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Pipe Dream (NES)/RAM map
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The following article is a RAM map for Pipe Dream (NES).
Conventions: unless otherwise specified:
- all multi-byte integers are little-endian
- addresses are hex
- sizes are decimal
- x coordinates are 0..9
- y coordinates are 0..7. 0 represents the top row.
Address Size Description
------- ---- -----------
0a 1 Read index for background queue (see description at address 0200)
0b 1 Write index for background queue (see description at address 0200)
0e 1 Input from player 1's controller
0f 1 Input from player 2's controller
67 3 Bonus score
6a 3 One component of bonus score
79 10 Data related to current pipe drop(s) in progress
Player 1 Player 2
79 7a ?
7b 7c ?
7d 7e ?
7f 80 x coordinate
81 82 y coordinate
8b 1 Current player. 0 = player 1, 1 = player 2. (Note that both players play at the same time, so this changes frequently and interleaves which player's actions are being calculated.)
8c 4 x,y coordinates in sprite coordinate system
Player 1 Player 2
8c 8d x coordinate. Value = 65 + 16 * (x coordinate in 0..9 representation)
8e 8f y coordinate. Value = 76 + 16 * (y coordinate in 0..7 representation)
92 1 High score index (0..4) - for example, if you get the number 4 highest score for your game (A, B, or C), this would be 3 (=4-1).
98 3 Score
a0 1 Current pipe for player 1
a1 1 Current pipe for player 2
a6 2 Commonly used temp variable for background address in PPU memory. Typically $2000 + something. May have high bit set (which is stripped off before using it as address). See address 0200 for more info.
a8 4 x,y coordinates
Player 1 Player 2
a8 a9 y coordinate
aa ab x coordinate
b7 1 Current flooz direction, when flooz is flowing. Up = 1, Down = 2, Left = 4, Right = 8
b8 2 Position of flooz, when flowing. (b8 = y, b9 = x)
d9 1 Time required for flooz to fill the current square (unknown units). 8 for most pipes, 20 for reservoirs.
fa 1 Active. Set to 0xff (active) when level starts and to 0 (inactive) when flooz is done flowing and system is still calculating score and waiting for button.
0200 256 Background message queue. Code that changes the background queues up messages here and they're dispatched during vblank.
Message format is:
PPU address (big endian, 2 bytes), with flags in 0x80 and 0x40 positions of high byte
0x40 bit controls direction for increments: 0 = horizontal, 1 = vertical
If high bit is set (0x80)
ROM pointer (2 bytes)
Length (1 byte)
Otherwise
Length (1 byte)
Data (Length bytes)
The code keeps a running index of where to put the next byte (stored at 0b). During vblank, these are read using the index at 0a, then 0b and 0a are reset to 0.
0441 1 Number of wrenches/lives
0442 1 Number of players
0444 1 Level (1-16)
0445 1 Sublevel (1-4)
0447 1 Remaining distance of pipe to be filled. Displays as "Dist" in the game.
044b 2 Position of flooz source (044b = x, 044c = y)
0450 1 Level/Sublevel encoded in a single byte for high score format: ((Level - 1) << 4) | (Sublevel - 1)
0451 1 Game type. 0 = "A", 1 = "B", 2 = "C"
0453 3 Initials for high score
048c 6 Scores. (048c, 048e, 0490) = Player 1 score; (048d, 048f, 0491) = Player 2 score.
0495 105 High score table. 3 arrays of 5 slots of 7 bytes:
Initials (3 bytes)
Level/sublevel (1 byte) see 0450 for encoding
Score (3 bytes)
052e 5 Player 1 upcoming pipes. 052e is bottom pipe, 0532 is top pipe.
0533 5 Player 2 upcoming pipes. Analogous order.
055a 1 Current flooz pipe connection. Upper nibble = input, Lower nibble = output. See b7 for directions within each nibble.
0560 80 Board. Array of 10 x 8 of pipe. Each byte may be ORed with 0x80 if flooz flows through it or 0x40 if flooz flows through both horizontally and vertically.
0650 10 Bits showing if player 2 filled the given board spot. Each byte represents one x position, and the bits represent the y position (1 << y represents row y). Bit value = 1 for player 2.
065a 10 Tunnels.
Position 065a + x has 0xF0 bits set if there's a vertical tunnel at position x.
Position 065a + y has 0x0F bits set if there's a horizontal tunnel at position y.
0665 25 Array[5][5] of bytes that tells whether the given position is occupied.
Each byte corresponds to 2 rows and two columns worth of cells.
Upper row = lower nibble, lower row = upper nibble.
0x01 represents left cell occupied, 0x04 represents right cell occupied.
First row of array has 0x0F set. Last row has 0xF0 set.
067e 25 Buffer of tile values to be set in the background message queue at 0200 (used in various print routines)
0697 16 Character buffer used to print things to string, which are then converted to tiles (067e) and stored in the background.
0700 256 Sprite page, transferred via DMA during vblank. This game makes relatively little use of sprites, so most y positions are 0xF0, i.e., off screen.
Pipes and specials are represented by the following (hex) values:
Value Description ----- ----------- 01 Up/Down/Left/Right pipe 02 Left/Right pipe 03 Up/Down pipe 04 Up/Left pipe 05 Up/Right pipe 06 Down/Right pipe 07 Down/Left pipe 08 One-way Right pipe 09 One-way Left pipe 0a One-way Down pipe 0b One-way Up pipe 0c Up source 0d Left source 0e Right source 0f Down source 10 <unused> 11 <unused> 12 Up/Down reservoir 13 Left/Right reservoir 14 Up/Down pump 15 Left/Right pump 16 Up sink 17 Left sink 18 Right sink 19 Down sink
Additionally, the 80 bit is set when the pipe is filled with flooz, and the 40 bit is set when an Up/Down/Left/Right pipe is filled in both horizontal and vertical directions.
Internal Data for Pipe Dream (NES)
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