Top, NES version, SG-1000 version, MSX version, Acknowledgements

Introduction Chack'n Pop is an old TAITO platform/maze game. It was released in 1983. While popular in Japan, this vintage game did not have a lot of success in occident. Players controlled Chack'n, a cute-ish small yellow creature, moving him around one-screen mazes in an early 8-bit environment. Of course, this game was the predecessor of Bubble Bobble. Just look at the screens to find some familiar enemies, namely Mightas and Monstas.

Story There are Mr. Chack'n and Ms. Chack'n. They love each other, and this is clearly visible as we can see some red hearts hovering around them. This is when disaster strikes... Some nasty Monstas fly by and capture the hearts! They disappear through an opening in the floor, leaving the poor couple without their precious hearts! Miss Chack'n then says: "Take back our hearts!" And Mr. Chack'n promptly answers: "OK!" Then, our heroic yellow creature jumps after the unholy thieves! Just when Mr. Chack'n disappears through the hole, a Mighta appears and closes the opening, leaving our hero no other way out than to clear the upcoming mazes!

Basic gameplay Control Chack'n using the joystick. Do not touch the Monstas! Retrieve all Hearts and head for the exit before time runs out. Chack'n attacks using bombs. Button 1 throws a bomb at your left. Button 2 throws a bomb at your right. Bombs can destroy Monstas, cages, eggs, ice blocks, items and water bottles. You lose a life when: - A monsta touches you. - A moving platform squashes you. - You get caught in an explosion. - You run out of time. Destroy two Monstas with one bomb and get either a bonus fruit or a super-heart. When Chack'n gets the super-heart, he will change into Super-Chack'n and will be able to destroy enemies just by touching them.

Controlling Chack'n
Left/Right:	Makes Chack'n walk left/right. If you release the joystick, Chack'n will keep walking until he runs into a wall. If you hold the direction, Chack'n will try and jump over the obstacles.
Up:	Makes Chack'n jump. If he has both feet on solid ground, he will jump 16 pixels high (1 time his size). If he has only one foot on solid ground, he will jump only 8 pixels high (1/2 his size). This rule also applies when trying to jump over an obstacle by pressing left or right. If Chack'n touches the ceiling when jumping he will stick to it. You can walk on the ceiling.
Down:	Makes Chack'n fall to the ground if he's on the ceiling.
Button 1:	Throws a bomb at your left. Only one at a time.
Button 2:	Throws a bomb at your right. Only one at a time.

In-depth gameplay and items The stages are shaped like mazes. There are some caged hearts and a bunch of Monsta eggs hanging from the ceiling. They'll hatch open after a certain time, giving birth to a Monsta. There's a Mighta at the top of the screen. He's slowly pushing an obstacle towards the exit, in an attempt to block it. You must bomb the cages open to release the hearts inside. Once you retrieve all hearts, the exit becomes available. Race to it before the Mighta has a chance to block it!
	MONSTA EGGS These eggs are completely harmless. They start blue. After a certain time they change to yellow as a warning. Then they will turn red, meaning that it is going to hatch any second! Finally, they drop and hatch. A brand-new Monsta has been born! Blowing up eggs gives you 50 points each, just don't expect any bonuses at the end of the stage.
	MONSTA These purple monsters are your enemies. They move horizontally and vertically. Sometimes they move in a semi-random pattern. Other times they will actively pursue you! Kill 1 Monsta with one bomb to earn 200 points. Kill 2 Monstas with one bomb to earn 600 points and a bonus fruit/item. Kill 3 Monstas with one bomb to earn 1200 points and a bonus fruit/item. Kill 4 Monstas with one bomb to earn 2000 points and a bonus fruit/item.
	MIGHTA He's your timer, as explained before. He lies on his closed platform at the top of each level and moves slowly towards the right. You must reach his platform before he reaches the right edge or else... it's time out!
	CAGED HEARTS Set them free by blowing up the cages. When all hearts are retrieved the exit becomes accessible. Also, when all hearts are retrieved, all remaining eggs hatch immediately! Hearts are worth 1000 points each.
	MOVING PLATFORM These platforms move horizontally at a constant speed. Beware, though. Anything trapped between it and a wall is squashed to death! Squashed Monstas give you 800 points each.
	BOMB These are your only weapon. Use them to kill enemies, break water-bottles and blast open cages. Once you release a bomb, it rolls along the ground for a limited distance and then explodes. Learning the timing of this is key to your success! Be careful with your bombs, as they can blow away items and they can also kill you! Hint: Chain two bombs to get a bigger explosion!
	WATER BOTTLES When broken, these bottles release a stream of water very much like the water bubbles in Bubble Bobble. However, this stream is just there for visual purposes. It doesn't kill enemies nor carry you away. When the water stream reaches the bottom of the screen, the water level will rise a little bit. Each broken bottle will cause the screen to flood more and more! This is not a bad thing, tough. Chack'n is a skillful swimmer, you know? He can even swim diagonally! Keep in mind that Monstas can move underwater too, and your bombs are of no use when wet.
	SUPER HEART When Chack'n gets a Super Heart he becomes Super Chack'n! When Super, - Chack'n becomes red and a happy tune ssttarts playing. - Chack'n moves faster and jumps higher..< - Chack'n becomes invincible and can dessttroy enemies. The Super Power lasts for about 10 seconds. Kill all enemies before you return to regular Chack'n! How to get Super Hearts: The Nth bomb must kill over two Monstas. N changes depending on what maze you're on: Maze 1 ... N=3 / Maze 2 ... N=1 Maze 3 ... N=4 / Maze 4 ... N=1 Maze 5 ... N=5 / Maze 6 ... N=9 Maze 7 ... N=2 / Maze 8 ... N=6 Maze 9 ... N=5 / Maze 10... N=2 Maze 11... N=5 / Maze 12... N=8 Maze 13... N=9 / Maze 14... N=7 Can you see a pattern here? It's the number of PI! (3.14159265258979...)

Round end After the end of the Round, you are awarded: 5000 points if you eliminated ALL MONSTAS (no Eggs). 20000 points AND an EXTRA LIFE if you did not eliminate anything. If you: a) Eliminated at least one egg b) Failed to eliminate all Monstas Then you won't be awarded anything. You must eliminate only Monstas or else eliminate Nothing (which is really hard!). Never leave Monstas alive! If you do so, the Monstas you left alive will appear as extra eggs in EVERY next round. If you leave a Monsta alive in round 1, all next rounds will have not 8, but 9 eggs, and the extra egg(s) will hatch much sooner than the others! The number of Monstas can only go up. If you keep leaving Monstas alive, you'll get even more enemies on the upcoming rounds. The maximum number of Monstas is 14. The game becomes a living hell by then.

Game mazes This game has 14 one-screen stages. After clearing Maze 14 you start over from Maze 2.
	MAZE 1 This is just an introductory stage. If you get hit here you do not lose a life but exit the stage instead. Good for some easy bonus fruits!
	MAZE 2 This is the first "real" stage. As such is kind of simplistic and relatively easy. There's only one caged heart.
	MAZE 3 From this stage on you will always have two caged hearts to set free.
	MAZE 4 This stage introduces breakable walls and the old, classic "sidescreen-warping" that was so common in early video games like this one.
	MAZE 5 A new element appears here, the water bottles. Advice: move fast!
	MAZE 6 And then we have a moving platform. It goes back and forth. Getting the heart at the left of the screen is a bit tricky. You must combine two explosions to free it!
	MAZE 7 Not a lot to say here. This is a somewhat peaceful stage as long as you succeeded in not rising the number of Monstas too much!
	MAZE 8 Study this maze. It looks simple but you might be surprised! Move fast and don't get trapped between Monstas.
	MAZE 9 The return of the moving platform. This time it's a bit harder because you must ride it to get to the goal, unless you die and respawn at your starting position.
	MAZE 10 More screen-flooding madness! This stage is quite challenging! There's a lot to do and so little time! Don't waste any second and go for the hearts. You MUST flood the stage in order to access the heart at the left.
	MAZE 11 This stage features an incredibly annoying moving platform! You will lose so many lives just because of it. It doesn't move randomly, though. Be patient and learn its movement pattern.
	MAZE 12 Breakable-wall mayhem! Just be careful not to blow up useful bricks or you may end up trapped!
	MAZE 13 Another stage with lots of things to do and so little time. Be REALLY careful when riding that moving platform. It was designed to specifically squash you! Advice: first go for the heart at the right!
	MAZE 14 Wow! Did you survive Maze 13? That's amazing! This final maze features some breakable walls whose colors are just quite similar to the regular one's. Go get the last two hearts and be ready for a happy wedding! Kawaii!

Cut-scenes Chack'n Pop has six little cut-scenes.
	Cut-Scene 1 Plays before Maze 1 Description: Intro scene. Already wrote this, but here's it again anyway. There are Mr. Chack'n and Ms. Chack'n. They love each other, and this is clearly visible as we can see some red hearts hovering around them. This is when disaster strikes... Some nasty Monstas fly by and capture the hearts! They disappear through an opening in the floor, leaving the poor couple without their precious hearts! Miss Chack'n then says: "Take back our hearts!" And Mr. Chack'n promptly answers: "OK!" Then, our heroic yellow creature jumps after the unholy thieves! Just when Mr. Chack'n disappears through the hole, a Mighta appears and closes the opening, leaving our hero no other way out than to clear the upcoming mazes!
	Cut-Scene 2 Plays after Maze 3 Description: Eight lined-up Mightas enter on screen from the left. Chack'n appears and hops on them one after another ala Super Mario, squashing them. However, the last Mighta shows some signs of intelligence as it steps aside at the last possible moment. Due to this nasty move, Chack'n miss his hop, trips and falls.
	Cut-Scene 3 Plays after Maze 6 Description: Miss Chack'n runs on screen as three Monstas chase her. A huge Mr. Chack'n falls from above, squashing all three Monstas, thus saving his beloved girlfriend. Now, how on earth did he become big?
	Cut-Scene 4 Plays after Maze 9 Description: Super Chack'n dashes towards a group of Monstas. They run away and into the right side of the screen. Super Chack'n continues his pursuit, but roles get switched as a giant Monsta appears! Terror strikes! Super Chack'n runs for his life, but it seems that the huge Monsta is faster. It ends up eating poor Chack'n and spitting his sorry skeleton away...
	Cut-Scene 5 Plays after Maze 12 Description: Four Monstas give chase to both Mr. and Ms. Chack'n. They find a heart-shaped red balloon and hold onto it. Both characters float safely above the Monstas, probably making fun of them. Those little rascals, they think they are so much...
	Cut-Scene 6 Plays after Maze 14 Description: Ending scene. We see Mr. and Ms. Chack'n in wedding suits. A giant flashing heart forms around them and seven Mightas start dancing. Happy wedding!

Technical information Data from Chack'n Pop's rom set as used by Mame.
File Name	CRC	Size (in bytes)
6875.MCU	????????	2048
A04-01.28	386FE1C8	8192
A04-02.27	5562A6A7	8192
A04-03.26	3E2F0A9C	8192
A04-04.25	5209C7D4	8192
A04-05.3	8720E024	8192
A04-07.15	AE687C18	8192
A04-08.14	5575A021	8192
A04-09.98	757A723A	8192
A04-10.97	3E3FD608	8192
A04-11.BIN	9BF0E85F	1024
A04-12.BIN	954CE8FC	1024
Total size		77824
CPU: Z80 running at 2.86 Mhz Sound: Two AY-3-8910 at 1.536 Mhz Screen Resolution: 256x224 at 60 Hz Size: Height=600-700mm, Width=960mm, Depth=560mm Power: AC100V 50-60Hz Weight: 58kg Energy consumption: 100W Game programmed by JUN

Graphic Set 1	Graphic Set 2
Stored in A04-07.15 and A04-08.14	Stored in A04-09.98 and A04-10.97
The graphics are stored in 1bpp format (1 bit-per-pixel: Color depth=2). You can use TLayer to easily see them. The game merges A04-07.15 and A04-08.14 to get Graphic Set 1. A similar thing happens with A04-09.98 and A04-10.97 to get Graphic Set 2. When merged, resulting graphics end up being 2bpp format (Color depth=4) and they are ready to be used by the game. If you think that there's a lot of wasted space, specially in set 2, you're not alone. Note: the different wall patterns are hidden inside A04-04.25

CHEATS for MAME: Add the following lines to "CHEATS.DAT" in Mame's folder. :chaknpop:00000001:8403:0000000A:FFFFFFFF:9 Lives PL1 :chaknpop:00000001:8404:0000000A:FFFFFFFF:9 Lives PL2 To enable them you must run mame using the -cheat parameter. There will be a new "cheats" entry on the Tab menu. These cheats are "one-shot" type. They don't freeze the value in memory because the game crashes if you do so. This means you must activate this cheat every time you are running low on lives. (the lives counter at the bottom does not update until the next stage)

Top, NES version, SG-1000 version, MSX version, Acknowledgements

Chack'n Pop for NES

Overview The NES version features 9 mazes, as opposed to 14 in the original arcade version. There are no water stages, no introduction, no funny cut-scenes and certainly no ending! Once you finish Maze 9, you start over from Maze 1. At that time, the huge limitations forced programmers to cut down this NES version to a bare minimum. After playing the arcade version and knowing what the NES is capable of, I'm certain this one could be way better. This game in fact could be identical to the arcade version, if not an exact copy, had it been released five years later. However, video game programmers in 1983 hadn't enough experience with the still brand new system. They still didn't know how to get the most out of the NES.

Data from the NES version. Mapper #0 (no mapper) 1x16k rom 1x8k rom Size (bytes): 24576 (+16 because of header) The NES version, just like every early NES game, doesn't use any mapper. It means that it's limited by the NES normal graphic capacity (256 8x8pixel sprite tiles and 256 8x8pixel background tiles). Later NES games overcome this limitation by using bank-switching techniques, which are not available in mapper 0.

Note about Bank-switching: What is bank-switching? Here's a good example of it. Load Super Mario Bros. 3 (or any later NES game) on Nesticle and press F2. A Window labeled "patterns" will pop up. This window shows the current graphic set used. Now start the game and play. You'll see how the contents of the Patterns Window changes as you play. It usually happens when the screen fades to black, thus concealing the change. This is called bank-switching, as the program switches graphic banks. This technique allowed game designers to stretch NES video limits a little, stuffing more graphics into their games. Now try and load a Mapper #0 game (Super Mario Bros., Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong, Popeye, etc). The contents of Nesticle's Patterns Window will never change, no matter where are you in the game. Let's get back on topic.

Graphic Set 1 (sprites)	Graphic Set 2 (background)
These snapshots have no palette attribute. That's why they're in grey scale. The much lower graphic capacity is quite apparent, don't you think? However, there's still enough space for a normal-sized Mighta. Why did they make him so small? Just like the other Mapper 0 games, this NES game stores its graphic data in the last 8192 bytes. Needless to say, the graphics are 2bpp.

Game mazes These are the 9 levels available in the NES version of Chack'n Pop, along with the title screen. All of them were taken from the arcade version. There were some slight modifications, though.

Top, NES version, SG-1000 version, MSX version, Acknowledgements

Chack'n Pop for SG-1000

Overview What the heck is the SG-1000? That's the millionaire question! Let's shed some light on this old obscure system from Sega. The SG-1000 (Sega Game 1000), was released in Japan in July 1983. Heavily based on the MSX hardware, it is the first known Sega home console system. Four months later, Sega released the SC-3000 (Sega Computer 3000), a variation of the SG-1000 and still compatible with it. This new version had a keyboard and some optional peripherals such as a printer, a tape recorder, or an extension called the Super Control Station, providing a 3" floppy disk drive, a Centronics printer port and more available memory. The Mark III, released in 1985, was the first Master System compatible system, and still had the necessary ports for the keyboard. A FM extension was made available later, providing with a much better sound hardware. It was backward compatible with SG-1000/SC-3000 games. In 1986 came the Sega Master System, the final step in the SG family. It was also backward compatible with the older systems, with the same palette problem as the Mark III. The system failed to make the impact in America that Sega had hoped for. It sold 125000 units in its first four months, but in the same time, Nintendo sold 2 million NES consoles. The Sega Game Gear was released in 1991. It is nothing but a portable Master System with a smaller screen, a communication port for dual player gaming and a bigger palette (4096 colors available instead of 64 on the Master System). As for the game itself, this is probably the most playable rendition of the original arcade game. It features all the original levels and a surprisingly enhanced soundtrack.

Graphic Sets

In the SG-1000 version, the graphics are found in four chunks of data wandering inside the game rom. This screenshot shows all four chunks together.

Game mazes These are all 14 levels available in the SG-1000 version of Chack'n Pop. All of them were taken from the arcade version. There were some really subtle modifications, though.

Top, NES version, SG-1000 version, MSX version, Acknowledgements

Chack'n Pop for MSX

Overview What is MSX? MSX is an old Z80-based family of home computers which appeared in autumn 1983 as an attempt to establish a single standard in home computing similar to VHS in video. They were popular in Asian (Korea, Japan) and South American (Brazil, Chile) countries as well as in Europe (Netherlands, France, Spain) and former Soviet Union, but they are virtually unknown in USA. Although the MSX standard quietly died from year 1988, the world got to see MSX2, MSX2+ and TurboR extensions of it. The fact is that this system received what is probably the worst version of Chack'n Pop ever. At least that's what most people say :)

Top, NES version, SG-1000 version, MSX version, Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements