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Atari pacman - flickering question


Tangentg

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So I consistently read that the Atari 2600 can show 2 player sprites on the same horizontal scanline.

 

If that's the case, why do the ghosts flicker constantly? If none of the 4 ghosts share the same horizontal scanline, shouldn't they all be able to be shown on the screen at the same time, like in say, Bermuda Triangle, where they have an enemy on each horizontal lane that do not flicker?

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tod_Frye

 

 

 

Atari Pac-Man

 

...marketing pressed Frye to produce the game on a very strict timetable... Atari corporate management demanded Frye complete the game in the standard 4K ROM, despite his repeated requests that 8K of ROM be allocated.

 

Frye made several decisions which later proved controversial. ... Second, he chose to abandon plans for a flicker-management system which would have minimized the flashing of objects.

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In a nutshell, It takes less ROM to always assume the worst-case scenario that all objects are on the same line, than to try and compute where each object is and see which objects you need to flicker, etc. He needed all of the ROM space he could get, therefore corners had to be cut.

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Flicker management is the logic used to reduce flicker by reusing object(s) multiple times as the screen is drawn. That extra logic takes up space in ROM, plus require RAM to keep track of things. As an extreme example, in Draconian the reposition routines just for the reuse of player0 are this (though they're about to be rewritten):

 

RealResp0Strobe23:              ;   20
        sta RESP0               ; 3 23
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 25
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 28
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 30
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 33
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 35
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 38
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 41 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 43
        sta HMP0                ; 3 46
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76
        
RealResp0Strobe28:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25
        sta RESP0               ; 3 28
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 30
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 33
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 35
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 38
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 41 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 43
        sta HMP0                ; 3 46
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60 
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76
 
RealResp0Strobe33:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        sta RESP0               ; 3 33
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 35
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 38
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 41 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 43
        sta HMP0                ; 3 46
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76
        
RealResp0Strobe38:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta RESP0               ; 3 38
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 41 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 43
        sta HMP0                ; 3 46
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60 
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76
        
RealResp0Strobe43:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta RESP0               ; 3 43
        sta HMP0                ; 3 46
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60 
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76
        
RealResp0Strobe48:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45
        sta RESP0               ; 3 48
        sta HMP1                ; 3 51
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 53 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 55
        sta GRP0                ; 3 58 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60 
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76   
        
RealResp0Strobe53:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45        
        sta HMP1                ; 3 48
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 50
        sta RESP0               ; 3 53
        sta GRP0                ; 3 56 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 58 <- just to keep stream in sync        
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60 
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76     
        
RealResp0Strobe58:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45        
        sta HMP1                ; 3 48
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 50
        sta GRP0                ; 3 53 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 55 <- just to keep stream in sync
        sta RESP0               ; 3 58        
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 60
        sta ENABL               ; 3 63 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76       
        
RealResp0Strobe63:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45        
        sta HMP1                ; 3 48
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 50
        sta GRP0                ; 3 53 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 55 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 57
        sta ENABL               ; 3 60 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        sta RESP0               ; 3 63        
        lsr                     ; 2 65
        tay                     ; 2 67 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 69 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76   
        
RealResp0Strobe68:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45        
        sta HMP1                ; 3 48
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 50
        sta GRP0                ; 3 53 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 55 <- just to keep stream in sync
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 59
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 61
        sta ENABL               ; 3 64 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        sta.w RESP0             ; 4 68
        lsr                     ; 2 70        
        tay                     ; 2 72 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 74 <- A has enable for M1
        SLEEP 2                 ; 2 76/0
        sta HMOVE               ; 3  3
        stx GRP1                ; 3  6
        sta ENAM1               ; 3  9
        sty ENAM0               ; 3 12
        jmp (NextKernel)        ; 5 17              
        
RealResp0Strobe73:              ;   20
        lda #<DS_SIZE           ; 2 22
        sta NUSIZ0              ; 3 25        
        lda #<DS_COLOR          ; 2 27
        sta COLUP0              ; 3 30
        lda #<DS_JUMP           ; 2 32
        sta NextKernel          ; 3 35
        sta HMCLR               ; 3 38 ' reset missile/ball HMOVE
        lda #<DS_HMP0           ; 2 40
        sta HMP0                ; 3 43
        lda #<DS_HMP1           ; 2 45        
        sta HMP1                ; 3 48
        lda #<DS_GRP0           ; 2 50
        sta GRP0                ; 3 53 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lda #<DS_HMMB           ; 2 55 <- just to keep stream in sync
        lda #<DS_M1M0BL         ; 2 57
        sta ENABL               ; 3 60 <- on VDEL, for next scanline
        lsr                     ; 2 62        
        tay                     ; 2 64 <- Y has enable for M0
        lsr                     ; 2 66 <- A has enable for M1
        ldx DS_GRP1             ; 4 70
        sta RESP0               ; 3 73
        jmp R76                 ; 3 76       

Those routines reposition player0 while also drawing all 5 objects (player0, player1, missile0, missile1, ball). Note that there's no time left to draw the playfield, so it's not used in Draconian (actually it is for the score/lives display, just not the gameplay area).

 

The player0 reposition routines use 483 bytes of ROM. Draconian is an extreme example because it uses the speed of the ARM processor to make it possible to reuse all 5 objects. Add in the routines for the other 4 objects and we've used up 2462 bytes of ROM.

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Dumb question- but Atari scored the biggest video game license of all time (at that point). Why did they insist on cheaping out on it? The whole gaming world would be watching this release. Why wouldn't they want it to be a showcase for their system, like Donkey Kong was for Coleco?

 

They already used 8K carts for Asteroids, why not Pacman?

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The answer I've always heard is that Atari execs didn't think anyone would care that it wasn't exactly like arcade Pac-Man. Space Invaders takes some liberties (fewer invaders, different alien design) and is highly regarded. As long as Pac-Man had a yellow guy in a maze eating dots while chased by ghosts, they thought that was good enough. Remember that Ray Kassar had worked in textiles before coming to Atari, so he didn't exactly have his finger on the pulse of gaming.

Edited by KaeruYojimbo
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The answer I've always heard is that Atari execs didn't think anyone would care that it wasn't exactly like arcade Pac-Man. Space Invaders takes some liberties (fewer invaders, different alien design) and is highly regarded. As long as Pac-Man had a yellow guy in a maze eating dots while chased by ghosts, they thought that was good enough. Remember that Ray Kassar had worked in textiles before coming to Atari, so he didn't exactly have his finger on the pulse of gaming.

 

I could see how they might come to that conclusion, but yet they produced a Berzerk port around that same time that looked as close to the arcade as the 2600 could possibly muster

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Berzerk was 4K, which was one of the sticking points for Pac-Man. It may just come down to what the individual programmers decided to do and no one higher up the chain saying "that needs to be better." It's possible that with a couple of tweaks (arcade accurate colors and a better maze layout) more people would have been able to forgive the flicker and Pac-Man would be remembered as an OK but not great port and not one of the worst games ever.

Edited by KaeruYojimbo
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Actually, is the flickering automatic? I am not sure if it happens whenever there's more than 2 players on the same line (so no code to make the sprites flicker needs to be written) or the flickering needs to be manually put in. If it was automatic then I'm not sure why they'd need to put in extra code to check if they were on the same scanline...

 

As for the question of why Pacman wasn't as good, I think maybe Atari might have thought that as long as they create a Pacman game, since it was so big, everyone would want to buy it even if it doesn't play exactly like the original. They even tried to make sure there was no competition by suing KC Munchkin so that if you wanted to play Pacman at home, you'd have to use the Atari version, or so I've read. (I do know Pacman also came out on the Colecovision but it was also made by Atari as far as I know).

Edited by Tangentg
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I did a little looking into release dates and found that Pac-Man was released in the first part of 1982, Berzerk later in the year. By that time there was enough backlash from Pac-Man to convince Atari their arcade ports needed to be better.

 

The flickering is not automatic, so the extra code is necessary.

 

Atari did develop a Pac-Man for the Colecovision (and the Intellivision and several home computers) under the Atarisoft label, but the Colecovision version was never released.

Edited by KaeruYojimbo
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I don't believe any of the systems back then had automatic flicker.

 

The ColecoVision helped some - you built a list of 32 sprites and the video chip would attempt to display them. It did have a hardware limit of only showing 4 sprites on a given scanline, any that occurred later in the list for the same scanline would be invisible. If that occurred the video chip would flag you and tell you the very first sprite that it couldn't display (so if it couldn't display sprites #10 and #30, it would only flag you that #10 wasn't displayed). You would then reorder the list based on that information so the hidden sprites would be displayed on the next frame.

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It's possible that with a couple of tweaks (arcade accurate colors....)

 

When I heard Tod speak at PRGE, this was something that he still sounded annoyed about. He said that Atari didn't allow a black playfield unless it was a space game, and he had no idea that the colors were so important to people, so he didn't fight about it.

 

He also said that at the time, he thought the 2-player experience was more important than perfect accuracy to the arcade, so he used more of the resources for that instead. (turns out maybe he was wrong)

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Berzerk was 4K, which was one of the sticking points for Pac-Man. It may just come down to what the individual programmers decided to do and no one higher up the chain saying "that needs to be better." It's possible that with a couple of tweaks (arcade accurate colors and a better maze layout) more people would have been able to forgive the flicker and Pac-Man would be remembered as an OK but not great port and not one of the worst games ever.

 

yeah, little things like better colors, not putting an eye on Pac man would help and not consume additional memory. They should've been able to create a maze that is truer to the original maze too with little or no memory penalty. Then make the sound effects and music closer to the original and that would probably would have erased most criticism.

 

I had also heard that this version was released in prototype form and if the developer had more time, it would have been better.

 

I also heard the excuse that Atari had a "no black background" policy at one point, believing that showing color helped show games. But there are plenty of games from Atari in that era with black backgrounds.

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I did a little looking into release dates and found that Pac-Man was released in the first part of 1982, Berzerk later in the year. By that time there was enough backlash from Pac-Man to convince Atari their arcade ports needed to be better.

 

Hmm.. my recollection was that Berzerk came first, but I guess my memory could be wrong. I just seem to remember Atari being on a roll, finally producing ports that looked like the arcade, and then blam! the Pacman disaster.

 

 

 

As for the question of why Pacman wasn't as good, I think maybe Atari might have thought that as long as they create a Pacman game, since it was so big, everyone would want to buy it even if it doesn't play exactly like the original. They even tried to make sure there was no competition by suing KC Munchkin so that if you wanted to play Pacman at home, you'd have to use the Atari version, or so I've read. (I do know Pacman also came out on the Colecovision but it was also made by Atari as far as I know).

 

The AtariSoft effort (which published Atari's hits to Colecovision/INTV/C64/Apple/PC, etc) wasn't a thing until a year or two later. In 1982 the thinking seemed to be "get the biggest arcade hits, and make them exclusive to your system". Then 83/84 seemed that cross-publishing was important-- probably because the industry was collapsing all around them and they just wanted to get those sales wherever they could.

Edited by zzip
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When I heard Tod speak at PRGE, this was something that he still sounded annoyed about. He said that Atari didn't allow a black playfield unless it was a space game, and he had no idea that the colors were so important to people, so he didn't fight about it.

 

He also said that at the time, he thought the 2-player experience was more important than perfect accuracy to the arcade, so he used more of the resources for that instead. (turns out maybe he was wrong)

 

I was at that talk too!

 

 

 

yeah, little things like better colors, not putting an eye on Pac man would help and not consume additional memory. They should've been able to create a maze that is truer to the original maze too with little or no memory penalty. Then make the sound effects and music closer to the original and that would probably would have erased most criticism.

 

I had also heard that this version was released in prototype form and if the developer had more time, it would have been better.

 

I also heard the excuse that Atari had a "no black background" policy at one point, believing that showing color helped show games. But there are plenty of games from Atari in that era with black backgrounds.

 

I'm not sure how much of a hard and fast rule the "no black backgrounds" thing was, but I've heard it mentioned enough to believe it was definitely something Atari brass pushed. Maybe if Tod had thought it worth the effort to push back, they would have relented. There are some early non-space games that have black backgrounds (notably Dodge 'Em, the closest thing to Pac-Man at the time), but most of them are colored.

 

 

 

Hmm.. my recollection was that Berzerk came first, but I guess my memory could be wrong. I just seem to remember Atari being on a roll, finally producing ports that looked like the arcade, and then blam! the Pacman disaster.

 

I'm going by Random Terrain's dates. Thanks to Atari hyping the crap out of "Pac-Man Day," we know it was released on April 3, 1982. He has Berzerk as an August release based on an issue of AtariAge magazine.

Edited by KaeruYojimbo
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Interesting... Thanks. Also, I just came across this, Tod Frye looking at probably my favourite Pacman homebrew:

 

Personally I don't really mind the colours or the maze layout, or the flickering for that matter. My biggest problem was the lack of ghost AIs, cause I first read about Pacman from Strategy Wiki and it stated that the ghosts had individual personalities so you could take advantage of that for strategic play, but when I played the first form of Pacman that I ever tried, it was Neave's remake, and the ghosts had no individual personality, and nothing I read on Strategy Wiki could be put to use, so I thought Neave's remake was bad, and so was the Atari port for the same reason. The reason I even got into emulation was from me trying to look for a Pacman game online that has the individual personalities and everything else the Wiki mentions (ghosts not being able to go up the Ts above and below the den, and the ghosts reversing directions and switching to their corner modes), and when I finally found a Pacman game online that has all that the Strategy Wiki mentioned, it was actually an emulation.

Edited by Tangentg
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Tod's pacman is awesome and my favorite port of Pacman, everyone loved it back in the day I think folks not liking it is really more of a modern phennomena and tied to modern hardware.

 

Casual players may not realize there is a palette switch on the console that will turn the background black, and the flicker was fine on CRT - with the phosphor it was just an element of the game like Wizard of Wor; turning on phosphor emulation in Stella can help give you a closer idea to what the flicker looked like on CRT.

 

Atari is comming out with a console watch and I read somewhere recently that it may play imitation Atari games designed to remind you of Atari games instead of real ones, sort of like the first Flashback model did; I hope they follow their initiative with the Flashback consoles to quickly switch to supporting real Atari games instead.

 

I want to play Tod Frye's pacman on my Atari wrist watch console, and all the other Atari 2600 pacman ports too but I'm not going to buy their wrist computer if it has a NOAC in it instead or just plays phone games :)

 

And I also want it to have controls like the Pacman watch I had in the 80's did (that was fun too) because that's the perfect interface for a watch sized Atari 2600 console.

 

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Tod's pacman is awesome and my favorite port of Pacman, everyone loved it back in the day I think folks not liking it is really more of a modern phennomena and tied to modern hardware.

 

 

No way, that port was heartbreaking in 1982 when I first played it. I never enjoyed it

 

 

I think Tod Frye made a pile on the royalties though.....makes it easier to look back without too much regret I reckon! :)

 

Did Atari pay royalties? I know they didn't even want to give their programmers recognition at all, which lead to the Adventure Easter Egg and the founding of Activision by disgruntled employees.

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Did Atari pay royalties? I know they didn't even want to give their programmers recognition at all, which lead to the Adventure Easter Egg and the founding of Activision by disgruntled employees.

 

If I remember the story correctly, Atari wizened up a bit after the Activision and Imagic guys left, and started handing out royalties. According to Wikipedia, he got 10 cents per sale, and ended up making over a million.

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No way, that port was heartbreaking in 1982 when I first played it. I never enjoyed it

 

 

 

Did Atari pay royalties? I know they didn't even want to give their programmers recognition at all, which lead to the Adventure Easter Egg and the founding of Activision by disgruntled employees.

 

Well most people enjoyed it tremendously when it came out but it's a matter of art preference. You played it bitd when it had a positive marketing image, today before people even play the game their perspective is influenced because it gets categorized as a market crasher. It sold 7 million copies and a sequel that was even better.

 

KC was my favorite genre variation but I enjoyed all of the pacman ports on classic consoles and home computers I played in the 80's including the the yellow VFD Tomy and Coleco tabletop pacmen.

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Well most people enjoyed it tremendously when it came out but it's a matter of art preference.

 

"Enjoyed it tremendously" is an overstatement. There were certainly those that liked it for what it was, but overall people were disappointed with it when it was released. It sold 7 million copies not because it was a great game, but because it had the words "Pac-Man" on the cover (and because it later became the pack-in game).

 

As for the sequel, Atari 2600 Pac-Man didn't spawn a sequel (as your post sort of makes it sound), the arcade Pac-Man spawned a sequel which had nothing to do with the 2600. That sequel was then ported to the 2600 because it was a massive success and it would have been foolish not to. And it was much better. It was better because Atari learned from the mistakes they made with the first game, that quality arcade ports matter.

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