How to Create Custom 7800 Pacman Hacks!

[Justin De Lucia]

Greetings everyone, Long time no see!

 

Sadly the Pac-Man tribute project that me and Shaun were working on a while back has been canceled.

Please read here for more info:

The downfall of the Pac-Man tribute project

I felt like sharing this as it relates to Pac-Man. Someday if I find another Pac-Man clone that I could "port" to the 7800, I will get working on it.

[Trebor]

If I knew what all the "fruits" look like, I'll put Cosmic Cruncher on the list of mazes to replicate.

 

Someday if I find another Pac-Man clone that I could "port" to the 7800, I will get working on it.

Hi Justin...In the outside chance you, or anyone else may be interested, here are some extensive details on Cosmic Cruncher:

 

16 GALAXIES:

GALAXY 0 = Earth *5 Spaceships*

GALAXY 1 = Moon

GALAXY 2 = Sun *4 Spaceships*

GALAXY 3 = Sun

GALAXY 4 = Saturn

GALAXY 5 = Saturn *3 Spaceships*

GALAXY 6 = Star

GALAXY 7 = Star

GALAXY 8 = Milky Way

GALAXY 9 = Milky Way

GALAXY 10 = Alien

GALAXY 11 = Alien

GALAXY 12 = Secret Symbol

GALAXY 13 = Secret Symbol

GALAXY 14 = Secret Symbol

GALAXY 15 = Secret Symbol *Endlessly repeats* and Spaceship (energizers) only causes Satellites to change direction.

 

 

3 LAYOUTS:

LAYOUT 1 = 193 Pulsar Dots + 5 Spaceships

LAYOUT 2 = 194 Pulsar Dots + 4 Spaceships

LAYOUT 3 = 195 Pulsar Dots + 3 Spaceships

 

 

SCORING:

10 Points ....Each Pulsar Dot

50 Points ....Each Spaceship (Energizer)

300 Points....First Satellite

500 Points....Second Satellite

700 Points....Third Satellite

1400 Points...Fourth Satellite

 

100 Points....Earth

300 Points....Moon

500 Points....Sun

700 Points....Saturn

1000 Points...Star

2000 Points...Milky Way

3000 Points...Alien

5000 Points..."Secret Symbol" [Cosmic Cruncher]

 

 

1 Bonus Cosmic Cruncher awarded at 10000 Points

 

 

Speed of Cruncher is always the same even if eating Pulsar Dots.

Speed of Satellite is always the same except when stunned.

 

Duration of stun effect (Energize spaceships) decrease with time until GALAXY 15 at which time there is no stun effect, only satellites changing course/going backwards.

 

All Satellites tend to take closest path/tunnel to Cruncher, relative to Cruncher's location at the time of the satellite crossing the path/tunnel.

 

Every level starts with the Satellites exiting from the right side of the cage.

 

After being crunched during a level, the Satellite's star eyes enter the right side of the cage and exit on the left side.

 

Number of Crunchers indicator denotes total number of lives remaining inclusive of the one in use currently. In other words, a number "1" means you are on your last life, rather than meaning you have one life left after the one you are currently on dies.

 

VIDEO:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EV1w32W-c

 

ADDITIONAL GRAPHICS:

Cruncher Sprites...

 

Cruncher Death Sequence...

 

Couple of Fruit Score Examples:

 

Satellite Scores...

 

Satellite Colors...

 

Satellite Sprites...

 

Title Screen:

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Obviously, the Cosmic Cruncher is a play on the C64 logo. It would be interesting to perhaps have this original ported, and then a new version with an Atari Fuji as 'Cosmic Cruncher II' or 'Ms. Cosmic Cruncher'. Additions could include a larger board and "fruit" that incorporates all eight planets of the Milky Way and other ones like a "Halley's Comet", and perhaps additional tunnel escapes on the top and bottom.

 

Original Instructions Manual...

Cosmic_Cruncher_-_Manual_-_VIC.pdf

 

I will look to get up another gameplay video which goes through all 16 Galaxies, helping to demonstrate the difficulty/speed, stun duration through higher levels, and the continuous repeat of Galaxy 15.

 

Thanks for reading, any for any/all interest in this port.

[Justin De Lucia]

Wow! Thank you very much Trebor! And with that here's Cosmic Cruncher 7800:

cosmiccruncher.a78

CosmicCruncher.bin

[Trebor]

Wow! Thank you very much Trebor! And with that here's Cosmic Cruncher 7800:

cosmiccruncher.a78

CosmicCruncher.bin

 

Holy crap! That was super fast and *very* well done. Going to try getting a video up this weekend.

 

*Thank You!*

 

In the meantime, here's a quick snap:

 

[Justin De Lucia]

Awesome. There's other stuff I could do though but it's all just aesthetic stuff, and the only thing off the top of my head would be giving the ghosts actual names instead of re-using their Pac-Man names. If their palettes revert to normal when they're returning to the pen after being eaten, I could color the stars so they match the ghost returning to the pen, and possibly remove the flickering effect the ghosts employ when they're stunned.

 

It didn't take me long since I had actually made the entire thing except for the remaining "fruits" past the second, so all I had to do was just draw the remaining "fruits" and apply their names.

 

EDIT: I made the update.

EDIT 2: Updated again to version 3.

cosmiccruncher.a78

CosmicCruncher.bin

 

Here's wha the maze looks like now:

Edited December 21, 2014 by Justin De Lucia

[gambler172]

Hi Justin

Looks great.....will check later

greetings Walter

[carlsson]

In case the reason for this VIC-20 game was not made clear in Trebor's posts, as far as I understand it origins from that Hal Labs in Japan made a licensed version of Pac-Man that was only allowed to be sold within Japan. Commodore however pretended else, renamed it Jelly Monsters and sold it worldwide. After a while they were forced to withdraw the game, and thus made Cosmic Cruncher which is satisfactionary different from the original Pac-Man for keeping Namco off their backs. Eventually Atarisoft released a real Pac-Man (and Ms. Pac-Man) but that is another story.

 

While you're onto it, you might want to make a version of Crazy Chicky (Creativision) too. It had a similar story of VTech releasing Crazy Pucker, renamed Crazy Moonie and Crazy Chewy before they inverted the gameplay so there is a hen which lays eggs instead of eating them, and foxes to hunt the hen. I suppose graphically it might be just a matter of switching the blank graphic for one with a dot and vice versa.

[Justin De Lucia]

Went quick and recreated the Crazy Chicky maze.

The bottom area of the maze was made on tile longer on purpose; if you'd prefer the bottom to be one tile shorter so it has the same size as the top, I can do that.

 

Also I'm not sure if having it "lay" the pellets is possible, since in the ROM when you eat a pellet it converts it to the blank tile which is used in other places.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Also I'm not sure if having it "lay" the pellets is possible, since in the ROM when you eat a pellet it converts it to the blank tile which is used in other places.

Dude Pacman will never finish those dots LOL! Even better if you make the "eaten" dots yellow instead of blue, so the gamer has to remember which dots he hasn't eaten yet, or wander around in Pac purgatory until he's traversed every corridor and stumbles across that last pellet!

Edited December 24, 2014 by stardust4ever

[carlsson]

Nice work anyway. I suppose the maze matches the Crazy Pucker release.

[Justin De Lucia]

I wonder that with enough power, someone could recreate this.

http://robbie.mameworld.info/mspactwn.htm

[Andromeda Stardust]

^^ That arcade machine is awesome! For the record, Tengen Ms Pacman (NES, black cart) has an awesome two-player mode as well...

[Justin De Lucia]

Well, Ms. Pac-Man Twin isn't your standard two-player simultaneous Pac; Here you have two layers of pellets, a red one and a green one. Both players must remove their respective layers to move onto the next board.

 

I made a few mockups of it yesterday on my blog on how the other three boards would look.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Justin De Lucia

[Andromeda Stardust]

^^Two sets of pellets to eat; now that's just

[Justin De Lucia]

Well the arcade game Homercide (a Pac-Man hack) had you chomping down on three layers of Pellets as just one player. Here, you only have one less layer, but now you and a friend much both clear their own sets of pellets.

 

Either that or go the Pac-Men (on Sharp X68000) route and control both Pacs simultaneously But there instead of having the two layers, you have evil level design with lots of open space.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Justin De Lucia

[PacManPlus]

I wonder that with enough power, someone could recreate this.

http://robbie.mameworld.info/mspactwn.htm

 

 

Well, Ms. Pac-Man Twin isn't your standard two-player simultaneous Pac; Here you have two layers of pellets, a red one and a green one. Both players must remove their respective layers to move onto the next board.

 

I made a few mockups of it yesterday on my blog on how the other three boards would look.

 

 

Hmmm.....

[PacManPlus]

I wonder if this is a strictly two-player game (I imagine it is)... If not how does one player work?

 

Also, I'm wondering if the lives are shared between the two players or if each player has their own set... I imagine the lives are shared otherwise it could turn into the 'one-player' option above.

 

[Justin De Lucia]

It is a strict two-player game. Just like the Pac-Men game I mentioned above, you must play it with a friend, or else control both Ms. Pacs yourself with two joysticks.

 

I'd imagine the lives are shared, since there's nothing in the video/images showing the presence of separate lives. And since if one of the Pacs were lost, the level would become unbeatable since you wouldn't be able to clear away one color of pellets. You could always double the number of lives the players start with from three to six, so if one player underperforms, it doesn't completely take down the other player as quickly.

 

I also assume there would have to be instant respawning after death following the death animation with brief invulnerability, like in Arrangement. And anything that would otherwise pause the game (eating or getting killed by a Ghost) wouldn't be present, as in the video you can see Ghosts getting chomped and Green Ms Pac getting killed without Red Ms. Pac or the ghosts freezing in place.

 

All mazes would have to use the Strawberry palette, which is white walls (though you could always make duplicates of the palette with White as a different color), red wall edges, and green pellets, with the Power Pellet edited to be the wall color and the normal Pellet being split into the following tiles: Red/Green, Red only, Green Only, and empty.

[PacManPlus]

After looking at the demo game, I'm noticing that there is no fruit. The way the demo is playing, the fruit should have come out before the player died. This would make sense as the 2nd player replaced the fruit sprite (there are only 6: the four monsters, the fruit, and the player).

[Trebor]

I'd imagine the lives are shared, since there's nothing in the video/images showing the presence of separate lives. And since if one of the Pacs were lost, the level would become unbeatable since you wouldn't be able to clear away one color of pellets. You could always double the number of lives the players start with from three to six, so if one player underperforms, it doesn't completely take down the other player as quickly.

 

I'm leaning towards the contrary - lives are not shared, and it requires only one set of dots to be cleared for the level to be completed. It is a matter of who can score and clear the most for each level (and ultimately entire game that is) played. Further, the presumption too then is only one player can play this game.

 

Reason for that line of thinking is in the videos under each individual player score area across the top is a "Game Over" in either green or red respectively. If they truly shared lives, the need or reason to have individual 'Game Over' statements for each side/color wouldn't make sense or be necessary.

 

Additionally, if they don't share lives and one player can lose all lives before the other, then the other player would have to be able to progress to the next level without the need of the other set of dots to be clear.

 

Perhaps the two sets of dots are always there with each start of a new game/level, though [?]

 

If it is only a one player or 'competitive' two player game being played, then maybe another player can join 'mid-game' [Highly unlikely though, as can almost lead to a 'never ending' game]. Obvious more footage/proof than what has already been provided though is needed.

 

Anyhow, please note the following:

 

The video was shot cropped with the right side missing/clipped off somewhat at the top, but you can see two sets of scores in addition to the two sets of "Game Over" banners.

[PacManPlus]

I wish whoever recorded the video took video of actual *gameplay*

 

You may be right, Trebor. I don't see a reason for two separate 'Game Over' messages if everything was shared.

If this is true, I have to assume that the player that is left when the other person dies completely only needs to clear his or her dots to clear the board (including the energizers) and only gets their 'color' dots from the next board on.

 

Maybe this should be one of those games where you select:

- One Player

- Two Players Alternating

- Two Players Competitive

- Two Players Cooperative.

 

The One Player option only gets their color dots on the screen (like explained above)... Same with Alternating. Competitive has two separate scores and lives (and separate counters for blue monster scores). Cooperative shares everything.

 

I still don't think there are fruit on the board though. The demo consumes too many dots for the fruit *not* to come out.

 

Bob

[Andromeda Stardust]

Bob, are you planning on recreating this?

 

http://robbie.mameworld.info/mspactwn.htm

Edited May 5, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Justin De Lucia]

I stand corrected.

[PacManPlus]

Bob, are you planning on recreating this?

 

http://robbie.mameworld.info/mspactwn.htm

Yes. I never knew about this hack, and it would be cool for the 7800 to have the *only* home version

 

The more that I think about it, I believe this should be two player only. The 'One Player' or 'Two Player Alternating' selections would just be fast Ms. Pac-Man, without fruit.

Edited May 5, 2015 by PacManPlus

[Justin De Lucia]

Yeah, considering we already have that on every other version of Ms. Pac-Man ever.

 

We should just stick with the two-player simultaneous modes, like co-op mode with shared lives and having to remove both layers of pellets, and the competitive mode where only one layer needs to be removed and the Ms. Pac that clears their layer first gets bonus points.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Justin De Lucia