Yōkai Yashiki graphic patch

Who has not ever played an MSX classic by Casio? They are entertaining and special games with a catchy PSG music, without a doubt they have a unique style!

MRC user Néstor Sancho (theNestruo), developer of Stevedore, has just released a graphic patch for one of those Casio jewels, it is Yōkai Yashiki (aka Ghost House), a platform game published in 1986. This patch is based on the work by the Japanese user @yazioh who designed a mock-up of the game just one month ago, a considerable improvement.

What are you waiting for to try it? Don't forget to buy enough batteries for your torch!

Relevant link: Yōkai Yashiki graphic patch download

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By mesiasmsx

Prophet (3455)

15-07-2021, 20:11

Thank you!

By Pippo

Hero (521)

15-07-2021, 20:28

Simply wonderful!!
An Msx Gem has become more shining!
Many, many thanks to the authors, really.

By ren

Paragon (1947)

15-07-2021, 21:31

Cheers!

By saccopharynx

Master (175)

16-07-2021, 01:44

What???? No f.....g way!!! This is one of my favourite MSX1 games and the patch does a very impressive job!!! Can't wait to play it again!!!!! Thank you!!!

By TheKid

Paragon (1238)

16-07-2021, 07:57

Very nice upgrde, well done, the enhanced version looks very nice. A real eye-candy.

By theNestruo

Champion (430)

16-07-2021, 12:09

Thank you!

Actually, the patches are not based just on the mockups. Those mockups grabbed my attention and took a peek inside the code; the graphics were uncompressed so I replaced the sprite sheet and sent that version to Yazioh. He liked it and sent me additional graphics, so I started patching and adjusting the code to make room for them. It has been a great collaboration and Yazioh-san was kind enough to provide me alternative versions of almost everything just in case he was exceeding the tile count, or I was unable to patch some particular detail of the code. Everything was salted with automated translations to make conversations even funnier :-D

For example: I changed the 4th boss graphics with the graphic in the mockup, and then I discovered it didn't work (because the eye is an sprite and I hadn't changed any code for that). Before I was able to take a look at the code, Yazioh had already sent me a different gaphic that perfectly matched the original routines! :-O
He also found that the "demon jumping" sprite was never used in the original game; he knew the game much better than I did!!

So... maybe I was the guy that moved around some bytes of code and published the patch, and maybe my tweet unintentionally implied otherwise... but the real artist of these patches is indeed Yazioh! Big kudos to him!!

I hope he does another CASIO mockup somewhen in the future... I'm pretty sure I couldn't resist to start the disassembler again ;-)

By jltursan

Prophet (2619)

16-07-2021, 16:04

I'm sure loving all these revamped titles, it's quite fascinating to see again a classic like this with new eyes!.

Yazioh and you teamed great, we want more indeed!

By MajorTOM

Master (241)

16-07-2021, 18:17

Great Job Guys!!!

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

16-07-2021, 20:11

Great work guys!

By saccopharynx

Master (175)

17-07-2021, 13:51

What is exactly the patch I should apply to have the graphics shown in the screenshots above? I applied v1.1 (EN), but the 4th boss is not exactly the same.

By theNestruo

Champion (430)

17-07-2021, 16:06

saccopharynx wrote:

What is exactly the patch I should apply to have the graphics shown in the screenshots above? I applied v1.1 (EN), but the 4th boss is not exactly the same.

Oops, sorry about the confusion. That particular screenshot is one of the first mock-ups that Yazioh twitted... but it is not an actual screenshot of the patch.
About the 4th boss in particular:

theNestruo wrote:

I changed the 4th boss graphics with the graphic in the mockup, and then I discovered it didn't work (because the eye is an sprite and I hadn't changed any code for that). Before I was able to take a look at the code, Yazioh had already sent me a different gaphic that perfectly matched the original routines! :-O

If I ever revisit the code in the future, checking the possibility of using the 4th boss from the original mock-up is one of the things in my tentative TO-DO list

By theNestruo

Champion (430)

30-10-2022, 14:51

For the technically inclined: Youkai Yashiki graphics patch source code

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6980)

31-10-2022, 13:41

Very interesting! Thanks!

By theNestruo

Champion (430)

01-11-2022, 13:55

ARTRAG wrote:

Very interesting! Thanks!

Thanks, Artrag!
A fully annotated disassembly would have been better... but there are too many ideas and too little spare time! :_D
It is curious to see the code style of CASIO at that time. It is particularly naive! That made really easy to make room for all the improvements, so I'm not complaining ^_^
As graphics were uncompressed, replacing them was really easy; if anyone is willing to patch another CASIO game... go ahead! They are great to learn how to disassemble MSX games
About the game engine... not only other CASIO games seems to have the same engine (Iga Ninpouten 2), but also some HAL games! (Mobile Planet Styllus, Bull and Mighty's Slim Chance)

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