The game

Konami's Boxing is a side-on boxing match for one or two players. Konami published it for the MSX in 1985 with catalogue number RC-736.

The four options

The title screen offers four, and all four come down to a single flag byte that lee_el_menu (0x4502) copies into (0xE002) from the table at 0x4563:

option	byte	bit 0	bit 4
1PLAYER GAME A	0x40
1PLAYER GAME B	0x50		hard
2PLAYERS GAME A	0x61	two play
2PLAYERS GAME B	0x71	two play	hard

Bit 0 is what decides whether the machine plays: with it set, 0x47C0 skips decide_la_maquina and both boxers read their own controls. Bit 4 picks the hard variant, which 0x42F5 turns into (0xE206) = 3 and (0xE207) = 0x10.

The six opponents

The names come from a table of six pointers at 0x5661, and they read out with the cartridge's own font: RED·WOLF, M.B.ALLI, MOAI·KING, SANCHESS, CHINA·KHAN and MOAI·Jr. The player is always RYU (0x56AF), and his name does not come from the table: 0x55A0 puts it up separately.

The figures come from three archives, and the six still look different: each archive hides a piece that only the second round paints. See Findings.

The round

Three minutes, counted in four ASCII tiles from (0xE212) to (0xE215) that start at 3:01 and after the first tick read 3:00. Three rounds to a bout: (0xE210) counts them and 0x57C7 bumps it.

Below, the strip of twenty-two tiles on row 22 is a single bar that the two boxers eat into from the ends: the left-hand one from the start and the right-hand one from the finish (0x5448). Once the damage passes level 6, the two tiles at the edge blink with bit 4 of the frame counter.

The boxers

Each boxer has nineteen poses. The body is made of tiles redefined every frame; the head, the hair and the gloves are 16x16 sprites. The sheets are built the way the ring is: the tiles placed with the eight layout bytes of each figure and the sprites on top, with the pieces (0xE207) says. The poses run from the guard to the knockdown, and the last one is the victory pose, both gloves in the air.