Strategy Guide - Guide for Ten Pin Alley

Ten Pin Alley/Saturn All Easter Eggs, PSX/Saturn diff list, and more.
Version 1.0, 11/13/98

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, 11/13/98
email: [email protected]
http://www.visi.com/~nathan/

--------------------
Easter Eggs:

Note: for all codes requiring a specific name in a specific character
slot, create a character of any type in that position (from the main
game screen) and give them the name listed. Then, start a game, or
load a new character with the left/right chooses rotating character
for the code to happen. If a code requires several specified names,
all must be present and spelled correctly to work. 

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) Sasami: (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.

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: 'Prozac' 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:

21A) Meter Shaking - [default: off] When on, the meter animates around
the screen poorly in sync with the character's animation. Didn't
reliably work, so this was left only as a hidden bonus.

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

21H) Character reactions - [default on] When off, only the walk
right/left, approach aim swing, and early/late foulup animations will
play, no happy or sad reactions at all. Someone buying the PSX version
apparently wrote to complain that the 'silly reactions violate the
seriousness of the sport of bowling', or somesuch comment. Bowling is
a sport taken seriously by TPA, and Pro wresting is all real... NOT! Buy
Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling if you want seriousness, or turn this off.
[Easy to disable stuff like this]

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 lock
the camera was added

--------------------
Incomplete list of differences and tweaks between TPA/Saturn and
TPA/PSX.  Note that essentially all of the easter eggs above are
Saturn-specific, and so they can be counted as differences.

- 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-NumHumans 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 Professional tournament, the kids (Jill/Chip) 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]. 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.

--------------------

NPC AI level table. The all-caps names are the internal names for the
characters, not necessarily what the final version shipped with. The
number after that name is their max AI level (1..5, 5 is best). Note
that an amateur tournament is -1 to AI level, beginner is -2, and the
first round of all tournaments the opponents get an additional -1, all
bottoming out at 1. After the AI level, there's 3 numbers for outfit,
skin & hair "selections" to color cycle them. AI levels randomized in
the "demo" mode, and not representative of this table.

  /* 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 
"Matthew",  BUZZ,    4, 0, 2, 0 /* Nice few biblical names */
"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
"Patty",    DOT,     2, 5, 2, 3 /* Randy's family */
"Kathy",    JILL,    3, 1, 0, 0
"Caroline", JILL,    4, 3, 0, 3
"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 /* Spot the anime reference */
"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
"BDK",      CHUCKY2, 3, 3, 3, 3 /* #appleiigs reference */ /* +25 new chars */
"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 /* +31 */
"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

--- snip

-- 
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? -R.A. Heinlein