Two-Player Pac-Man

[phitter]

Has there ever been a two-player Pac-Man game made for the 2600 (or any other system) in which both Pac characters are on the screen at the same time and the players compete simultaneously against each other to eat the most dots, ghosts and bonuses?

 

Just curious.

 

-phitter

[kenfused]

Has there ever been a two-player Pac-Man game made for the 2600 (or any other system) in which both Pac characters are on the screen at the same time and the players compete simultaneously against each other to eat the most dots, ghosts and bonuses?

 

Just curious.

 

-phitter

I was thinking ghost hunter on the atari 800 would do something like that. Never played it too much back then though because it required a translator disk to run on an XL IIRC.

[Lord Helmet]

The only Pac-Man game I remember like that is the old Coleco tabletop version. It had a simultaneous play option.

[Video]

That sounds cool, and it wouldn't cause much (if any) more flicker than the current games do.

 

Of course, what would the object be? To eat the most dots, kill the most ghosts, or die the least?

[D.Yancey]

Which player would the AI for the ghosts key in on?

[Crazy Climber]

The only Pac-Man game I remember like that is the old Coleco tabletop version. It had a simultaneous play option.

Thats exactly what I was thinking, I just finally got one again. I remember me and my sis playing it back in the day. Man were we easily amused, on a side note the sound from that thing must have drove my parents nucking futz, it sounds horrible

[Vic George 2K3]

Two-player simultaneous 2600 PAC-MAN would have been a good game variation.

[Crazy Climber]

Two-player simultaneous 2600 PAC-MAN would have been a good game variation.

It still could be.........someone please make this

[Gabriel]

Has there ever been a two-player Pac-Man game made for the 2600 (or any other system) in which both Pac characters are on the screen at the same time and the players compete simultaneously against each other to eat the most dots, ghosts and bonuses?

 

Just curious.

 

-phitter

 

Well, Ms. Pac-Man for the NES, Ms. Pac-Man for the Genesis, and Pac-Man Arrangement on Namco Museum all provided 2 player simultaneous Pac-Action.

[dwh]

I can see this game listed at the AA store;

"2 player Pac-Man, 2X the flicker, 2x the agony"

 

But what is really sad, is that I would buy it!

[Breakpack]

I can see this game listed at the AA store;

"2 player Pac-Man, 2X the flicker, 2x the agony"

 

But what is really sad, is that I would buy it!

 

What's even sadder is I would buy it to, and I don't have anyone to play 2 player with

[Dino]

I can see this game listed at the AA store;

"2 player Pac-Man, 2X the flicker, 2x the agony"

 

But what is really sad, is that I would buy it!

 

What's even sadder is I would buy it to, and I don't have anyone to play 2 player with

 

Without being a techie in any way, I would guess this would be more realistically done on a 7800?

[Lord Thag]

Get the Coleco tabletop. Believe it or not, the two player is fun. Plus, you can annoy your friends with the loud NYAH! NYAH! NYAH! noise it makes.

 

Those old VFD tabletop games are the bomb shiggety

[Lord Helmet]

The only Pac-Man game I remember like that is the old Coleco tabletop version. It had a simultaneous play option.

Thats exactly what I was thinking, I just finally got one again. I remember me and my sis playing it back in the day. Man were we easily amused, on a side note the sound from that thing must have drove my parents nucking futz, it sounds horrible

 

I got the coleco game for my b-day one year. I remember the sound...GOOD LORD THE SOUND...worst sound in a handheld/tabletop ever. 1st thing my mom did was ask if there was a mute or volume control on that thing

[PacManPlus]

I can see this game listed at the AA store;

"2 player Pac-Man, 2X the flicker, 2x the agony"

 

But what is really sad, is that I would buy it!

 

What's even sadder is I would buy it to, and I don't have anyone to play 2 player with

 

Without being a techie in any way, I would guess this would be more realistically done on a 7800?

 

I created something close, except that the 2nd player controls Blinky, the red monster:

Dual Pac-Man

[joeybastard]

Get the Coleco tabletop. Believe it or not, the two player is fun. Plus, you can annoy your friends with the loud NYAH! NYAH! NYAH! noise it makes.

 

Those old VFD tabletop games are the bomb shiggety

 

It was great, when I was a kid my friend had it and we'd play that at lunchtime. I had the Coleco Donkey Kong which I loved as a kid. I haven't played it in so long I doubt it held up very well.

[NE146]

Wasnt that Gamecube Pacman 2 player as well? Or was that only with one player controlling the ghosts and the other, Pacman.

[Video]

Which player would the AI for the ghosts key in on?

 

I suppose you'd have one human player one, and one human plwyer 0. And you'd have to have 2 ghosts on player one and two on player 2.

 

But when I said, it wouldn't flicker any worse than Pac-man already does, what I was thinking, was actually useing Ms Pac-man as a starting point.

 

Of course, if you used Pac-man, all the ghosts are player zero, aren't they? So you could have both players as player one and only affect pac-mans flicker.

[Lord Thag]

If you really want to have fun, track down an old Entex Pacman 2. It's similar to the coleco one, but has a way better maze, and the two player mode pits one person as the ghosts versus another player as pacman. It's very fun.

[kanaju]

That sounds pretty cool!

 

P.S. This is my first post!

[Foxsolo2000]

If you really want to have fun, track down an old Entex Pacman 2. It's similar to the coleco one, but has a way better maze, and the two player mode pits one person as the ghosts versus another player as pacman. It's very fun.

 

 

I feel old for I actually remember these old handhelds. Ah those were truly the golden days of gaming

[Dr Galaga]

There is a version for the full sized arcade games in the 96-in-1 Multi-Pac called Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man. It only works on the cocktail version. One person controls Pac and one person controls Ms. Pac.

[godzillajoe]

One idea I had for a game, if I ever learn this 6502 programming stuff is to have one player as Pac-Man, one as an evil Pac-Man twin, you both try to clear the maze but the dots change color randomly. When they're your color you can move faster and kill the other guy. When they're not your color, they slow you down like the big dots in Jr. Pac-Man and you're vulnerable. There is only one ghost, and he chases whomever is at the disadvantage.

 

Something like that. Not sure how it would play in real life.

 

Might need more tweaking

[Dino]

I can see this game listed at the AA store;

"2 player Pac-Man, 2X the flicker, 2x the agony"

 

But what is really sad, is that I would buy it!

 

What's even sadder is I would buy it to, and I don't have anyone to play 2 player with

 

Without being a techie in any way, I would guess this would be more realistically done on a 7800?

 

I created something close, except that the 2nd player controls Blinky, the red monster:

Dual Pac-Man

 

Maybe you could do a 7800 Pacman Collection Vol. 2 with different 2 player simultaneous versions of the game.

[Nukey Shay]

Which player would the AI for the ghosts key in on?

 

I suppose you'd have one human player one, and one human plwyer 0. And you'd have to have 2 ghosts on player one and two on player 2.

 

But when I said, it wouldn't flicker any worse than Pac-man already does, what I was thinking, was actually useing Ms Pac-man as a starting point.

 

Of course, if you used Pac-man, all the ghosts are player zero, aren't they? So you could have both players as player one and only affect pac-mans flicker.

 

It's a bit more involved than that, because Pacman also uses the native collision registers. This works fine for the original game, since 1 sprite is always devoted to displaying the player sprite. In a 2-player game, it would cause the problem where each player was immune to 2 of the ghosts...they wouldn't be displayed on the same frame - so the collision would never happen. I split the player's sprite when making the 8k version (to display fruit objects), and used a routine to deal with collisions...but this was still set to deal with 1 player only. Not sure how much worse collision checks would get, unless the routines were altered to check all 8 on a frame. You'd save ram in that version, because the game wouldn't need to store a seperate dot pattern for the other player. So some of that ram could be used to hold sprite variables for the other player (then just swap them back/forth @ 30hz along with the display).

 

The AI would still be a problem, tho...because outwitting only 2 ghosts would be kinda easy Perhaps have all of them gang up on a player when the opponent hits an energizer (instead of giving bluetime)?