Reconstructed assembly sources for Pango (1980s DOS game)

[NY00123]

https://gitlab.com/NY00123/pango-re

Pango is a clone of the arcade game Pengo (note the differing 2nd letter). As in the original game, you play the role of a penguin, named Pango in this clone. Your goal is clearing the field of bees. You can do so by squashing them with blocks. Additionally, you may capture bees after shocking them by kicking nearby walls. For more details, including bonus points, check "How to Play ?" in the game's menu.

The original arcade game was released in 1982, from what I can see. The covered DOS version was (probably) released in 1983.

The linked repository includes reconstructed assembly sources. It is my assumption that the sources were originally written in assembly, given the lack of an equivalent of C library initialization routines or standard calling conventions. Also, outside of using a call stack for function calls and pushed register values, stack memory does not appear to be used for local variables at all.

With the right tools, I could recreate the original executable, byte-by-byte. Namely, these would be The Microsoft MACRO Assembler (MASM) Version 1.10 (5.10 is another option) and the IBM Personal Computer Link Version 1.10. As usual, your mileage may vary. While optional, the Microsoft Program Maintenance Utility (NMAKE) Version 1.00.05 should be useful.

Edited May 27 by NY00123

[Master O]

For those unfamiliar with Pengo, the arcade game:

 

 

 

[NY00123]

So, the following recent discovery of mine is less about the aforementioned clone for DOS itself, but is still Pengo-related, so I guess I can still use this thread for now (rather than creating a new one).

 

People around here might be familiar with the 1993 Apogee-published game titled "Halloween Harry", or alternatively, "Alien Carnage". In fact, it was not the first game in the franchise. One of the people behind this 1993 game, John Passfield, was previously working on a 1985 game similarly titled "Halloween Harry" for the Australian Microbee computer system. The game was released via Honeysoft Publishing Company at the time.

 

I wrote about it beforehand: https://forums.duke4.net/topic/12315-alien-carnage-halloween-harry-corner/page__p__379778#entry379778

 

Now, after a recent search leading to a page about the person's works, I accidentally found out that Passfield previously published another Microbee game in this manner. It is the 1984 game "Chilly Willy". Indeed, it is a clone of Pengo. There's another clone of the same name for the Commodore 64, btw.

 

Actually, chances are I already saw a mention of the Microbee-compatible clone, at least in the file "harry25th.txt" as available from an August 1993 beta of the Apogee-published Halloween Harry game (if not also the freeware release's readme.txt).

 

In the aforementioned thread about Halloween Harry, I brought up the Microbee Software Preservation Project, i.e., MSPP. As in the case of Halloween Harry, I could find a disk image including Chilly Willy and get it to work, using the uBee512 emulator:

 

Spoiler

As written at the time, it is my understanding that you may download the files, but not redistribute them. I'll repeat the summary of steps I used for getting the game working, with minor changes:

 

1. The MSPP website's main page currently links to 3 repositories.

 

2. I got the uBee512 emulator from the Microbee-MSPP "Public" repository, under the directory Projects/ubee512.

 

3. I downloaded the disk image with game from the Microbee Technology repository, under the path Microbee/Software/Disks_original/Microbee/Honeysoft/honeysoft_arcade_games_vol_3_t04.zip.

 

4. A separate page should lead you to required system ROMs; The files I used are named charrom.bin and rom1.bin. I'm not sure there's a URL to the page in question from one of the website's usual pages, but try looking for "technology_public".

 

Vimeo-hosted gameplay video:

 

https://vimeo.com/75279888

 

YouTube-hosted gameplay video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidEYtravyk