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Ms. Pac-Man with Enhancements


MrFish

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Yep, hang in there...

OK, sorry if I came across impatient. It's just that in your original posts (edit) you said you would be reposting them the next day, and I was just checking (hoping) you still planned to post them. I was afraid you ran into unexpected problems.

 

Thanks again,

 

Bob

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OK, sorry if I came across impatient. It's just that in your original posts (edit) you said you would be reposting them the next day, and I was just checking (hoping) you still planned to post them. I was afraid you ran into unexpected problems.

 

No problem. Actually, the problem I mentioned in post #1 was fixed that night. I thought it wouldn't be done until the next day, because it was late and I wasn't sure how much effort it would take for me to locate and correct the problem, especially given that I could barely keep my eyes open at that point. But it just took me a couple of minutes to find and fix. So they went back up in post #4 the same night.

 

The problem mentioned in post #16 was a little different, as I'd realized the binary game file I initially started with was corrupt before I ever did any editing. In that post I just said, "I'll take down the binaries I've posted until the problem is resolved.". I suppose the bug/bugs present in the original binary was an "unexpected problem", but that's not an issue at this point. The time being taken now has more to do with some additional enhancements being added, as I could easily incorporate the changes I made before in a matter of less than an hour. So, as I say, hang in there, and they'll be something to show soon.

Edited by MrFish
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  • 5 weeks later...

I really hope you can make some time to complete it soon.

Regards,

 

- Y -

 

No problem. Actually, the problem I mentioned in post #1 was fixed that night. I thought it wouldn't be done until the next day, because it was late and I wasn't sure how much effort it would take for me to locate and correct the problem, especially given that I could barely keep my eyes open at that point. But it just took me a couple of minutes to find and fix. So they went back up in post #4 the same night.

 

The problem mentioned in post #16 was a little different, as I'd realized the binary game file I initially started with was corrupt before I ever did any editing. In that post I just said, "I'll take down the binaries I've posted until the problem is resolved.". I suppose the bug/bugs present in the original binary was an "unexpected problem", but that's not an issue at this point. The time being taken now has more to do with some additional enhancements being added, as I could easily incorporate the changes I made before in a matter of less than an hour. So, as I say, hang in there, and they'll be something to show soon.

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I really hope you can make some time to complete it soon.

 

Regard,

 

Thanks for the interest...

 

Unfortunately it's probably not going to be completed very soon. As per recent circumstances I'm not going to have much free time at all in the near future. The good part is that the project has already progressed to a higher level than formerly planned, thanks to Tep392 (author of Pac-Man Arcade) offering to lend his coding skills. So they'll be some nice surprises in store. I was thinking to post up some preliminary versions -- which are already looking very good -- and let people play test them. But I decided it'd be better to let a small group do most of the play-testing; that way there won't be so many versions floating around out there. Plus I like the idea of showing all the changes at once, rather than piecemeal.

 

The project is high on my to do list. So once I get back some time, it'll be getting attention again.

Edited by MrFish
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I want to add to this that when Tep392 is involved in this, it must become GOOD.

 

A while ago I bought his pacman, and I regret I didn't buy it earlier (when he released it). That pacman arcade of TEP392 is one of the best atari 8bit games. Especially the speed of the game is very attractive. You have never the idea you are playing on an old atari console. The sound effects are also very close to the arcade port.

 

So if this means that Ms.Pac-Man will get the same treatment as PacMan, I'll be the first one to buy.

 

Best spent atari money ever.

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I want to add to this that when Tep392 is involved in this, it must become GOOD.

 

A while ago I bought his pacman, and I regret I didn't buy it earlier (when he released it). That pacman arcade of TEP392 is one of the best atari 8bit games. Especially the speed of the game is very attractive. You have never the idea you are playing on an old atari console. The sound effects are also very close to the arcade port.

 

So if this means that Ms.Pac-Man will get the same treatment as PacMan, I'll be the first one to buy.

 

Best spent atari money ever.

+1

Moreover, it has highscore save, an important feature in an arcade game.

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+1

Moreover, it has highscore save, an important feature in an arcade game.

 

Ah yes, I forgot that.

I keep playing this game. From cherries till the second maze with the 'key' .... no further yet. Around 50000 points, I skip most ghosts; My goal is most of the time to get as far as possible (not to get the highest score); but now you mention this save-feature, I might concentrate on the score more.

 

Other point is, that I don't play the game from the cart, but from THE!CART and from MyIDE ][.... on both of these I don't have the save score feature, but perhaps I'll grab the original cart again.

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  • 5 months later...

I wasn't planning to release any betas, but due to lack of available time for the project (all time being devoted to the GUI right now), I decided to throw one out for people to mess around with.

Changes:

1. All changes noted in the first post of this thread.

2. Most sound effects changed -- thanks to Tep392.

3. Speeds for gameplay have been matched with source code from the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade game -- thanks again to Tep392.

4. Title screen graphics improved/refined.


Known issues:

1. No adjustments for PAL machines. This will happen later. One side effect is that cut scenes end before the music has finished playing.

2. The "bump" sound (added by Tep392) at the end of the first intermission animation sequence is out of time with the collision of the two ghosts -- as in very late.

3. Some sprite corruption when characters are at the top of the maze (same issue was encountered on early versions of Pac-Man Arcade).

4. A very rare occurrence during the first intermission animation sequence, where Ms. and Mr. never actually meet, and it cycles in an endless loop! This is a strange error that I encountered several years ago, that finally popped up for me again recently. It seems it may have something to do with starting from the "Bear" level, but I haven't seen it enough times to actually be sure. This may be a problem with the original Atari version, and not due to any changes now being made.

Ms. Pac Enhanced (Beta 5-15-2014).xex

 

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This version is very nice, especially the sounds effects !!! Nice improvement!

 

Yeah, Tep392 did a really nice job dialing in the sounds. I think they're all being pulled directly from the 7800 XM version which will be released in the future. The speed changes make the game much more playable too, although I still have a healthy respect for apples.

Edited by MrFish
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I wasn't planning to release any betas, but due to lack of available time for the project (all time being devoted to the GUI right now), I decided to throw one out for people to mess around with.

Thank you for sharing. Our Grand daughter loves those kind of games. :-)

 

... This may be a problem with the original Atari version, and not due to any changes now being made.

Concerning errors already 'implemented' by ATARI: There is a background error with some of the original ATARI titles on real hardware, that won't pop up in the emulators. Not only Pac-Man but also Joust, etc. It looks like this:

post-18804-0-15573600-1416134826_thumb.jpg

CRT80 monochrome monitor

post-18804-0-84394200-1416134832_thumb.jpg

TFT TV

 

They were not visible back then since most of the displays used overscan. Maybe there is a chance to eliminate this disturbances.

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Thank you for sharing. Our Grand daughter loves those kind of games. :-)

 

Nice to hear.

 

 

Concerning errors already 'implemented' by ATARI: There is a background error with some of the original ATARI titles on real hardware, that won't pop up in the emulators. Not only Pac-Man but also Joust, etc. It looks like this:

 

Yes, and actually you can see this in emulation, since Altirra will allow you extend the viewing area. It will also show up some when using high-artifacting mode in Altirra-- although more so in PAL mode than NTSC. I also can see it on my studio monitor, which is not a typical display.

 

 

They were not visible back then since most of the displays used overscan. Maybe there is a chance to eliminate this disturbances.

 

The main reason this is coming up is because I used wide (48 byte) mode when creating in Graph2Font, in order to facilitate the technique known as a "false background". Any artwork/screen using this technique will have the same issues. I did some experiments months ago to see if I could use more of the 5th color of Antic 4 in order to eliminate the need for a false background. It looks possible -- if a little difficult. I won't be working on it soon, but I'll look into it again in the future. I guess we can add this to the list of known issues for particular setups/settings.

Edited by MrFish
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  • 2 weeks later...

Another known issue. I think this also happened for me with the original unaltered Ms. Pac-Man. For sure it's happened at least one other time, and so this is the second time. It's before the final board when Pac-Baby is supposed to be dropped off. It never happens though -- the stork gets stingy. I'm attaching a movie and also an Altirra save-state file for those interested to check it out.

 

no baby drop.zip

 

 

 

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Also, I want to post the scene where Mr. and Ms. never meet that I mentioned before. I'm including a save-state file here too, but for some reason it won't load in Altirra 2.5. I made it quite some time back, so I forget which version of Altirra I was using then. The state file will give an "out of memory" error when attempting to load it.

 

they don't meet.zip

 

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