Road Kings

Road Kings is a pinball game with a post-apocalyptic motorcycle theme. The addition of FM sound via the Yamaha YM2151 helps players immerse themselves in a world of unrelenting anguish and angst fast-paced action!

Developer Credits#

Credits Roll#

There's a full set of credits in the game ROM and even a subroutine to display them at 0x8B67, but this subroutine isn't referenced anywhere in the game code. Put this code in MAME's rdkng_l4.xml cheat file to restore them:

  <cheat desc="Enable Credits">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.mw@823F=0x8C00</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C00=0xBD8B</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C02=0x67BD</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C04=0x8B12</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@8C06=0x39</action>
    </script>
    <script state="off">
      <action>maincpu.mw@823F=0x8B12</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C00=0xFFFF</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C02=0xFFFF</action>
      <action>maincpu.mw@8C04=0xFFFF</action>
      <action>maincpu.mb@8C06=0xFF</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

The credits will start scrolling right after the explanation of the game rules:

ROAD KINGS PINBALL 
-- COPYRIGHT 1986 WILLIAMS ELECTRONICS GAMES INC. 
-- DESIGNED BY MARK D. RITCHIE 
-- PROGRAMMED BY GEORGE N. PETRO 
-- MUSIC BY CHRISTOPHER  GRANNER AND BILL R. PAROD

If this was implemented properly, it would have been the first Williams game to show credits on an alphanumeric display; that honor would eventually go to the 1987 game Fire!. Note that by 1986, Williams had started printing each game's credits on the playfield above the outhole, so this wasn't that big of a loss.

Hidden Text#

At 0x0575 and 0x3B12 in ROM chip U26, and at 0x0132, 0x15ED, 0x219E, and 0x369A in ROM chip U27 (Really wanted to be thorough) is the following copyright string:

COPYRIGHT 1986 WILLIAMS ELECTRONICS GAMES INC. -GNP

Another message is at 0x565C on ROM chip U27. This is a leftover from High Speed:

 COPYRIGHT 1985 WILLIAMS ELECTRONICS GAMES INC. 
 PROGRAMMED BY LAWRENCE E. DEMAR