Dungeon Magic/Unused Graphics

This is a sub-page of Dungeon Magic.

General

Tilemap Offsets: 0x028F36-0x028F3D (Border), 0x28F3E-0x028F95 (Message)

An ornate golden border with the message, "Help me...!", most likely intended for the Princess's scene in attract mode.

Tilemap Offsets 0x028A3E-0x028A8D

Two massive crossed swords that take up the entire width and are almost double the length of the screen. There's orphaned code to display this in the game at 0x0286EC as part of an early attract mode screen.

Japanese	JP Translated	English
	Hit repeatedly to perform a continuous attack.
	Press the A Button again to drop the thing in the direction the joystick is pressed.
	Collect treasure to increase your EXP.
	Magic weapons can inflict heavy damage on certain enemies depending on their attributes.

Frame IDs: 10B1, 10B9, 10BC, 10C1 (JP), 10D1, 10D9, 10DC, 10E1 (EN)

Unused tutorial messages explaining the following: How to do a combo attack; how to drop stackable objects; what treasure items do; and how the elemental weapon system works.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0C11BA-0x0C12C9 (First two frames)
Frame IDs: 0F82-0F87 (Last six frames)

A tutorial for box-stacking in a graphical format that doesn't match anything in the final game.

Tilemap Offsets: 0xC110A-0x0C11B9

Speech bubbles with emoticons / kaomoji expressions to be used by NPCs and/or player characters. There are also four for sleeping and two for needing and receiving help.

Frame IDs: 0648-0649

The Elf helper character from Quiz Quest was supposed to appear in this game at some point. The palette for this sprite doesn't seem to exist in the game ROMs.

Small	Large

Tilemap Offsets: 0xC10B2-0xC10C5

Compact versions of the "EXP UP!" and "LIFE UP!" are in the sprite graphics ROM, but aren't in the sprite table. The larger sprites were presumably chosen because they're easier for players to see.

Frame IDs: 0F60 (Critical hit), 0F61

"CRITICAL HIT!" and "WEAK POINT" sprites. Regarding the first sprite: The game does have critical hits, but it doesn't use a sprite to indicate this. As for the second, it's either an early version of the "HIT WEAK" sprite that's used when hitting an enemy with their elemental weakness, or a sprite for hitting a more traditional weak point, like, say, the Giant Snake's head.

Frame ID: 0DFA

An instructory message regarding doors. Don't leave 'em closed, now.

Frame ID: 0FC5

A massive sprite that would either be used as a location test message or somewhere in the ending. The text is part of the sprite.

Frame IDs: 0243-0245

An unfinished set of turning sprites for Cisty.

(Source: tikal.)

HUD

Various health bar concepts are left unused in the HUD graphics ROM. The game goes for a more conventional health gauge instead of using any of these.

Early	Final

An early version of the Magic Stock icon with a smaller red orb.

Frame IDs 07C4 (Book), 07C6 (Crystal)

Two unused object icons of a book and some kind of crystal ball.

Tilemap Offsets: 0xC0922-0x0C092B, 0xC0936-0xC0953

Clear placeholder icons for "Food", "Exp" (Point items, i.e. treasure), "Item" (Single use weapons and the like), and "Arm" (Equippable weapons and shields).

Frame IDs: 07DC (Spider)

Frame IDs: 07E5 (Lady), 07E6 (Boy), 10FF (Bunnygirl)

Three NPC icons. The Bunnygirl has dialogue but doesn't use an icon, the boy appears when playing as Cisty but doesn't have any dialogue, and the women doesn't appear in the game at all.

Tilemap Offsets: 0xC0FF4-0x0C1001

A "PUSH" sprite in the same style as the playable character names and labels.

Items

Frame IDs: 0D10-0D11, 0D14, 0D16-0D1A, 0D1C-0D1F

A motley collection of unimplemented collectables.

Tilemap Offsets: 0xC0CFA-0x0C0D2B

Keys (5 different ones.) All of the doors in this game open by either hitting a switch or beating someone or something up, so these aren't needed.

Frame IDs: 1002

A big ball of "ITEM". Placeholder? Oh yes.

Scenery & Hazards

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0BD1B2-0x0BD38D

Sketches for the game's boulders. The sketch boulders have a flashing "hit" frame for each ordinal direction; in the final game, hitting a boulder will instead briefly rotate the rock around.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0BF3E8-0x0BF40F

Another, more detailed sketch can be found later in the sprite graphics ROM.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0BD38E-0x0BD5FD

There are also sketch versions of the game's container objects. The second object, a south-facing box of some sort, has no equivalent object in the final game.

Tilemap Offsets: 0xBFE4C-0xBFFA3

Even the game's switches and spike traps have sketch art, completely with handy "ON" and "OFF" text.

Frame IDs: 0E60-0E62

A big red mushroom, much larger than the mushrooms seen in the actual game. Seems like players could either hit it or stand on it to squish the shroom.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0B0712-0xB0767 (School), 0x0B0768-0x0B0785 (Fish)

A school of fish and a few fish flopping around. These would be used somewhere in The Temple of Fontaine as decorative objects.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0BF37C-0x0BF3E7

A fancy medieval-ish tapestry that would roll up to reveal a hidden path, items, etc.

Frame IDs: 0C8B

The Demon Statue objects have a cracked version like the other breakable statues in the game, but it's never used. The crushing version can't be damaged, and the hopping version will crack apart once it hits something without using this frame.

Frame IDs: 057A-0581

The blue crystals that the player has to free in the Northern Ruins have flashing and shattering animations, just like the red crystals seen in the Lesser Demon boss fight.

NPCs

Frame IDs: 0F9D-0F9F

Every NPC in the game has at least one unused frame of animation. For instance, the adult male NPC has an unused animation of him pumping his fist.

Frame	Animation

An animation of the man falling down. Two of these frames were repurposed to show the man passed out and briefly getting back up in the Temple stage - the frame on the left is unused.

Frame IDs: 0FA2-0FAA

As mentioned in the HUD graphics section, this woman NPC is completely unused. She has animations for idling, walking, waving, and passing out.

Frame IDs: 0FB3 (Boy), 0FC4 (Merchant)

The Boy and Merchant NPCs also have fainted sprites that never get a chance to be used.

Frame IDs: 0FB5-0FB8, 0FBB

This old man NPC (Actually Venom) appears throughout the Northern Ruins, but he never walks around anywhere, nor does he get knocked out.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0C36E0-0x0C3979

The soldier NPC seen in the second screen of the game has animations for walking, raising his spear in victory, getting knocked down, and even attacking, but in the final game only a single idle frame is used. None of these sprites are in the sprite table, suggesting that these were cut earlier than the other NPC animations.

Used	Alternate

Frame IDs: 10FD (Alternate), 10FE (Used)

The hidden Bunnygirl NPC that only appears in the Japanese version has a different, unused sprite that's sans stockings.

Enemies

Armored Orc

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0AB966-0x0AC237

Frame ID	Icon	Name
07B6		N/A

An Orc variant with a completely different set of sprites. Unlike the Orcs used in the game, this one has a horned helmet, a hooked spear, and a sinister scowl.

The spear would give him more range than a typical Axe-wielding Orc, and he'd be able to attack the player from multiple angles.

It's not clear if these sprites were intended to be a completely separate enemy from the Orc line or if this would be used by one of the higher tier Orcs, like the Orc Head or Orc Captain. Whatever the intention, these sprites aren't even included in the game's sprite table, making this the least finished of the four unused enemies.

Possessed Weapons

Frame IDs: 058D-0597

Frame ID	Icon	Name
07DA		N/A

A big ball of the weapons that appear throughout the game. There are daggers, spears, and even a couple of morning stars in there. Seems it would attack by spinning around at high speeds and colliding with the player. Not much else to say, really.

Element

Frame IDs: 05C9-05DA

Frame ID	Icon	Name
07DD		ELEMENT

The only unused enemy to get a name, this foul-faced fireball would presumably float around the map, trying to burn the player. Not sure what else it could do, though.

Mudman

Frame IDs: 0A2B-0A49

Frame ID	Icon	Name
07CD		N/A

A sentient puddle of mud with glowing red eyes. Has a surprising amount of actions compared to Element and the possessed weapons: There's animations for spawning, idling, jumping, punching, guarding, and dissolving.

Miscellaneous

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0AE604-0x0AE663

Two unfinished frames of the Mimic enemies being thrown backwards, an impossible action in the final game.

Frame IDs: 04B3-04C1, 04C6-04C9, 04CE

The spiders seen in the Queen Spider fight have many unused frames which include the Spider descending from something, crawling up and down walls, going around corners, and finally falling over dead.

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0AFD02-0x0AFD1F

The Spider enemy would have descended down these silken threads.

Bosses

Dragon

Tilemap Offsets: 0x0B2746-0x0B3389 (Sprites), N/A (Body)

Frame ID	Icon	Name
07D6		N/A

That is one big dragon. This boss, which would have been the largest in the game by a wide margin, is made up of two different components: A foreground layer, the body; and sprites for the head, left arm, and right arm. The palette here is a guess that's based off of the Lesser Demon - the actual palette doesn't seem to be in the game ROM.

Based on these sprites and the single background layer in the game, the Dragon had limited mobility. It could move its head around to track the player, breathe fire, and bite, and its hands could slam down or grasp the player, but that's about it.

Venom

Frame IDs: 051E-0530, 0588

In the final game, Venom only appears in cutscenes and never directly attacks the player. However, it seems that a proper boss fight was planned! He has animations for jumping and falling, guarding (With and without a mirrored shield), casting spells, getting staggered, and being knocked out. Unfortunately there's nothing in Venom's code that uses these animations, nor is there any fight logic, so drawing these sprites was as far as they got.

Frame IDs: 0531-0549

Venom had at least three types of spells that he could have cast: Fire, Ice, and Electric. The Fire and Ice sprites are completely unused, while the Electric attack was later repurposed for The Demon Lord fight.

(All other sprites: Original TCRF research)