HANDYMAN - new game, credits to M. Ferrell

[Baby Blue Azure]

So many Pac-man games, so little time. I'm sure by now Bob can't believe we're still fussing with these old games. And no one believes we'd still be programming Atari 7800 games from 1983 through now.

"All Pac-man games" except NES SLACKMAN (reference http://www.youtube.com/watchv=8REZjrbVfwl)start a rack with dots and the Pac-man munches and eliminates the dots. Recently I happened to view SLACKMAN on uTube and thought that would be a fine port to the 7800. But how to do it? I thought for some time one day how to do it, and no easy solution was coming to me. Then suddenly it struck me that same night there is a relatively simple solution - in fact, so straight forward I was able to build it in one evening. Now comes HANDYMAN, only on the 7800. HANDYMAN does what handy people like me do. They want to build things. So the rack begins with zero regular/normal DOTs, and HANDYMAN builds DOTs as the Player negotiates their way around the maze.

Recently working with JOYMAN (also available by Michael Ferrell on uTube), I decided to use the JOYMAN bin to create HANDYMAN since it's easy to make title screen changes - no modified bit-mapping necessary, and I love the colors and the simple Pac-man style mazes. And Ferrell unlocked the mazes so there are place-settings for up to 15 mazes in this game. In fact he entirely re-assembled the game from what I see. Phenomenal piece of work. And the "Bouncing Fruit" stays stationary below the pen, allowing me to expose other new features. Like a countdown display so the Player knows how much longer the Fruit will remain. Also, when the Player grabs the fruit, BLUETIME is activated. Also added a dots remaining counter so you know how close you are to finishing a rack (or how many dots there should have been in the first place). And other possibly subtle changes that might take a while to notice, like a dedicated rack counter for Player 1 and Player 2.

Does anyone know who Michael Ferrell is or how to contact him? We hope to get in touch with him to congratulate him on his works. One of his is a game named CRACKMAN that we wish we could get a hold of. Please have him contact us at atari78in84@yahoo.com ! Or if you have a copy, please fwd it to us! Thanks.

 

CRACKMAN VIDEO

In the Atari 7800 hacks section in February 2017, long-term blogger Joshua presented another Pac-man variety game - SLIMETIME. This game rocks! But nobody said much about it and 5 days later he departed AA.com after 13 years here! If anyone knows what's happening with his game (or him) we'd like to talk to you or him at atari78in84@yahoo.com ! Cuz I modified that game hugely, but don't want to publish it until Joshua has a chance to finish his original game.

I hope you enjoy this game! I've thought of adapting this design to a JR PACMAN game as well. It's harder to do, but the concept is about the same. HANDYMAN comes in 2 versions, the normal non-invincible game which is hard cuz you think you have all the dots but you didn't. And then you can follow up and play the invincible game. Will you get up to rack 100? Well, the rack counter runs up to 99 to help you reach that goal.

 

HANDYMAN START-UP SCREEN, NO DOTS!

 

HANDYMAN INV GAMEPLAY

 

HANDYMAN NORMAL

HANDYMAN_78C6.bin

Handyman_32K.a78

 

HANDYMAN INVINCIBLE
Handyman_INV_7824.bin

Handyman_INV_32K.a78

 

 

Best Holidays to you all!

Baby Blue Azure

[Baby Blue Azure]

Hey 7800 fans. There is an issue in this game that I detected in time for the PAC-MAN CHRISTMAS 2018 release, but I didn't see it in time for HANDYMAN. When the Fruit Countdown comes to zero and the fruit is extinguished, the tune continues to play. I like the tune from SUPER PAC but not that much. So I've patched that so the tune terminates when the countdown arrives at zero, and here's the update:

 

HANDYMAN NTSC NORMAL

HANDYMAN_a_756B.bin

Handyman_a_32K.a78

 

HANDYMAN NTSC INVINCIBLE

HANDYMAN_a_INV_7BE6.bin

Handyman_a_INV_32K.a78

 

Enjoy!