Operation: Overkill II ANSI Edition · Unofficial Fan Port to NES

This is how Operation: Overkill II looked on a 1990s BBS: an IBM PC text screen in 16 colours, an ASCII map of two-letter codes, menu pictures and ANSI art. The ANSI Edition puts that interface on the NES cartridge. It uses the PC's own font, dumped from the BIOS, and re-lays every screen for the NES's 32 columns. The rules, monsters, texts and story are the same as the NES Edition's.
An unofficial fan port. Your saved games stay in this browser.

Click Play, or press any game key.

Keyboard: arrows, X = A, Z = B, Enter = Start. A gamepad works too.

Controls

D-pad: arrow keys — walk the map a cell at a time, move the ► cursor
A: X or Space — choose; on the map, the command menu (its Map key shows the scanner key)
B: Z — back, No; in a room, back the way you came
Start: Enter or S — status, pack, equipment, scan
Select: A
Hold A or B to speed up text.

Reading the map

The Infrared scan shows the wastes around you as two-letter codes. You are the white [] in the middle; the A menu's Map key lists every code.

OO Rocksww Barren land .. Desert"" Swamps ^^ Mountains-- Flat land II Road≈≈ Water @v Hole down@^ Hole up ## Prison** Items, people [] Complex@@ Cyclone

Saving

The game saves when you sleep in the Barracks or a base, and from the pause screen in the Complex. Saves are kept in this browser and shared with the NES Edition, so you can switch looks mid-game:

The ANSI Edition

Every screen of the original was rebuilt from its ANSI files. The logon pictures are scaled from 80 columns to 32 and the Complex's menu pictures are redrawn. The wasteland monitor keeps its Compass, Sector Monitor and System Monitor, and combat is the original's text fight, with Action Combat's letter strip. The NES limits each 16×16 area to one palette, so every screen is laid out to fit.

Getting started

Press Start on the logo and choose New Game. Register, choose a training program, and you're in the Main Hall. Rooms are menus: pick H)eadquarters and then the Supply Room for a weapon. To head out the gate, go to the Sentry Post and choose W)astelands.

How it was made

The DOS original was decompiled, and its rules, monsters, maps and texts were carried into 6502 assembly for an MMC3 cartridge. Both editions build from the same code. Only the screens differ.

How it was made → · Download the ROM · Play the NES Edition

The wasteland as an ASCII map over the Compass, Sector Monitor and System Monitor — The wastelands

The Main Hall as a menu picture of grey boxes joined by pipes — The Complex's Main Hall

Text combat against an Insane Dwarf — Combat

The Infrared Scanner key — The scanner key

A logon picture: a Hydrite behind a crosshair, Target Sighted — Logon art

Registration's training table — Registration

Meat Darts in the Games Room — The Games Room