Hardware Emulation EZ Flash Omega DE - GBC Rumble?!

[NewHobbyWhoDis]

I can’t believe this hasn’t been brought up anywhere on the internet yet.

I was just playing Link’s Awakening DX on my EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition flashcart. I beat the first mini boss, and almost sh*t my pants. My GBA vibrated. Took me a second to remember that this flashcart has a rumble feature built in for games like Drill Dozer, but I thought… can’t be. I saved and restarted the game a few times to keep beating this boss, and can now confirm that my EZ Flash vibrates every time this boss dies.
(For reference, it’s the Moblin in that first cave when entering Tal Tal Heights).

How is this possible for a GBC game, which originally had no native rumble, running through an emulator, on a GBA flash cart? Has anyone else experienced this with other games on the EZ ODE?

UPDATE - I have completed the game, and no other instances of rumble occurred.

 

[emcintosh]

I had an external rumble pack for GBC that rumbled whenever there were loud sounds in game. I assume the flashcart is doing the same. Or maybe someone programmed rumble instructions for LADX into the firmware.

 

[Jayro]

I can’t believe this hasn’t been brought up anywhere on the internet yet.

I was just playing Link’s Awakening DX on my EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition flashcart. I beat the first mini boss, and almost sh*t my pants. My GBA vibrated. Took me a second to remember that this flashcart has a rumble feature built in for games like Drill Dozer, but I thought… can’t be. I saved and restarted the game a few times to keep beating this boss, and can now confirm that my EZ Flash vibrates every time this boss dies.
(For reference, it’s the Moblin in that first cave when entering Tal Tal Heights).

How is this possible for a GBC game, which originally had no native rumble, running through an emulator, on a GBA flash cart? Has anyone else experienced this with other games on the EZ ODE?

It's possible the ROM has been patched for rumble support.

 

[FAST6191]

https://gbatemp.net/threads/make-your-own-rumble-game-for-ez-flash-omega-definitive-edition.580909/
Several more links in that thread to further projects, spinoffs and such like.

 

[EZ-Flash2]

EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition uses a modified Goomba which has GBC rumble support.

 

[emcintosh]

EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition uses a modified Goomba which has GBC rumble support.

Do you have the signals for the rumble in firmware (as some flashcarts have anti-piracy patches), or does the user need to find a patched game ROM?

 

[EZ-Flash2]

Do you have the signals for the rumble in firmware (as some flashcarts have anti-piracy patches), or does the user need to find a patched game ROM?

Please look at the #4 of this thread

 

[likudo]

Thanks to the OP's detailed explanation, I successfully reproduced this case in the emulator environment.
After changing the cartridge type from 1B to 1E via GameBoyRomAnalyer,
beating the first orc in the cave will make your controller rumble.
I used Zelda DX USA,Europe Rev B rom but I'm sure other versions will work the same.
I tested with these emulators:
mGBA (working properly?)
visualboyadvance-m (rumble will not stop)
SkyEmu (rumble will not stop)
So this is proof that rumble code is inside of the game itself, not the emulator-specific implementation.

 

[NewHobbyWhoDis]

Thanks to the OP's detailed explanation, I successfully reproduced this case in the emulator environment.
After changing the cartridge type from 1B to 1E via GameBoyRomAnalyer,
beating the first orc in the cave will make your controller rumble.
I used Zelda DX USA,Europe Rev B rom but I'm sure other versions will work the same.
I tested with these emulators:
mGBA (working properly?)
visualboyadvance-m (rumble will not stop)
SkyEmu (rumble will not stop)
So this is proof that rumble code is inside of the game itself, not the emulator-specific implementation.

Wow, thank you for sharing this here! Interesting that it's coded right into the game... I wonder if they were testing a rumble feature then scrapped it, as I did not experience rumble anywhere else in my playthrough. And I'm a bit of a completionist, so I'm sure I encountered almost everything in the game.
Either way, great find!

 

[skawo]

So, I got interested in this and decided to look into exactly why and where in the game's code it happens.

tldr; it's not intentional. It's a result of a bug in Goomba Color, which doesn't respect the cartridge's header settings properly, and another maybe-bug in the game.
Here's a video I made on the topic if you'd like the whole story.