GachaSta! Dino Device

GachaSta! Dino Device Red & Blue
Developer: A.I Publisher: Smilesoft Platform: Game Boy Advance Released in JP: July 6, 2002 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has debugging material. This game has a hidden sound test.

GachaSta! Dino Device is a gashapon simulator inside of a PDA simulator.

Debug Menu

Changing 0x4DCA to 0x32 will cause the game to boot into debug. The menu displays an apparent build date of May 8, 2002. Interestingly, it also shows that the internal names of the game/versions as MONSTER CITY VER A BLADE and MONSTER CITY VER B BLASTER (Red version has more melee weapons and Blue version has more projectile weapons, so this makes sense.) At the bottom of the screen is what appears to be a total frame counter.

Testing certain features is difficult because debug mode appears to ignore the current save, using blank or default values for variables such as the player's name, party, etc, which causes glitches when you try to walk around or battle. A few of the menu options also seem to be partially or fully disabled, some can only be reached by booting straight into them.

• GAME START - Starts a new game.
• PDA SYSTEM - Opens the Dino Pad.
• MONSTER CITY VER A BLADE / VER B BLASTER - Opens a CITY SETUP MENU, used for testing the various in-game scenarios. MAPNUMBER affects your starting position in some way. MONEY is obvious. MONSTER NUM and COUNT appear to control the number of Dinos registered in the index. Use the D-Pad to change NUM and A to increase COUNT (must have NUM selected to change either of them.) This won't change your party, storage, or population. SCENARIO lets you choose which event you'd like to occur. START drops you in-game with a party consisting of a random Dino style (eg three types of Taurus) depending on what you set MONSTER NUM and COUNT to.
• BATTLE SYSTEM - Opens the BATTLE SETUP MENU. This lets you test a one-turn battle. MONSTER SIDE lets you select whether you're currently editing the player (TEMAE) or opponent (OKU) monster. There are other options here but it's unsure what they do. MONSTER is the Dino's species. ARM, WEP0, WEP1, WEP2 are the equipment. OK means an item can be equipped in that slot, NG means it can't; D-Pad lets you choose each item's id. The WAZ options change with all of the above, but it's unknown what they actually do. GAME MODE can be changed from 1P VS COM, but the multiplayer options obviously don't work properly with only one player.
• TACTICS SYSTEM - Opens MONSTER SET MENU. Options can be chosen, but selecting TACT START does nothing.
• TSUUSIN SELECT - Opens TSTBTL MONSTER SET MENU. Options can be chosen, but selecting TACT START does nothing.
• RASTER TUSIN - Jumps to the title screen.
• ETC - Lets you view a few different scenarios. AUCTION lets you see the auction screen, however you have no money so you can't really test it. FACTORY doesn't do anything, nor does COLOSIAM. PDABOOT starts the game. PDAENTRY opens a new address book entry for you to fill out. PDADEVICE lets you choose a (blank) address book entry to input into the Gachasta to create a Dino. OPENING is the cool intro cinematic, and ENDING is the very disappointing cast roll.
• WORLD MAP - Shows the overhead view of the default in-game map.
• SUBWAY DEMO - Plays the subway riding sequence, which ends in you smashing through the wall of the Dino Center because the default map doesn't have a subway to exit from.
• COLO EVENT DEMO - Opens as if you've just won a colosseum battle.
• MINI GAME - Choosing 0-2 opens one of the Dino Pad minigames - Shooter, Minesweeper, or Food Game.
• TEST2 - Unknown function, can't be selected.
• TEST1 - Unknown function, can't be selected.
• SOUND MENU - Though the regular game already has a music player with all of the BGM tracks available, this menu also includes all of the SFX as well as the ability to toggle the sound channels and change the volume.
• 
  DATA VIEW - Selecting this from the main debug menu doesn't do anything, however it can be booted into by changing 0x4DCA to 0x31. This is an interesting graphics viewer which allows you to cycle through nearly every graphic in the game. Graphics can be cycled through by pressing A/B. Animation and movement can be paused with Start. It's obvious what the SCALE, ANGLE, and FLIP options should do, but it doesn't seem possible to edit those variables.

(Source: Normmatt)

Debug Sprites

These are found in the DATA VIEW menu and were obviously used for testing graphics/animations. They are placed before all of the other graphics in the viewer and used in a few test scenarios.

Shown in a cluster of 16 (arranged 3-5-5-3), also shown as two rapidly spinning sprites stacked on each other.

10 placed in a haphazard pattern, all of them at a 45 degree angle, with one of them animated as blinking.

Only the blue square part of this one is ever visible. Shown both as a still square, and as two slowly tilting squares stacked on each other.

Debug Case

This isn't available from the main debug menu, and must be booted into by changing 0x4DCA to 0x30. It may have initially been accessed by one of the unselectable TEST options on the menu. It displays four Carina walking sprites, the first of which can be moved around with the D-Pad. Pressing Start will pause animation/movement, and holding R will slow the framerate down. Pressing A/B changes the variable in CASE, and some of the numbers to the left, but doesn't seem to do anything else.

Debug Mode Mk.II

A secondary debug menu, titled でばっぐモード改, can be activated by changing RAM address 020111FC to 14 while in the main game. Its text isn't visible unless you force a redraw (eg by pressing Left/Right to make a selection.) The first option is アトリビュートオフ / アトリビュートオン (Attribute Off / Attribute On), you can toggle this with Left and Right but it doesn't seem to have a visible effect.

The second option is アイテム (Item) which allows you to cycle through any of the 500+ items in the game, pressing A to add one to your inventory. Sometimes the items also get a random boost of +01 or +02 to their stats - this is normally only used for Weapon and Armor Devices, but food, materials, medicine, and building kits will also get these random boosts (though they are completely ineffective on anything that isn't a Device.) アイテム数 (Number of Items) displays the current number of items in your inventory, up to a maximum of 16.

Most of the other options after this aren't visible or don't appear to do anything, though the sixth option (shown selected by the star cursor at right) will open the Dino Center storage menu if you press A. The final visible option is 次のイベントまで＝000分 (Next event=000minutes) which doesn't appear to be changeable.

To do: There's apparently a more complicated way to open this menu where it's properly visible, this needs to be documented.

(Source: Kimbles, Normmatt)

Development Text

Several plaintext strings are located in various areas of the ROM, it's unknown how they would have been used (possibly as labels?).

0xD29D4

IdMstCmdCheckPrm IdMstItemChkPrm0 IdMstItemChkPrm1 IdMstDDevChkPrm0 IdMstDDevChkPrm1 IdMstAdrsChkPrm0 IdMstAdrsChkPrm1 IdMstAdrsChkPrm2

0xD4D30

IdMstBtllChkPrm0

0xE40E8

IdMstTactChkPrm0 IdMstActEndWait0 IdMstPhaseEndPos IdMstPhaseEndMst IdMstGotoBtlData IdMstReplaceEnd!

0xE42A4

IdMstCmdCheckPrmKOREWATAISENYOU!

0xE435C

IdMonTeamEditChk

0xE44F0

IdRuletRndInit00

To do: There are a few more of these strings. There's probably also Japanese development text hanging around somewhere.