Just Curious about Pac & Pal. . .

[DocEss]

Given the fact that it's been shown (and quite well) that every other Pac-family game can run on the 7800, would there really be anything preventing this game from also being made to work on the 7800?

[Rex Dart]

Besides lack of demand?

[Jr. Pac]

I doubt it. I would love to see Pac'n'Pal on 7800.

[DocEss]

Besides lack of demand?

 

Oh? I've never really looked to see if there was demand or lack thereof. Did someone do a poll or something to that effect to see?

 

I was just curious from a hardware perspective if it could be fairly easily done.

 

I wasn't aware if anyone wanted or didn't want it, or whatnot.

[The Usotsuki]

It's prolly doable. Almost certainly.

[DocEss]

I was thinking that'd be the case. However, like Rex there says, I don't know that there's any real demand (I mean, sure, I'd love it, to have a complete pac-ollection), and, I would have no idea how to program such a beast. Which, even if I did, might be a lot of work to please, you know, 2 people.

Edited July 26, 2011 by DocEss

[Nukey Shay]

One could hack the Ms.Pac program. The actual source code files exist for that game. Beats reinventing the wheel, IMO.

[DocEss]

Very true. I know that in the arcades it ran on the same hardware as Super Pac-man, and Bob's shown that can easily run on the 7800, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch, I figure, to do Pac & Pal.

[PacManPlus]

Yep - I thought about it at one time, but I'm not sure about how to do the 'Smoke' thing. We'd also have to add another sprite (Pal) and the AI for it (shouldn't be that difficult though - just follow whatever fruit is 'visible') I may attempt it at some point... using 'Super Pac' as a starting point.

[+TrekMD]

That would be cool. I bought one of those self-contained joysticks with games that has this game. Having it for the 7800 would be nice.

[The Galaxer]

Have you ever heard of Putting Pac&Pal to 320 mode with arcade graphics?

 

i got the idea from the thread "Testing 320 mode with pacman"

[DocEss]

This really makes me wish I knew more about programming for the 7800. As it stands, the most useful thing I can do is make sprites, which, really, isn't all that useful. By the time I could learn enough to be effective, Bob could have made the game three times over, I'd think.

 

Definitely wouldn't mind having a complete Pac-collection, though.

[Jaynz]

Yep - I thought about it at one time, but I'm not sure about how to do the 'Smoke' thing. We'd also have to add another sprite (Pal) and the AI for it (shouldn't be that difficult though - just follow whatever fruit is 'visible') I may attempt it at some point... using 'Super Pac' as a starting point.

 

PacNPal uses the same playfield setup as Super Pac Man, so that will handle your main ghosts, walls, etc. right there.

 

Miru/Chomp Chomp (you may want to include both as title options) will wander the maze randomly until a food is opened up. (They will pick an available food at random, if there's more than one.) At that point they will go to claim it and take it to the pen. You can eat the fruit which returns them to wandering mode. Once they reach the pen, they drop off the food, which is marked as 'eaten', and go back to wandering.

 

The maze is filled with cards. You can flip over up to three of them at one time. Each card reveals a food or power up in the maze. Eating that will also clear the card.

 

Power ups allow the 'fire' button to work, which stuns a ghost. Power ups are 'bad breath' powers that stun a ghost for a couple of seconds. The power ups change with each grouping of levels, and have new graphics, but have the same effect. You may want to 'skimp' here on the graphics, at least as far as the stunned ghost graphic is concerned. (The pink stunned effect is probably the best to select.) There are five different visual depictions of the bad breath power.

 

Bonus rounds are simply awful. You basically wander the maze flipping over cards to gain higher scores... Blinky is hidden randomly behind one card and the bonus round ends when you discover him.

 

http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Pac_%26_Pal/Walkthrough will explain all this in more detail. But, basically, start by stripping down Super Pac Man and coding in the card flipping and prize eating. Then add the stun effect. Then add Miru/Chomp Chomp. Save the bonus levels for last.

[Jaynz]

Honestly, though, I wonder if coding up Baby PacMan would make more sense.