tep392

The name I think I have the game play replicated well. The only reason the arcade patterns won't work is because the maze size is different and that throws off the route timing. I thought of changing the fruit code so they would line up along the bottom but decided it was time to release it. I would have to change from using players for the fruit to using character mode.

...No need to mention it. Just forgot to THANK YOU for the FINEST PacMan that I ever recall coded / "reloaded" for the A8 Line-up. It oozes quality in every step of the way, plus it looks SLEEK in my home-theater setup with a touch of "scan-lines". The fact that I have a hard time choosing between firing yours, or my PS3 Namco Essentials or Mame's already speak volumes. Wow. That's quite a compliment. Thanks!

Yike's. That shouldn't hurt the cart, but best not to do that. Reset will always zero it out so it's no problem if the score gets corrupted.

He's probably just busy right now. I hear he's responded to others, so I'm sure he will get back to you.

It helps me to rotate the joystick 45 degrees.

I kept a list of all my changes/updates/bug fixes at the top of my source code. I was reading through the list today and had forgotten how much work actually went into this. I though some of the programers here might find this interesting, so I decided to post it. It basically documents the cronology of my work starting just after I updated the maze from Ms. Pac-man to Pac-man. TEP392 ; Final Version - Atarimax with Intro screen ; * maze 2 seems better - 204 dots, 4 engergizers ; * fix blinking dots ; * make sure sprites exit/enter at correct location 40-BF 7F JUMP - look at 7800 tunnel code ; * need to move fruit start and make stationary - update fruit times ; - DOES RED GET BORED while in cruise elroy mode? ; * update fruit fonts, check point values, move pacfrtsl to maze2 for space, move monster scores for space ; * update sprites ; * update monster movement logic ; * bored targets ; * chase targets ; - red - targets pac ; - pink - targets pac loc + 4 tiles in direction of movement, + 4 tiles left if up ; - blue - exits pen after 30 dots. target is vector calc from red to pac+2 ; - gold - exit after 1/3 dots. ; * distance calcs ; * tunnel speed / zone ; * invisiwalls ; * monst and pac speeds ; * reverse times ; * check why pink leaves too soon after pac deth ; * add multispeed siren ; * fix font for pen and put in code ; * fix colors for everything ; * adjust sound volume to match 8bit ; * update intro screen ; * update intermissions *Ani1 done *Ani2 done *ANI3 DONE ; * CHECK IF NORMALIZE NEEDS TO BE UPDATED FOR MAZE GEOMETRY DIFFERENCE FROM PMC ; * CHECK IF PAL SPEED ADJUSTMENT IS WORKING CORRECTLY ; * NEED TO CLEAR NEW VARS M0SLOW ; * UPDATED BORED MOVEMENT and pacflip FROM pmc ; * FIX FRUIT AT LOWER CONER AFTER GAME ENDS ; * SHORTEN DELAY DURING PAC DETH, MAKE MONSTER SHEETS FLAP JUST AFTER DETH ; * add special 20 pix high sprites ; * update writes to 1400,1600 (only when animating) ; * copy 20 byte sprites to 500 when using slots 7 and 9 ; * update code that clears 1400,1600 (only when animating) ; * ani1 - 0pac,3mon,7,9doublepac,3mon ; * ani2 - 0pac,3mon,0pac,3mon,5ripsheet, nail about 5 pixels high, top pix at same row as ; seg1 pac comes out first ; seg2 followed by red(eyes left) ; seg3 red ripping(eyes left), torn sheet ; seg4 red(eyes up), torn sheet, leg ; seg5 red(eyes looking at leg), torn sheet, leg.bottom pix of monster, nail is yellow, rips looks up, pause, looks down, pause. rips as pac leaves screen. ; 2nd verse start when torn ; * ani3 - 3mon,5leg - review 7800 version and arcade ; - sewn mon sprite - let eyes white show through 2 sprites ; - dragging sheet - 2 sprites ; - nakd mon - 2 sprites ; - eyes 1 sprite ; * add character to font for nail in ani2 ; * update animation tune ; * add screen flash after being cleared - COMPARE TO ARCADE ; * APPLE DIPSPLAYED ON KEY SCREEN ; * fixes - bear monster speeds not smooth, sprite bug on big pac#<(maybe), added button start ; * MSPM BUG - found bug with deathflg. should be set after pac dies so monster ; release logic is correct and uses global counter instead of monster dot counters ; * MSPM BUG - found bug in "interested" logic. Use diroffz2 for column calc instead ; of diroffc2. ; * MSPM BUG - Sound didn't change tempo correctly for PAL machines. ; * fixed bug with corrupted pac deth seuence. missing # ARG!!! ; * fixed no munch sound and delay with energizer ; * updated pac and fruit sprites to be more like arcade ; * updated colors for fruit. still need to tweak ; * fixe bug with lockup at end of two player game ; * implemented high score in game screen with mode 2 font ; * used Mrfish text fonts ; * added high score and 1/2 player selection in menu screen ; * fixed dot color ; * Pac is now shifted to left of corridor in both up and down. ; * Update ready!, player1&2, game over text and colors ; * fix attract colors for top two lines ; * look for area's to save rom space FOUND 104 BYTES ; * trap reset ; * tweak pac stamp ; * add button start from attract mode ; * add joystick setting changes. ; * some glitches in pen after player dies ; * remember to fix jmp -> jsr and rts after txtclr write ; * look into details of RACK variable. where is it used and updated. ; * added new menu fonts. Menu displays font as temporary test. ; * updated menu - game flow. Game returns to menu after game over. Menu stays in attract mode. ; * screen shuts off during HSC updates or resets. ; * fixed txtclr dli's ; * keep scores in display line when exiting game to menu ; * stop flashing maze in attract mode ; * track bug that flickers top of pac in top row ; * comment out animation debug - spacebar ; * correct PAL reverse times ; * change ghost eyes, eyes to pen and move score in one byte, score stamps. ; * get a flash of pac pointing right on left side of screen at start of menu ; * add intro screenpac animation ; * update intro big pac, monster looking down ; * update fruit score color ; * fix pause so stick or botton doesn't drop to menu. button unpauses ; * added pal specific blue times. adjusted times down 15%. reduce flashes to 3 at high levels. ; * UPDATED FRUIT STAMPS AND PAC COUNTER ; * bug fixes, 1st inter moved super pac up, fruit line glitch, wrong fruit at key level ; * bug fixes, game slow down at high levels, game over color glitch ; * fix new fruit glitch - lower line doesn't erase - lowered fruit 2 lines, in game and intro ; * clear 90 - 9f at boot only - do it in intro ; * Pac deth sound has been revamped ; * reduced siren and eyes volume one click ; * changed fruit score color ; * joystick right/left will change start level up/down respectively ; * fix eat monster sound so channel 1 isn't interuppted

Send a note to Albert if you are interested in buying a cart. He is planning to sell them through Atariage.

I hear ya. I left my 400, 410 and carts on the curb in the late 80's.

Albert is making a list. PM him if you want to buy a cart.

I sold 46 copies.

I've asked Albert if he wan't to sell it in his store. He hasn't said yes or no, but I'm hoping he will be able to do it. It wouldn't hurt if people who are still interested in the cart send him a note expressing their interest.

The carts are sold.

Hello, I have two extra Pac-man Arcade carts available. If your not familiar with the game, you can read about it here. http://www.atariage....cepting-orders/ The carts are $25 plus shipping. These are the last of the carts that I will be producing for a while so get them while you can. PM me if interested. Regards, Perry

I want to thank everyone for all the compliments. I had a lot of fun working on this and it turned out much better than I had originally thought. I just want to explain something about the memory requirements. The game could run in 16k of ram if I had configured it to run on a standard bank switching cart like the XEGS carts. The main game code will fit in 16k of rom and the startup and intro screens could be done with 8k banks. The XEGS cart maps into the 16k of ROM space from 0x8000-0xBFFF. But a major design requirement was to use a flash cart so I could save the high score. The Maxflash cart I'm using can only map into the 8k rom space from 0xA000 - 0xBFFF, so the remaining 8k of code has to be copied to and run out of RAM. I could have made it run with 24k of RAM, but going 48k simplified the code a lot, so I went that route. So this game could have been done back in the day and run on a 16k machine using XEGS cart technology. To Atari's credit, they did a great job with Ms. Pac-man. That is what this version was based off of after all. I would imangine that they had to cut some corners in development due to time constraints and pressure to get the game released. I didn't have those constraints. TEP392

My carts only been out a few weeks and I've already been out done.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. There are dot counters and a timer that are used to control when the ghosts leave the pen. When the counter/timer hits it's limit, the ghosts will leave immediately. The counter limits decrease over the first couple levels so they will leave the pen as soon as the level starts. I guess you'll just have to practice a little more.

The next batch of 25 carts are ready. If anyone hasn't PM'd me their shipping address yet, please do so. I'll need your address to calculate shipping. If your in the US, I'm going to ship USPS Priority, which is a flat $5. Also, I don't know if I gave MrFish proper thanks. He deserves a lot of credit for helping get this game finished. He did all the graphics design and a ton of play testing to help get the bugs worked out. THANKS MrFish! TEP392

Thanks for the compliments everyone! I'm out of carts but will order enough for everyone later this week. Please pm me with how many you want and your address. I'll send you a total with shipping when the carts are ready to ship. I hope that will be next week. Perry

Trust me, I'm making hardly anything on the carts. Just enough to motivate me to go through the effort to produce and ship carts for those who would like to buy them. Some people, myself included, like having physical carts for our collections. As for the animated intro, I wanted to give something extra to the people who are buying the carts. I guarantee you that the xex will play identically to the cart version, so you are losing nothing in game play. Game play is what this project was all about for me.

That will have to wait until I get the first 10 carts shipped out.

Thanks. I know about that one and have already fixed it. I will be posting an update in a few days. I had to redo the xex versions menu because it would stop going into atract mode after pressing select or option and left out the call to stop sounds when exiting from in game. I also forgot to update the pac death sound from some of the iterations I was working on. The sound in the cart version is what it should sound like. regards, tep392

Only if someone makes an issue of it.

Status for next batch. I'll order more carts when I have at least 5 people interested. Here's the current list. If someone wants to be added, please send me a PM. Wait list: 1- Disco Scottie 2- ice cream jonesy 3- 917k 4- blues76 5- These are the final binaries for my 8bit Pac-man hack. That is unless any more bugs are found. The xex is a fully functional version, minus the High Score save feature and animated intro screen of the cart version. The bin file is the 1mbit Maxflash version. Both versions require a machine with 48K of RAM. Edit: 10-Jun-2016 I have made a few updates to the 1mbit Maxflash cart version. 1) I made the high score save feature more robust. A few people had the high score get corrupted so I now make several attempts at writing the score if it doesn't verify. I also added a flashing "saving score" message so hopefully people won't turn off or hit RESET while the score is being saved. 2) updated the score characters that are displayed when eating montsers or fruit to be more like arcade version. 3) adjusted vertical speeds to better compensate for the non-square pixels. Now Pac and Monsters won't appear to move faster in vertical direction compared to horizontal. NOTE: I will not be making any updates to the XEX version. It's too time consuming. Sorry. 28-Sept-2014 I have fixed a sound glitch in the xex version and the binary is now the full shipping version with all levels. Enjoy! 10-Jun-2016 Update version 2.0 posted P.S. I still can make official carts with the Pac-man label by request. Price is $35 plus shipping. PacmanFinal.xex PacManArcadeFinalV2.0.rom - use with 1mbit Atarimax Maxflash cart Thank You! TEP392 Screen Shots

These are NTSC and PAL, respectively, screen grabs of the lastest version using Altirra. In the PAL screen grabs of V8 posted earlier, I had left the color codes for PAL the same as for NTSC, so they were way off.

I just received 10 carts, so very soon