Fix it Felix Jr. - The Game

[Bag of Magic Food]

Some of the arcade sounds he ripped himself by going into the park (if I remember rightly) and recording them straight from the machine while he was getting reference material. I know he has some of the effects from the movie, but I'm not for sure how he ripped them.

I don't know anything about surround sound ripping, but that might be the key to it. I've seen other people get somewhat-clean copies of the film's version of "Bug Hunt" by taking a sound channel that's mostly just the music.

Also just realized that that track in the album has this same music, hah! The only difference is in sound10.wav. If you listen closely in the film the version on the soundtrack is not the one used, but the one from the concept video!

Yes, the low Gs and Fs are missing in the music from the playable game. Either it got hit by some kind of high-pass filter, or someone's keyboard didn't go low enough to reach those notes the first time around.

Now I've seen some behind-the-scenes B-roll videos that have an early version of the film's soundtrack playing on top of them.

has the soundtrack separated to the right channel of the stereo. I don't know if there are original source files for these, but I did some YouTube ripping to get that early soundtrack, where the music of Fix-It Felix, Jr. seems to be in a state of progress somewhere in between what's used in the real game and what's heard in the finished movie. Taking just the part of the music that loops, here's the game-play music in somewhat higher quality:

sound14a.wav

The way this sounds in the movie is rather different. The opening is cut short to more quickly get into an extended melody which actually resolves itself with the B-flat-to-C progression and starts out with the top note played an octave down. I actually found an mp3 rip of the complete film score (minus licensed songs), so I kludged together what I had to produce something resembling a full loop:

sound14b.wav

So that soundtrack also gives me the music for beating a level. I noticed that earlier versions of the "You fixed it!" music have different notes in some of the chords, or at least emphasize those notes differently, so instead of just uploading the piece of the final soundtrack, I tried mixing some together in the hopes of making it sound a little more majestic.

sound11a.wav

Part 2 of "You fixed it!" didn't change at all as far as we've heard, so I simply cut it to start in the same place as the original arcade track so the timing isn't changed.

sound12a.wav

The Level Complete music is an interesting case. There's a version of it in the preliminary soundtrack that's shorter than what's used in the real game, much like how the movie's version of the "I can fix it!" tune combined two notes into one to become a little shorter (and sneaked a short A-flat major chord in before the final chord for some reason). I think the directors wanted these pieces to be a little snappier for the film and so cut them short, but then they elected not to put a Level Complete tune in the movie at all. So again I mixed together what I had to improve some of the quality, but this means the track will suddenly get fuzzier in the middle. (This is music I'm sure can be easily remade in Famitracker anyway.)

sound13a.wav

Interestingly, if you look up the new "Celebrate the Magic" castle projection show at Walt Disney World, a couple minutes in there's a Wreck-It Ralph segment based on the game which uses the shorter versions of both the "I can fix it!" theme and the "Level 1 Complete" theme unused from the movie, as well as the ending to the Buckner song and the Game Over sign from the Flash version of the game. It also has Ralph's fists make the "bonk"s, while Felix's hammer only makes the "pong"s. That reminds me, I tried adding back the game's fixing sound to the movie's sounds to create a sound1b.wav, which may slightly mask the paper noise or simulate the way the Flash version doesn't play the window-filling-in sound until after the hammer stops swinging, but, I doubt you really want to keep taking every one of my little sound experiments.

I won't be able to do much more experimentation this month, as I think this game is what finally killed my laptop's cooling fan, so now it won't run any high-power processes for longer than a minute or two before it spontaneously shuts down from some overheating failsafe, even if I keep it in a cool place with another fan blowing over it. But I can still try to do some analysis for people looking to recreate Fix-It Felix, Jr. in some form. I had been bugging people in Sjaak's topic with observations about real versions of the game and what they might be missing from what the movie shows, and now the leaked arcade game executable has made it easier to see just what was and wasn't included, complete with handy resource files.

At first I liked that the arcade version had so many more poses for Ralph, with his crab-walk patrolling, his side-pounding, and the whole opening story. Upon doing some close comparisons, however, I see that this graphics pack is missing one whole color for Ralph's shirt, making every other row of squares a plain stripe, which makes his left shoulderblade look a little strange the way they attached the arm for climbing. There may also be some minor errors in the placement of the dark pink outlines and creases, as if that was the part the artists hadn't quite finished yet. The medal is the same way, missing the shaded streaks and differing in a few pixels from other versions, which is a shame as this is the only one where you get the medal in the different sizes and brightnesses a real 8-bit game would have to use instead of the smooth fading and scaling of a Flash-based game. I did notice the home versions may have tried to improve on some of the frames for Ralph getting thrown into the mud.

And although Ralph has nearly all his animation frames in the arcade version, I caught a few frames of him in poses during game-play in the movie that haven't been seen in any real version. In the movie, when Ralph is about to do his side-pounding, he first tenses up with his face wincing and his arms pulled up tighter against his body, as seen here. Then he stretches his arms up as high as he can with his mouth wide open, as seen here. The real game just uses his growling animation again. And after side-pounding, Ralph is in his patrolling pose for one frame, except both feet are on the ledge and neither his head nor his body have bobbed down a pixel. I think the Flash version might have this pose. Are Ralph's shoulders supposed to be perfectly aligned when he's patrolling? His right shoulder looks to be a pixel higher than his left shoulder in the arcade version.

Earlier I had seen that the movie has Ralph posed with his whole body spread out in the air, both arms and legs off the ground, after he finishes his hyper-punching. But then I saw something in the arcade version that surprised me. They didn't put in the other hyper-punching frame! They merely reversed the other frame, just as in the home versions! This disappointed me because beyond that, the arcade version doesn't have the problem of Ralph's suspender strap switching sides when he changes directions, and this is a frame you could have seen in a close-up in the original teaser trailer. In the movie, it's not just a simple flip: When Ralph's right fist hits the ledge, his legs pop up a pixel, his face sinks down a pixel, and the strap is redrawn over his right shoulder, where his hair won't overlap it, and so of course the other shoulder has the shirt pattern redrawn over it, as seen here. This one might be fixable in the leaked game, since reversals are stored separately rather than mirrored by the game code.

I saw minor errors in several of the Nicelanders' faces, mainly their angry ones, as well as some failures to fill in inner black pixels in many graphics, including the ducks, which are otherwise whole in the graphics pack, but fail to load their bottom few rows of pixels in-game. Felix's graphics look really good, though, barring that they forgot to fill in his mouth with black pixels for the dying animation--probably a late addition, since it's separate from the rest, and it is still an improvement over the Flash versions. Felix's palette looks good, even, with no bright oranges turned pink or dark browns turned purple like the others. I don't know if Super Felix's cap should be only one color, but I suppose that's better than leaving a patch of light blue on it. The first change I spotted in Felix's sprite is that the center of Felix's medal is dark brown, when in all other versions it's bright yellow; don't know what that's all about.

The other one took me a lot longer, since so much of Felix in this game matches the movie perfectly: In the real game, Felix has droopy eyebrows the whole time he's in play, only raising them when he's standing around on the roof awaiting his prizes. In the movie, Felix keeps his eyebrows perked up during game-play, only letting them sag when he first lifts the hammer, when he's been kissed, and for one frame of the twirling-into-Super-Felix animation. Given that all the unused graphics in the file have high eyebrows except for the first frame where Felix begins to lift a pie (with no medal), I'm guessing the developers started with a set of Felix's sprites from the movie, then made a deliberate decision to lower his eyebrows to make him look more sympathetic, stopping this editing once they realized they wouldn't be using the pie-eating frames.

The browser version just has two walking frames, where one of Felix's arms sticks out differently, as if they added on a hammer-holding hand without the hammer. It makes use of a few of Felix's other faces for when he collects a pie, which otherwise went unused for the arcade game. Of course the movie is also shown to paste on different faces in different scenes, like making Felix look distraught when Ralph's missing, or having Ralph smile during the bonus level.

Then you have the animation frames for Felix in the movie which I haven't seen anywhere else, even besides the infamous "turbocharged Super Felix", but first... Let's see... Well, in the arcade version, the five white lines coming out of the hammer are always part of the graphic for Felix holding it up high, but in the movie, those lines appear for only a moment, as if they turned into the message "I can fix it!" Another funny thing about those lines is, when you mouse over 8-Bit Felix on the official website, the lines come out a piece at a time, while the lines of shock Felix makes in the movie from seeing the building undamaged disappear a piece at a time. I saw that Felix went back to holding the hammer high with his hand on his hip, though with eyes lowered and eyebrows raised, when standing still after fixing the door, while the real arcade version's idle pose has him holding the hammer lower with his other hand back, as in the previous frame of the original hammer-lifting animation.

Someone said that Felix in the movie has a jumping pose unused by the real game, but I didn't really see it; it looked as if Felix just stayed in one of his running poses while jumping in the movie too. Then I saw what he might have been talking about. Early on in the game in the movie, Felix uses the exact same poses as seen in the real arcade game, besides the eyebrows thing I mentioned. But later on, he uses some different ones for some reason. You can see a couple of them well in the close-up where Felix goes after the pie: In one frame, he's got both knees bent and feet high off the ground, making his pants appear to form a gentle sloped line. In another, one leg sticks out pretty much straight forward, and the other leg sticks out straight back and toward the ground. He's got his arm pulled back in both of these. So I don't know if they forgot to use these poses before, or if they're mixing different versions of the walk cycle, or if some are supposed to be for a running faster cycle, or if one of them really is meant for jumping, and they just never sorted this all out, or what.

It's like how you have to make up your own interpretation of what movie Felix can do, since we don't know exactly how he's controlled at any given moment. I actually don't find Super Felix's abilities that ridiculous, since the arcade version added the flashing hammer and the bricks bouncing off the cap (though without the sparks), the new mobile version added the golden ring with stars around (though in the movie it looks more like a ring of fire with sparks coming off), and the second browser version upgrades the hammer to fix two windowpanes in a single swing, plus it already had the instantaneous movement with limited animation allowing Felix to fix a dozen windows before the time runs out, and a few of the poses for collecting the pie. (Though fixing both windowpanes at once is actually bad for your score, despite what the mock arcade instructions say about pies adding points, since you only get credit for a single fix. This is why in the arcade version, I race to fix all the singly-broken windows first, leaving only one doubly-broken window alone in a low corner for as long as possible, as Ralph's bricks can seem to only break a limited number of additional windows, and they are able to break the other pane out of the same window, which would waste the potential points from it.) I'm more confused over whether you would have to wait for Felix to make all those faces and let some bricks bounce off his hat before moving again, or if he's waiting for you to push a button to get his golden hoop on, or how all that idling might work.

It's also concerning that the movie's Felix seems able to hide out beyond the edge of the building where Ralph's bricks wouldn't reach him, since with no timer you could just walk away from the game indefinitely and never lose, and that too much jump control might actually make it harder to dodge the brick piles or allow Felix to drop down by accident all the time, and that Felix doesn't seem to be expected to fill in the big hole behind Ralph in the movie--How would that work? Doesn't Ralph have to climb to the penthouse for another round before Felix can win? If he had to scoot back to the center, as he does in the arcade version, he'd be climbing on thin air! And then Felix might have to create whole windows just to be able to stand on them. Then there are the weird continuity errors, like how the life counter goes from three to two when the game begins (Maybe Felix uses up an "extra" life just to enter?), or how there were bricks headed down the center for Felix that disappeared in a close-up (Maybe the movie skipped ahead to after Felix dodged and retried that jump, and that's where the missing music went), or how the building magically widens to give the rooftop scene some breathing room.

It's worth noting too that the real arcade game totally redid the dust clouds from building the building, from a giant cluster of similar shapes in the movie to a simple row of four of the same shape in the real game, which is more realistic. The two smallest sizes of dust clouds in the graphics pack seem to have gone unused by the game. These clouds are also nothing like the clouds kicked up by Ralph wrecking the building from the ledge, which look more like the ones in that one concept video. I tried looking for other changes to the scenery... The entry doors break differently in the movie, with only the upper-right pane looking the same, the lower-right pane completely knocked out, and the lower-left pane in a different shape taken out of the lower-right region. The real game uses the same gash from the upper-right pane for the upper-left pane.

I see the graphics for backgrounds in the arcade version are chopped off on the left and right sides compared to the movie in order to fit into 240x320. The movie's game must be over 300 pixels wide, and I think they wanted to pretend the game wouldn't need scrolling. The shades of the window-frame colors are too close for me to really see if any of those graphics were changed, so... Oh my gosh! The arcade version doesn't have the flowerbeds with the potted bushes on the ground in front of Niceland Apts., does it? I was looking and looking and thought maybe the graphic came in somewhere else, but no, it's missing! How did we miss that? Well, I supposed camera recordings of the game would need to be close enough, in focus, and peering over the bottom edge of the screen border to reveal that. I know the Flash versions of this game contain that graphic, just not all centered as neatly. I guess it was worth me rambling on too long that I noticed this. And I suppose trying to add it into this game would make the windows appear on top of the bushes, grumble grumble.

[djvj]

helloooo wall of text!

[Bag of Magic Food]

Now I remember, the "224x256" on the "population sign" over Fix-It Felix, Jr.'s train station was said to refer to the resolution of the game, but we know that's way too small for the arcade version. I guess it was supposed to be just a reference to the average resolution of a game console in the 1980's, though I think it was the other way around, 256x224. And I know the Nintendo Entertainment System actually produces 256x240 pixels of graphics, but with the expectation that about sixteen lines will get cut off the edges of the average NTSC display.

[frostyfire03530]

I updated the sound files that have been submitted, since I got some time today.

I've been working in a debugger and have been able to modify how the fullscreen settings work. I NOP'ed the test for rotation and resolution to allow fullscreen, the downside is when this is done, the computer does not change resolutions either. This does allow quicker implementation of the fullscreen settings if you didn't need it to rotate or change res. I also have modified how the resizing is allowed in the frame, but even with the option to resize the frame, it doesn't scale the game when you do. I'm going to keep trying and see what turns up.

[Bag of Magic Food]

So maybe I'll try some more edits once I get a new computer... But wait, do we know if the game will run on Windows 8 in any way? I think that's what my new computer will come with.

[djvj]

I'm only on win8 now, and it runs fine for me.

[prostkxy]

Works on windows 8 for me too

[frostyfire03530]

I've got some people who have been asked to test out a horizontal based version of the executable. I'll post good news once I know!

[Mrmikey73]

ok tried the new version and this is the best so far. The game is centered perfect and I can see the top and bottom of the game. The only issue is its still small, I have about 5 inches on both top and bottom but it could also be I did something wrong. I put it at 50% (tried100% to big). I wasn sure about what you meant as far as full screen. I cant click on full screen in the game it does nothing and I didnt see any options in the ahk files from djvj or chillin but if theres a way to stretch it out a little it will be perfect. Thank you very much!!!

[frostyfire03530]

From what I can tell it may be a monitor limitation for some people. I took the game over to a friends house (unmodded) and he couldn't enter fullscreen on 50% turned 270 degrees, like you normally can.

@Mrmikey73 could you tell me what resolutions your monitor supports?

My intel hd4000 on my laptop allows for 640x400, even though it's not listed in the W7 graphics settings. My current resolution I'm running at is 1366x768, but it does make the switch when called by the program.

The other option would be to try to invoke 1024x768 and use the 100% scale zoom. I'd have to look into it, but I'm pretty sure it would work. I'd have to relook over my notes.

[Mrmikey73]

Thanks for your effort!! I'm limited to 640x480 using my arcade vga3000 and xp64. The game is playable just small.

[frostyfire03530]

Okay, so it is a 640x480... and the fullscreen option would not work correct?

Edit: Would you mind posting a picture of what it looks like?

[BUCKETHEAD]

In other news,

Here's what's in the packet attached to the back of the Real Fix-it-Felix Jr. Machines.

Enjoy.

[frostyfire03530]

@BUCKETHEAD: Thanks for the pictures!

@Mrmikey73: Sent you a new PM, check if that works in fullscreen. Still have to work on the frame size though.

The wife and I are going out to party. I might be back on later, let me know how that works.

[Mrmikey73]

Here's a pic. Both files appear to be same size.

[frostyfire03530]

Hmm, I can't tell the difference in those pictures either! Heh. Well, I sent you another version that allows the fullscreen button to work even in 640x480 resolution.

I cant click on full screen in the game it does nothing and I didnt see any options in the ahk files from djvj or chillin

You can just use these parameters from a shortcut in Windows: <executable> -zoom=50 -fullscreen

or if you're using the PC Games Launcher by djvj use these settings under the /Modules/PC Games/Settings.ini file:

ApplicationPath = <YOUR PATH TO THE FIXITFELIX FOLDER WITH THE EXECUTABLE>

ApplicationEXE = FixitFelixJr_v4.0.3.5.exe

Parameters = -zoom=50 -fullscreen

It looked like it was working in those pictures though. I wonder if it was because that one was still the 640x400 and it changed your res temporarily.

Meh.

I'll try looking for where it's sizing the rendered frame at and see what I can do. If anything, I'll ask some of my professors when my next semester starts on Monday. They might have some insight on the assembly language I've been scratching my head at.

[djvj]

The only downside of fullscreen is unable to use the nice bezel. Works good so far man, if you can just get it to get closer to using the full height of my monitor it would be even better.

[frostyfire03530]

I found some code that changes the frame that the sprites are rendered in. It made it the right size, but there is a frame that needs to be resized that is around them it's looking like this now:

As you can see clearly on the bottom and on the right side, you can see where the outside frame is cutting off what should be shown, the sprite frame is being rendered from the top/left corner which is why you can see everything there.

[Bag of Magic Food]

I don't know who ponrev is, but this user posted a video of Fix-It Felix, Jr. running with the audio swaps.

[relic]

hmmm everything looks perfect but theres 1 thing thats missing and i noticed in the arcade edition wreck it ralph smashing walls is that gonna be added as well

[frostyfire03530]

@Bag of Magic Food: He does have some audio swapped, but I noticed some differences. It was none of the HD sounds that we ripped from the soundtrack, you can tell from the quality. I also noted that there we some extra sounds that they had that we didn't. They had swapped out sound28.wav for a ripped sound of Gene yelling as he's thrown. The other interesting swap that they made is in sound7.wav they had an impeccable rip of "Hey, you moved my stump!". I'll probably try contacting them and seeing if they wouldn't mind sharing it.

@relic: I don't have any plans to. What I have to work with as far as code goes is just assembly language stuff; that I really don't understand too well, and I don't think I have the power to add that to it. This may be something that Sjaak or BadBoyBill might have added to their versions. I'm just not too sure. You could always ask one of them. No word yet on either of those releases though. I personally have more hope for a BBB release on a site that he said may be in the works without any sort of advertising at all or any kind of monetary gain. That has been the most talk we have ever heard of either of those two versions being released in the wild. With the leaked version being available though, they may just not release them at all.

[SORHP]

You guys are doing some fantastic work here with trying to get the sound perfect, been following for a while... keep at it, soon we will have the best damn copy of FFJ anywhere!

Thanks for making my Arcade happy!.. and happier in the future

[frostyfire03530]

@SORHP: Thanks! On a side note, I just checked out your Nintendo VS Cab...

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/1125551

[Bag of Magic Food]

He does have some audio swapped, but I noticed some differences. It was none of the HD sounds that we ripped from the soundtrack, you can tell from the quality. I also noted that there we some extra sounds that they had that we didn't. They had swapped out sound28.wav for a ripped sound of Gene yelling as he's thrown. The other interesting swap that they made is in sound7.wav they had an impeccable rip of "Hey, you moved my stump!". I'll probably try contacting them and seeing if they wouldn't mind sharing it.

I think the other sounds might come from Jr. Pac on this topic, with downloads on pages 9 and 12 so far. Annoyingly it's one of those forums where you can't post until you do some kind of favor.

[frostyfire03530]

@Bag of Magic Food: I was following that thread for a little bit when it first started, I should have kept up with it.

Edit: Plus, once I'm approved I'll send Jr.Pac a quick PM and see if he could send me the unmixed audio that he has so we can add them to our list... I might even start a thread over there organized like this one or just point them over here.