shot based on its AI level]. In the Saturn version, it should be pretty random as to who bowls first/second.

- No 'Vllooma' code to cheat a tournament, or credits music in tournaments codes like PSX version.

- More if I ever get around to remembering any.

- Changed, v1.04: Codes #18 and #22 above (Happy1, Glass Balls) corrected, thanks to Joseph Peitler for pointing out that what I'd originally written didn't match the shipped game.

- v1.04: Explanation for code #17 above: Depending on the difficulty level, the more you deviate from the 'perfect' range on the accuracy meter, the more it'd mess up your shot. [Basically, the region between the foulup ranges and the perfect range.] This code skips doing such shot messup.

/* Players 0..5 are dummy slots filled in by
   the humans at the main menu */

"Why",      CHUCKY,  3, 4, 2, 1
"Are",      CHUCKY,  4, 1, 0, 3
"You",      CHUCKY,  3, 1, 0, 1
"Reading",  CHUCKY,  5, 1, 0, 1
"This",     CHUCKY,  3, 4, 1, 3
"File?",    CHUCKY,  4, 0, 1, 3

  /* Next 64 players are from the PSX version, 
     with a few changes */
  /*playerName, character, skill, outfit, skin, hair */

"Bud",      CHUCKY,  3, 4, 2, 1
"Duane",    CHUCKY,  4, 1, 0, 3
"Rocky",    CHUCKY,  3, 1, 0, 1
"Smiley",   CHUCKY,  5, 1, 0, 1
"Butch",    CHUCKY,  3, 4, 1, 3
"Darryl",   CHUCKY,  4, 0, 1, 3
"Laslo",    CHUCKY2, 4, 2, 1, 1
"Melcher",  CHUCKY2, 3, 1, 2, 1
"Mo",       CHUCKY2, 4, 5, 2, 1
"Duffy",    CHUCKY2, 4, 2, 1, 3
"Bubba",    CHUCKY2, 3, 0, 1, 3
"Skippy",   CHUCKY2, 4, 0, 2, 1
"Kurtis",   NERD,    3, 4, 1, 1
"Pink",     NERD,    4, 1, 0, 1
"Stookey",  NERD,    5, 3, 1, 3
"Hugo",     NERD,    4, 2, 1, 1
"Les",      NERD2,   3, 4, 1, 1
"BK",       NERD2,   4, 5, 2, 1
"Floyd",    NERD2,   4, 5, 2, 1
"PeeWee",   NERD2,   3, 1, 2, 3
"Carlos",   NERD2,   4, 2, 1, 1
"Cecil",    BUZZ,    3, 4, 1, 1
"Denver",   BUZZ,    3, 3, 2, 1
"Elvis",    BUZZ,    4, 4, 0, 3
"Craig",    BUZZ,    3, 3, 0, 3
"LeRoy",    BUZZ,    5, 2, 1, 2
"Dirtin",   BUZZ2,   3, 2, 3, 1
"Skelly",   BUZZ2,   4, 1, 2, 1
"Stretch",  BUZZ2,   4, 2, 3, 1
"Jordan",   BUZZ2,   3, 1, 1, 2
"Larry",    BUZZ2,   3, 0, 3, 1
"Bruno",    BUZZ2,   5, 3, 2, 3
"Bert",     JILL2,   4, 4, 3, 1
"Junior",   JILL2,   4, 4, 1, 1
"Oswald",   JILL2,   3, 5, 2, 3
"Ami",      JILL,    3, 1, 2, 1
"Chong",    JILL2,   3, 3, 2, 1
"Boris",    JILL2,   4, 3, 2, 1
"Ozzy",     JILL2,   3, 0, 3, 1
"Jimi",     JILL2,   4, 2, 1, 1
"Rico",     JILL2,   4, 3, 2, 1
"Wanda",    FLO,     5, 2, 3, 3
"Peg",      FLO,     3, 0, 1, 2
"Tess",     FLO,     4, 2, 3, 3
"Lyta",     FLO,     3, 2, 3, 1
"Bunny",    FLO2,    4, 5, 2, 1
"Weemo",    FLO2,    5, 1, 1, 2
"Sally",    FLO2,    2, 5, 0, 1
"Suzy",     FLO2,    3, 3, 0, 1
"Mona",     DOT,     3, 1, 0, 3
"Mildred",  DOT,     4, 5, 0, 3
"Mom",      DOT,     4, 5, 2, 1
"Gertie",   DOT,     4, 4, 3, 3
"Betsy",    DOT,     3, 0, 3, 1
"Simcha",   DOT,     4, 1, 2, 1
"Selma",    DOT2,    5, 1, 2, 3
"Lucy",     DOT2,    4, 4, 3, 3
"Irena",    DOT2,    4, 4, 3, 1
"Betty",    DOT2,    3, 3, 3, 1
"Nadia",    DOT2,    4, 3, 0, 1
"Esther",   JILL,    3, 5, 0, 1
"Milson",   JILL,    4, 0, 1, 0
"Donna",    JILL,    3, 0, 1, 1
"Olive",    JILL,    3, 2, 0, 3 

/* Nice few biblical names */
"Matthew",  BUZZ,    4, 0, 2, 0   
"Mark",     BUZZ2,   3, 2, 0, 0
"Luke",     NERD,    5, 0, 1, 2
"John",     CHUCKY,  4, 0, 1, 2
"Peter",    CHUCKY2, 3, 2, 1, 2
"Paul",     NERD2,   4, 2, 2, 2
"James",    NERD,    3, 1, 2, 3
"Michael",  CHUCKY,  4, 0, 1, 1

"Jackie",   BUZZ,    2, 0, 1, 1
"Moe",      CHUCKY,  2, 3, 2, 1
"Edgar",    BUZZ2,   4, 4, 2, 3
"Kim",      JILL,    3, 3, 3, 2
"Lisa",     DOT2,    5, 2, 3, 2
"Sarah",    DOT2,    3, 0, 1, 1
"Rachel",   FLO,     4, 4, 1, 0
"Janet",    FLO,     5, 1, 2, 3
"Hannah",   DOT,     4, 0, 1, 2
"Helen",    DOT,     3, 4, 2, 0
"Mary",     FLO2,    3, 3, 1, 2

   /* Randy's family */
"Patty",    DOT,     2, 5, 2, 3
"Kathy",    JILL,    3, 1, 0, 0
"Caroline", JILL,    4, 3, 0, 3

   /* Spot the anime reference */
"Akemi",    FLO2,    3, 2, 0, 1
"Yagami",   DOT2,    4, 0, 0, 3
"Asuna",    DOT,     3, 2, 0, 3
"Ikuko",    JILL,    3, 4, 0, 2
"Kentaro",  JILL2,   2, 1, 0, 2
"Sakamoto", BUZZ,    3, 0, 0, 3
"Sasami",   JILL,    4, 2, 0, 2
"Ryoko",    FLO2,    3, 4, 1, 0
"Ayeka",    DOT,     4, 1, 1, 3
"Mihoshi",  DOT2,    2, 5, 3, 0
"Carol",    JILL,    4, 4, 2, 2
"Becky",    JILL,    3, 0, 3, 3

   /* #appleiigs reference */ 
"BDK",      CHUCKY2, 3, 3, 3, 3
"Mike",     CHUCKY,  5, 5, 0, 2
"Chris",    NERD2,   3, 2, 1, 3
"Walter",   NERD,    4, 4, 0, 1
"Todd",     BUZZ,    5, 2, 0, 2
"Steve",    BUZZ2,   4, 4, 1, 3
"Jason",    NERD,    4, 1, 1, 3
"Joe",      NERD2,   3, 1, 0, 2
"Jilly",    DOT,     2, 5, 0, 3
"Kevin",    NERD,    4, 2, 2, 0
"Brian",    NERD2,   3, 1, 0, 2
"Emmy",     JILL,    2, 2, 3, 3 
"Laurie",   DOT2,    3, 2, 2, 3

/* Next characters are bonus characters
   for an even tougher tournament. Most
    were Adrenalin employees. */

"Ofer",     CHUCKY,  5, 4, 0, 3
"Alex",     NERD,    5, 1, 0, 2
"Alan",     CHUCKY2, 4, 3, 0, 2
"Ian",      BUZZ2,   4, 4, 1, 1
"Greg",     NERD,    4, 0, 1, 2
"David",    NERD,    4, 4, 0, 3
"Nathan",   NERD2,   4, 4, 0, 0
"Stevo",    CHUCKY2, 4, 5, 1, 3
"Ron",      BUZZ,    1, 0, 0, 3  
"Jeff",     NERD2,   4, 3, 0, 2
"Randy",    BUZZ,    4, 5, 0, 0
"Jay",      NERD,    4, 4, 1, 3
"Gail",     DOT,     4, 5, 0, 1
"Levana",   FLO,     4, 0, 1, 2
"Chelsea",  DOT2,    1, 5, 0, 1
"SPE",      NERD,    4, 4, 1, 2
"Yael",     JILL,    4, 3, 1, 2
"Einat",    JILL,    4, 2, 0, 3
"DKlown",   JILL2,   2, 0, 0, 2
"Haywood",  BUZZ2,   3, 0, 0, 2