The game
Popolon and Aphrodite explore the castle and ten worlds: 321 rooms. The castle has 147; the worlds have 15 to 27, and the tenth, GALIOUS's, has 6. On this site map 1 is the castle and maps 2 to 11 are worlds 1 to 10.
Every picture on this page is drawn from the bytes of the ROM with the tools in tools/, which follow the cartridge's own steps, and checked against openMSX dumps (C-BIOS_MSX1_JP). Each caption says which table it comes from.
The title screen
The logo: 6 rows of 21 characters from 0x40 (p01:6957), with the patterns at 0xBCEF in bank 9. It appears from top to bottom, one line of every row every two frames (p01:6985), over the blue of register 7 (0xE4).
The sign at 0x933F (14 × 12 characters), the letters of the list at 0x7D51 and four sprites from 0x93E7. A sparkle runs down the sword and goes out (p01:6267).
Both match openMSX in all 16 KB of VRAM (titulo.py coteja).
The castle
The castle's 147 rooms, each with its number, laid out by their neighbours (table 0xA9EF in bank 9). Each room is 8 × 5 blocks of 4 × 4 characters.
The order of the neighbours (up, down, left, right) is checked in openMSX: leaving by the left and right edges leads to the room the table says, and the four rooms the game loads at 0xE648 are the table's; up and down are used by p03:A7F8. Rooms are numbered in reading order except those at the entrance. Room 94 has no neighbours: it goes in the only gap left between 93 and 95, and how to reach it is in Open questions.
On top of the floor plan the game places ladders, the world doors and the way-back doors, items and pink orbs. All 321 rooms, with all of that, match openMSX character for character.
The ten worlds
| World | Rooms | The boss's name |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15 | YOMAR |
| 2 | 15 | ELOHIM |
| 3 | 16 | HAHAKLA |
| 4 | 17 | BARECHET |
| 5 | 18 | HEOTYMEO |
| 6 | 19 | LEPHA |
| 7 | 20 | NAWABRA |
| 8 | 21 | ASCHER |
| 9 | 27 | XYWOLEH |
| 10 | 6 | HAMALECH |
Each number links to its map. The names come from the table at 0x9B4F in bank 2, three bytes per map: where the text is and how many letters it has.
The black rooms on the maps are the hint and shop rooms: the game does not build them like the others (see Findings).
Popolon and Aphrodite
The player's 32 poses (table 0x7529 in bank 1), Popolon above and Aphrodite below. From 18 to 27 the character sinks (p00:5832). Checked against openMSX in 2748 in-game situations.
Both use the same patterns; Aphrodite has colour 9 where Popolon has 15.
The enemies
The sprite sets each room loads (base 0x790D and tables 0x9737 and 0x7C72), in white: each figure sets its own colour when it appears.
Patterns go by room, not by enemy: each room loads its set and its figures share it. Those of all 321 rooms match openMSX.
The bosses
The boss room of world 1 before the boss appears: the seal is the 8 × 8 character frame at 0x9BE2. Its left half is the patterns at 0xB760 (30 characters from 0x5A, entry p10:6121) and the right half, the same characters flipped (copies at p10:6128). p00:56FA loads it while the boss has not come out.
The boss does not appear on its own: in its room you have to type its name (p02:9B18 compares the last letters typed). Then smoke comes out and, after it, the boss, with the room's background in black.
The ten bosses in full, with the number of their world. They are not sprites: they are character mosaics (61 in the table at 0x9E0A in bank 14) swapped to move them. p00:5856 loads their graphics; world 3's goes in steps, one piece per frame.
Which mosaics each boss uses was measured in game, frame by frame, over 6000 frames; the 18 seen whole match openMSX.
The items
The 47 item types (1 to 0x2F), each with its number and how many there are in the rooms. Types 7 to 0x2C have their own picture (0x6E34 and 0x6E80 in bank 10); the last three are arrows, coins and keys.
The game never names them: it only draws them. That is why they go by number here. What each one does comes from who reads its flag (0xE06F plus the type); some of them:
- 0x07: the world boss's life starts at half.
- 0x08: the boss takes off half when it touches you.
- 0x0B: without it GALIOUS cannot be hurt.
- 0x11: you walk faster.
- 0x19: the figures take off half.
- 0x1B: every enemy gives double experience.
- 0x20: with CTRL the figures and the boss stop, up to 16 times.
- 0x25: every hit takes off double.
The rest, with their addresses, are in tools/objetos.py.
The shops
There are 13 shop entries (0x9255 in bank 2), of up to three items each, with the price in coins:
| What is sold | Price |
|---|---|
| 100 arrows (0x2D) | 20 |
| a key (0x2F) | 5 |
| 0x05, 0x06 | 30, 20 |
| 0x0D, 0x23 | 25 |
| 0x10, 0x18, 0x21, 0x28 | 30 |
| 0x2B | 40 |
| 0x19, 0x2C | 50 |
The feather shop (0x10, entry 12), in room 18 of world 5, is checked in openMSX.