Kurt_Woloch

That's a great looking box. I think you took some wording from the flyer recently posted here. I just noticed that in the first paragraph of the box text, Ms. Pac-Man is mentioned while later she becomes Mrs. Pac-Man. So did they marry in between? I think the marriage of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man is missing in the series... there's not even an intermission showing it. Hmm... I would have to think about a game concept for "The marriage of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man", or in short, "Pac Wedding" :-)

Here are my times for this week (February 4th through 10th) on modern systems... sorry, I haven't played any modern games this week.

Here are my times for this past week (February 4th through 10th)... Arcade: Jr. Pac-Man - 16 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 92 min. in 5 sessions Jr. Pac-Man - 99 min. in 3 sessions Windows 9x: Visual PinMAME: Baby Pac-Man - 9 min. I had some more sessions of Jr. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800. During the week, Bob posted multiple release candidates of Baby Pac-Man for the Atari 7800, and I also played the original version of Jr. Pac-Man and the Visual PinMAME version of Baby Pac-Man for a comparison. The Atari 7800 version of Jr. Pac-Man is actually harder than the original one because the pellets you eat slow you down more. Also it doesn't feel quite as smooth. I also helped proofreading the manual for Jr. Pac-Man for the Atari 7800.

Oops, never mind... I got it by now.

Thenk you for posting RC13! But what are the differences to the last build posted?

I'm running it on MAME 0.169 which is the most recent build I have. It does have the flaw, though, that unlike Stella, it doesn't run all 2600 binaries very well if started as A7800. There also seem to be difficulties with binaries of a different ROM size, such as 32K.

Thank you for posting yet another release candidate. Nice changes, I think this also makes the tunnels a bit harder. Now for a bit of tunnel theory... I actually think it's not a certain number of frames it takes to reappear on the other side, but rather a certain distance travelled in the tunnel. I think this has to do with the numbers just wrapping around. You see, in the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man games by Namco / Bally, the maze is 28 characters wide, which is 224 pixels since a character is 8x8 pixels. Now I guess that the game just keeps incrementing or decrementing the position value which eventually overflows while in the tunnel. This means that there are 32 more pixels in the tunnel which are invisible (between the borders). Since Pac-Man is 14 pixels wide in the original version, there are a total of 18 possible positions in the tunnel where Pac-Man or a monster is invisible. Now Baby Pac-Man has got a different resolution due to Bally not using Namco hardware, but an off-the-shelf video chip, the TMS9918A or TMS9928A which has a resolution of 256x192 pixels (and monochrome sprites). It's basically the video chip from the TI-99/4A home computer which was also used in the Colecovision, Creativision and MSX systems.Only here it's used on an upright monitor, so the display is 256 pixels high and 192 pixels wide. If you wrap around the numbers in the tunnel like you did in the original game, that leaves 64 pixels in the tunnel which are invisible. So the 56 frames you see actually correspond to the time it takes to travel 64 pixels minus Baby's width through the tunnel, which sounds believable at a speed of a bit over 1 pixel per frame. And I guess it will be the same thing for the monsters. Now this logic falls apart on the 7800 version because there the maze is 256 instead of 192 pixels wide (in 320 mode) leaving no room in the tunnel which would be invisible. But since the position values are actually pixels in 160 mode, this corresponds to a maze width of 128 pixels. So to reproduce the tunnel length of the arcade machine, you would have to calculate 2/3 of 64 pixels which would be 42.67 pixels or roughly 43. I guess this wrapping around is also how the monsters sometimes block the tunnel entrance (at least in the original arcade version) because if Baby's farther apart than 128 pixels (which would be two thirds of the maze width in the original version), they "see" Baby on the other side and try to follow him to that place. At least that's my theory about that.

Thank you for posting the flyer! I read through it, and I found an interesting point near the end where it says "Completing a maze will spot an arrow.". I wasn't aware of this rule, so I checked it in Visual PinMAME, and the original game indeed does that while the Atari 7800 version doesn't... unless it's been changed with the last release candidate which I forgot to download before trying it, but at least it doesn't say so in the manual. So... yet another difference to the arcade original. I guess this also means that you can earn a bonus baby at the end of a maze if all center arrows were already lit (or two if it's the third maze as well). But I also guess that in this case, the "extra baby" light in the pinball section gets lit so you can't earn another baby until you've lost one.

OK, Quality assurance here. (I'm doing that in my company as well from time to time... I'm a great tester!) I've read through the manual and found quite a few things I would improve. Since the list would be very long, I've attached a RTF version of it where I've marked my changes in color. Basically, the red color means a changed or inserted word or spelling, pink means that something in between the pink letters has been deleted, and blue means that something is unclear, but I'm unsure how to correct it. I've made it an RTF file so that you can use Wordpad (or ClearSwipe) to display it. This should be available on every Windows computer, and it still supports color. Some notes: It's not only turns or lives, there are more words used interchangeably for this... "extra baby", "turn", "lives", "balls" and "player". "Player", actually, is only used in the actual game where it says "Bonus player" at the end of the 3rd maze. You said you did that because there aren't the letters for "You win an extra baby", but even in the manual it says "You earn a bonus baby", not a "bonus player". I think "Bonus baby" on screen was proposed here before, and after reading the manual it's obvious to me that it should be "Bonus baby" on screen as well. The word "turns" actually is used if multiple players take turns playing the game, and this reminds me of the fact that it isn't mentioned how two-player mode works, especially when the players are supposed to take turns. If one "turn" also comprises the play time on any extra babies, then it does mean something else, though it doesn't explicitely say so in the manual. Oh, and it also doesn't mention that you can serve the ball again up to two (or three?) times if it hit nothing but the left saucer. In general, the term "baby" seems to be the best for me because the "babies" seem to be the "master clock" for lives in that a turn (or life) always ends on dying in the maze, while it doesn't end on draining a ball (unless in pinball only mode). The "number of lives" mainly refers to the setting in the title screen. Maybe it should be called there differently as well, e.g. "turns" or "babies", and renamed accordingly in the manual. About the copyright notice: You included the fact that it's sublicensed to Atari Corp. Did this licence ever expire? Or in other words, is it actually Atari which still owns the exclusive licence to port any Pac-Man game to home consoles (and maybe computers as well) on cartridges? If not, then what point does it make to mention this if you're not actually affiliated with Atari, so if you were to acquire a licence, you'd have to talk to Namco, not Atari (with Namco already having proved not to respond to such inquiries)? I'm not discussing the actual copyrights here, just the wording... as you may know, actually this game was put out by Bally Midway, who at the time had the rights to distribute Namco games in the USA, without Namco's approval, as in fact was Ms. Pac-Man (but that was at least based on Namco's Pac-Man hardware). I think Namco even revoked the rights from Bally Midway because they did that multiple times. The other corrections I did, I think, speak for themselves. But in general, I think it's a well made manual, very professional looking! Baby Pac Man Manual Quality control.rtf

Here are my times for this past week (January 28th through February 3rd) on modern systems... sorry, no gaming on modern systems this week. Again, Baby Pac-Man on Visual PinMAME was reported on the classic tracker.

Here are my times for this past week (January 28th through February 3rd) on classic systems: Atari 2600: Ms. Pac-Man - 9 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 81 min. in 3 sessions Jr. Pac-Man - 195 min. in 8 sessions PC (Windows 9x): Visual PinMAME: Baby Pac-Man - 3 min. This week there were a few new release candidates of Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800 which I tried. For a comparison, I also played the Visual PinMAME version of the game, as well as other Pac-Man games... Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 and Jr. Pac-Man on the Atari 7800 which I find to be surprisingly hard... I think the original arcade version is somewhat easier to play. I still managed to reach the 3rd maze on it. Maybe I picked a wrong version because it doesn't have the intermissions. I think the release version has the intermissions, maybe it's not that hard.

Thank you for posting RC10! I think those are nice changes... the changed behavior of the even-up lights facilitates getting the first power pellets a bit, but the difficulty ramps up faster by the shortened blue time.

Thank you for posting RC9! Sorry about spoiling your release candidate, but I'm afraid I just found another difference from your version to the arcade... In the arcade, the even-up rollover lights come on as soon as you hit the hole above it. However, in your version, the player has to hit the hole with a power pill earned so that the hole takes him to the maze in order for the rollover light to come on. If the hole is hit, but doesn't result in a transition to the maze, the rollover light doesn't come on, which it does do in the arcade version.

Yeah, you can see that this game was not made by Atari. Atari was always keen on saving buttons, so they probably would have had the flipper buttons on the side only, and they also would have used them as start buttons (as they always did if a machine had ANY kind of buttons). Just a little side note...

Hmmm... that makes me ciurious how you wired the game up this way. I mean, even if it played itself flawlessly in a proper way, I can't imagine it would be able to amass this kind of score in only 40 minutes. So there must be something going on where some high-scoring item is triggered much more often than would normally be possible... Ah, wait... so you didn't only change the game to play itself, but you also changed the scoring of the items... that explains a lot.

Sorry, I forgot to report that I didn't play anything modern last week (January 21st through 27th)... Baby Pac-Man on VIsual PinMAME doesn't count as modern anymore since Carlsson said it should count as classic, so I posted it there.

Well, there are some places where the arcade game is harder than the 7800 version. I think in the arcade versoin, you can't corner as well, the blue times are a bit shorter and some ghosts head for the tunnel to cut you off if you enter the tunnel at the other side, so if you go through a tunnel, you're more likely to meet a monster and die than on the 7800 version.

Here are my times for this past week (January 21st through 27th)... Arcade: Asteroids - 18 min. Ms. Pac-Man - 21 min. in 2 sessions Space Invaders Part II - 4 min. Atari 2600: Seaweed Assault - 15 min. Atari 7800: Baby Pac-Man - 210 min. in 8 sessions PC (Windows 9x): Visual PinMAME: Baby Pac-Man - 19 min. in 2 sessions This week I played a bit more than last week, especially Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800. Bob is back and said I wasn't the reason for his leaving, so I didn't feel as guilty anymore for actually downloading and playing the game. I reached over a million points in both Arcade and Classic modes, and I also played the version in Visual PinMAME for a comparison. I also played 2 games of Ms. Pac-Man in order to see if my skills there have also improved by playing Baby Pac-Man. Other than that, I also played short sessions of Ms. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man. Asteroids actually was played on an online emulator by Norbert Kehrer. I'm not completely sure if this is eligible because the sound wasn't exactly carried over 1:1, but rather seems to consist of samples, and there's only one played at a time, unlike the original version where multiple sounds can occur simultaneously.

Well, I just played the Visual PinMAME version again with the two-player option (actually I'm surprised that there's a separate two-player button... normally with pinball machines you start a multiplayer game by pressing the start button the corresponding number of times)... and if one player leaves the ball in the hole and then dies, the other player, if he makes it to the pinball section, gets to play with the ball coming from the hole. Since that version is running the original ROM's, I guess that's how the arcade machine behaves as well. But maybe it's better to verify it...

I've now headed for a high score, and I think I've got one... this was accomplished with the ghosts in Arcade mode, remembering pellets and 5 lives... I've noticed something odd by the way... I managed to earn a power pellet and then place the ball in the corresponding hole and ended up in the maze. There I used up the power pellet, but didn't make it back to the open chute. The next life started with both chutes open, and I went down one of the chutes, and the ball was gone and supposed to be served from the bottom, even though I placed it in the hole when I left the pinball part. Somehow it was magically released in between. I managed to reproduce this, and it happened with the upper left power pellet. I just tried the same thing in Visual PinMAME, and there, even though you don't get a Pacscalator when you come back in this case, the ball is still in the hole and kicked out of it when you come back. I think this is a bug in your version.

Maybe... the correct scoring for the items that are supposed to be only 10 points, not 100? Just guessin'... By the way, thank you for posting RC8! About the dividing-up of the sound channels, I guess it'd be logical that in pinball mode, one channel plays the sound effects, and the other plays the flippers clicking. Another thing that occured to me... I think that on the switch from maze to pinball without the "Pacscalator", there's a pretty long delay before the sound comes up. I think it should start a bit earlier, the delay is definitely a bit shorter in the arcade. And as far as I know, in the arcade that sound plays again if you lose the ball and are supposed to serve it again because you didn't hit anything meaningful, while no sound plays in this case in RC8.

There's one thing I noticed about the sound in the pinball section... In the arcade original, each sound starts to play, and they all cut each other off, that is, only one sound plays at a time, and if a new one starts, it cuts off any old one that's playing. This doesn't seem to be the case here, where some sounds seem to have a lower priority and don't play at all if a sound with a higher priority is playing. Specifically, the "Fruit" or "Tunnel" rollover sound seems to be suppressed by other higher priority sounds sometimes.

When reading this, I just got another idea... one that would bring it closer to the arcade model, where you pay for play... instead of being able to download them, the ROM's could be put into an online emulator, ad-supported and/or with a donate button beside them, similar to what RandomTerrain has created here: http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-program-tone-toy-2008.html(which, by the way, is how I found some of the pinball sounds of Baby Pac-Man). That way you could try the games, but you could not copy them.

I think it happened to me as well... in this case the ball is in the one column where the surface is considered to be a horizontal line, so no left/right movement is added, and apparently here the ball has lost all of its left/right momentum. I also considered this to be realistic, so I left it in. It can also happen in other parts of the table in certain locations.

Please add 11 more minutes to Baby Pac-Man on the Atari 7800... Bob just posted a new update.