New pacman for atari 2600

[MaximRecoil]

That Tod Frye video is interesting; it shows why he's not the best choice for the job of porting a game. I have no doubt that he's a talented programmer, but he doesn't understand why people were disappointed with his top/bottom exits / altered maze layout, and I bet he also doesn't understand why people were disappointed with his altered color scheme either. Just by getting the maze layout and color scheme right, and no other changes, his Pac-Man port would have been better received.

 

A programmer's creativity and personal preferences should be saved for programming original games. When porting, the goal is predefined, i.e., make it as accurate as possible, at least for the main variation anyway. No one would complain about an altered color scheme and maze layout for an alternate variation that you could choose with the Game Select switch (if there was room for such a thing); that would just be a bonus.

Edited October 22, 2015 by MaximRecoil

[WildBillTX]

Awesome, glad the audio was clear!

 

The other real interesting thing he said about Pac-Man prior to the video start was that being in the pioneer days, it never occurred to him at the time to just do a single player version, two player forced him into having to keep track of the state of two mazes of dots status. If he had thought of just doing a single player game he would have had enough time to produce a vastly different game.

 

I thought Atari demanded to Frye that Pac-Man must be a 2-player game (update: I just checked - I was wrong). But anything more would have helped his version. Still I think its awesome that Tod likes Dintar816's version. Too bad he didn't have the tools programmers do now and the right corporate environment.

 

BTW I noticed on v5b the cut scenes music is also improved, great job on that too!

Edited October 23, 2015 by WildBillTX

[+save2600]

Such a flattering and awesome video!

 

DINTAR816 *must* be proud. I know I would be.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

DINTAR816 *must* be proud. I know I would be.

Why? DINTAR816 is waaay above Tod.

[+Nathan Strum]

Here's a video I took at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo last weekend of Tod Frye talking about Pac-Man 8K:

 

Coolest. Video. Ever.

 

It's great to hear his thoughts on this game - what he would have liked to have done on his version, and things he hadn't even considered at the time.

 

Of course, homebrewers have the advantage of time now. Time to develop games the way they want, but also 35+ years of hindsight and programming experience to draw from.

 

Regarding Tod being puzzled about why the maze layout was important, I think it's because there were two audiences for the game: one wanted to have the arcade game at home, and anything short of that was going to disappoint (I'm in that group), and the others just wanted a game that played like Pac-Man, and didn't care about the details. The latter seems to be who Tod was programming the game for. After all, when Ms. Pac-Man came out, it used completely different mazes than Pac-Man, but nobody complained about that.

 

Nukey Shay's hack shows how playable Tod's maze layout actually is. Dialing in more arcade-like colors helps tremendously with the flicker, and just makes the whole thing look more like Pac-Man.

Edited October 22, 2015 by Nathan Strum

[+SpiceWare]

That Tod Frye video is interesting; it shows why he's not the best choice for the job of porting a game. I have no doubt that he's a talented programmer, but he doesn't understand why people were disappointed with his top/bottom exits / altered maze layout, and I bet he also doesn't understand why people were disappointed with his altered color scheme either. Just by getting the maze layout and color scheme right, and no other changes, his Pac-Man port would have been better received.

You're forgetting the time - ported arcade games before Pac Man had similar alterations, so it's no surprise to me that he questions being given grief over the design tradeoffs he made to make a 2 player port of Pac Man that fit in 4K.

[Shannon]

Yeah but those games were far closer to the arcade versions than pac-man was. I was highly disappointed in pac-man but not the three aforementioned "ported arcade games".

Edited October 22, 2015 by Shannon

[MaximRecoil]

Regarding Tod being puzzled about why the maze layout was important, I think it's because there were two audiences for the game: one wanted to have the arcade game at home, and anything short of that was going to disappoint (I'm in that group), and the others just wanted a game that played like Pac-Man, and didn't care about the details. The latter seems to be who Tod was programming the game for. After all, when Ms. Pac-Man came out, it used completely different mazes than Pac-Man, but nobody complained about that.

 

But the latter group wouldn't have complained about a correct color scheme and maze layout. When you have two target audiences for a game, one that wants accuracy, and the other which doesn't care either way, go for the accuracy, because then you please both groups, rather than disappointing one of the groups.

 

As for Ms. Pac-Man, it wasn't a port of Pac-Man, it was a sequel, so of course it should be different.

 

You're forgetting the time - ported arcade games before Pac Man had similar alterations, so it's no surprise to me that he questions being given grief over the design tradeoffs he made to make a 2 player port of Pac Man that fit in 4K.

 

Didn't the 5200 and/or the Atari 8-bit computer version of Pac-Man come out at around the same time? Those didn't go for an altered maze layout or color scheme. As for Asteroids, at least it still had a black background. Making an Atari 2600 game actually look like vector graphics is obviously impossible (thick, jagged outlines don't look anything like thin, razor-straight lines), and color was a big deal back then; B&W was the domain of the outdated Pong consoles of the time, and I can see it being perceived as a step backwards, perhaps even generating angry calls from people thinking their Atari was broken because Asteroids wasn't showing up in color.

 

Another one that they needlessly changed was Space Invaders. That one should have looked like Nukey Shay's hack from day one, instead of using ugly colors and a pointlessly restyled tank (which looks like a crude chess pawn) and aliens.

Edited October 22, 2015 by MaximRecoil

[+save2600]

Why? DINTAR816 is waaay above Tod.

 

Ignoring the circumstances, situations and variables between the two efforts for a moment, of course. But it's still a nice thing to be recognized by *him*, whether you consider Tod a peer/contemporary like that or not.

[SIO2]

Thank you sooooo much for posting the Tod Frye video. Fantastic!

 

I played DINTAR816's 8k v5b today for the first time. Amazing. The sounds blow me away and it plays great. Not to mention that in most 2600 games with flicker the flickering drives me nuts but the way DINTAR816 has minimized it, I barely notice the flicker. Awesome work!

 

It would still be cool to see a Frye update to his original version. After all, there can never be too many variants of the greatest game ever.

 

Edited October 22, 2015 by SIO2

[+FujiSkunk]

As for Asteroids, at least it still had a black background. Making an Atari 2600 game actually look like vector graphics is obviously impossible (thick, jagged outlines don't look anything like thin, razor-straight lines), and color was a big deal back then; B&W was the domain of the outdated Pong consoles of the time, and I can see it being perceived as a step backwards, perhaps even generating angry calls from people thinking their Atari was broken because Asteroids wasn't showing up in color.

 

Another one that they needlessly changed was Space Invaders. That one should have looked like Nukey Shay's hack from day one, instead of using ugly colors and a pointlessly restyled tank (which looks like a crude chess pawn) and aliens.

 

Fact was, just about any game given an Atari 2600 port during the black-label era was amped up on color and given its own "character", whether or not the platform necessitated it. The crucial difference is, despite all the changes games like Asteroids and Space Invaders endured, those games at least remained "fun" on the Atari. Pac-Man didn't, and so people criticized it, and, as tends to happen when something is being criticized, people jumped on the bandwagon and started looking for more and more things to criticize. "I don't like it, it's not fun!" "Yeah, and.. and it looks different too!" "Yeah, and... and why are the escape tunnels in the wrong places??!!"

 

I would agree that Frye, at least in retrospect, should be able to understand now why people have harped on such things. However, I don't blame him for those decisions, and I'm not surprised to hear that he was surprised when he first heard such criticisms. He was working with what he was given, things like mandates from on high, restrictions imposed by the hardware and the then-current knowledge on how best to work within those restrictions, and what little hindsight there was at the time for what made a good arcade port on the 2600. The Pac-Man he created wasn't any more or less of a "2600 game" than others from the same era... it just wasn't a very good Pac-Man, despite his best efforts. I like to think it was the fall-out from Pac-Man and the demands for better tools from the programmers that lead to the improvements we saw in 2600 arcade ports during the silver-label era.

 

Didn't the 5200 and/or the Atari 8-bit computer version of Pac-Man come out at around the same time? Those didn't go for an altered maze layout or color scheme.

 

They also had a lot more memory and other resources to play with, making it a whole lot easier to come up with something more arcade-like that also met the demands of marketing execs and came in on time and on budget.

 

As for Ms. Pac-Man, it wasn't a port of Pac-Man, it was a sequel, so of course it should be different.

 

 

I think he meant that 2600 Ms. Pac-Man also had different mazes than its arcade counterpart, and yet people don't criticize that as much. I think that has a lot to do with the mazes in the 2600 port at least having the same "look and feel" as the arcade game's mazes, but I also agree that since 2600 Ms. Pac-Man is a better game all around, fewer people were looking for extra things to throw rocks at.

 

[+Nathan Strum]

But the latter group wouldn't have complained about a correct color scheme and maze layout. When you have two target audiences for a game, one that wants accuracy, and the other which doesn't care either way, go for the accuracy, because then you please both groups, rather than disappointing one of the groups.

 

As for Ms. Pac-Man, it wasn't a port of Pac-Man, it was a sequel, so of course it should be different.

 

Agreed on both counts. I'm still not a fan of Tod's version, since it missed on so many points. I don't agree with his reasoning, but I can at least see where he was coming from.

 

I never liked the look of the 2600 version of Space Invaders either (still don't), since it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to get the sprites to look right, but it did have good gameplay (as did Missile Command and Asteroids).

[MaximRecoil]

They also had a lot more memory and other resources to play with, making it a whole lot easier to come up with something more arcade-like that also met the demands of marketing execs and came in on time and on budget.

 

The color scheme change had nothing to do with memory and other resources; from what I've read, it was simply because Frye thought the arcade color scheme was "boring". As for the maze layout, I don't see how making it like the arcade version would have required more memory/resources. Maybe making it have the outlined look would have required more resources, but simply rearranging those solid block walls that he used into a pattern like / more like the arcade shouldn't have been a problem.

[+Nathan Strum]

The crucial difference is, despite all the changes games like Asteroids and Space Invaders endured, those games at least remained "fun" on the Atari. Pac-Man didn't, and so people criticized it, and, as tends to happen when something is being criticized, people jumped on the bandwagon and started looking for more and more things to criticize. "I don't like it, it's not fun!" "Yeah, and.. and it looks different too!" "Yeah, and... and why are the escape tunnels in the wrong places??!!"

Agreed. Tod's Pac-Man not only looked (and sounded) very un-arcade-like, I always felt it played sluggishly.

 

Didn't the 5200 and/or the Atari 8-bit computer version of Pac-Man come out at around the same time? Those didn't go for an altered maze layout or color scheme.

 

They also had a lot more memory and other resources to play with, making it a whole lot easier to come up with something more arcade-like that also met the demands of marketing execs and came in on time and on budget.

 

 

Note however, how far off the 5200 version of Space Invaders was. Plus, the 5200 controllers were absolutely horrible, making Pac-Man, if anything, even less playable on that system.

 

I think he meant that 2600 Ms. Pac-Man also had different mazes than its arcade counterpart, and yet people don't criticize that as much.

 

A good point, but I did mean that people welcomed the new mazes in Ms. Pac-Man (and various arcade hacks), so the problem wasn't that Tod created a different maze, the problem was that he only included a different one. If he had included a more arcade-like maze and additional variations, people would have loved it (hindsight being 20/20 and all that).

[MaximRecoil]

 

Agreed on both counts. I'm still not a fan of Tod's version, since it missed on so many points. I don't agree with his reasoning, but I can at least see where he was coming from.

 

I never liked the look of the 2600 version of Space Invaders either (still don't), since it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to get the sprites to look right, but it did have good gameplay (as did Missile Command and Asteroids).

 

Yes, Space Invaders, Missile Command, and Asteroids all have good gameplay; they are among my favorite 2600 games. Missile Command is my favorite 2600 game; I own an original Missile Command arcade machine, but I play the 2600 version more often. Plus, with Missile Command, I don't know of any changes which were needless / done on a whim, given its 4K size. I do wish they would have included true analog trackball support though, but only if the standard joystick support was retained as well. I don't like the idea of having it be 100% tied to a bulky controller that was never included with the Atari 2600, but it is a nice option to have.

 

Also, regardless of how many ports got needlessly screwed up back then, it doesn't make it a good thing. By definition, a port should strive for as much accuracy as possible. The more you stray from that goal, the more it becomes a personal interpretation rather than a port.

Edited October 22, 2015 by MaximRecoil

[+Nathan Strum]

Missile Command is my favorite 2600 game; I own an original Missile Command arcade machine, but I play the 2600 version more often. Plus, with Missile Command, I don't know of any changes which were needless / done on a whim, given its 4K size. I do wish they would have included true analog trackball support though, but only if the standard joystick support was retained as well. I don't like the idea of having it be 100% tied to a bulky controller that was never included with the Atari 2600, but it is a nice option to have.

 

If you haven't tried it, you must get the trak-ball version of Missile Command that Thomas hacked. It totally transforms the game.

[NE146]

I put VCS Missile Command and Asteroids on a completely different timeframe and public awareness than VCS Space Invaders. Space Invaders was the groundbreaker away from the Hangman/Space Wars/Surround era.

 

Asteroids & MC came out (in my mind) much later,when the arcade was at the height of it's golden age and there was obviously more effort on the programmers part to bring those games home semi "accurately". I think they did an awesome job.. VCS Missile Command still being highly playable to this day where it did feel like you were playing a home version of the game it's based on.

 

It's hard to fault the guy really because of the day and age. But I admit being jarred by the huge differences in Pacman. As a kid I was aware of the VCS limitations but was at least expecting some facsimile of the original game. Ok it is one as is.. but I was hoping for a little bit closer.

Edited October 23, 2015 by NE146

[Albert]

The color scheme change had nothing to do with memory and other resources; from what I've read, it was simply because Frye thought the arcade color scheme was "boring".

Tod addressed this point directly while talking about his version of Pac-Man. He stated it was company policy to not use high-contrast colors, EXCEPT for space games, in order to reduce phosphor burn-in on televisions.

 

..Al

[MaximRecoil]

Tod addressed this point directly while talking about his version of Pac-Man. He stated it was company policy to not use high-contrast colors, EXCEPT for space games, in order to reduce phosphor burn-in on televisions.

 

..Al

 

"We were still new at doing advanced arcade ports to the VCS . There was Space Invaders and Asteroids; both of those used their own color schemes and Asteroids looked and played different from the arcade. I wanted to add more color to the maze instead of black and blue, so I chose the colors."

 

- Tod Frye

 

http://ataribook.com/book/what-are-the-real-facts-behind-pac-mans-development/

 

As for the part about the space games, I've heard that before too, but it seems to have been pretty well debunked in this thread. Here are a couple key posts:

 

 

Dauber, on 21 Jan 2015 - 3:47 PM, said:

 

Atari didn't allow 2600/VCS developers to use black as a background color unless it was a space-themed game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding this, I just shot a message over to Steve Woita who was there in this time period ('82-'84) and did the 2600 games Quadrun, Taz, Asterix and Garfield during that period. His answer:

 

"That is pure garbage! No one told me to do anything while I was there."

 

He proceeded to also provide his own games Taz/Asterix and Garfield as examples of non-space games with black backgrounds.

 

And:

 

 

Got a response back from Howard on Facebook now as well:

 

"Nope. Never heard anything like that."

[MaximRecoil]

 

If you haven't tried it, you must get the trak-ball version of Missile Command that Thomas hacked. It totally transforms the game.

 

I've been meaning to for a long time, but I don't have a 2600 trackball controller, and I don't think the one in my Missile Command arcade machine would play nice with my 2600. I have played Missile Command TB in Stella with a mouse though, which is fun, though the mouse sensitivity setting doesn't seem to have any effect. I would like to slow the cursor movement down some relative to the distance the mouse is moved, for more precision. The sensitivity setting has an effect for paddle games I've tried such as Super Breakout.

[+FujiSkunk]

A good point, but I did mean that people welcomed the new mazes in Ms. Pac-Man (and various arcade hacks), so the problem wasn't that Tod created a different maze, the problem was that he only included a different one. If he had included a more arcade-like maze and additional variations, people would have loved it (hindsight being 20/20 and all that).

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Perhaps the real answer is somewhere in between, though? That is, maybe the problem wasn't necessarily just a different maze, the problem was a different maze, no fruits, a significantly-different looking Pac-Man, and so on. I bet if what we got back then was more akin to Nukey Shay's Pac-Man 8K, people wouldn't have minded so much.

 

 

Also, regardless of how many ports got needlessly screwed up back then, it doesn't make it a good thing. By definition, a port should strive for as much accuracy as possible. The more you stray from that goal, the more it becomes a personal interpretation rather than a port.

 

That's the modern definition, certainly. Things weren't so crystal back in the early days of home consoles. Just getting to play any sort of flavor of a favorite game at home was often enough, and so companies like Atari and Mattel (and their programmers) were less dissuaded from putting their own personal mark on things. Of course as arcade games also became more popular, players became more demanding about getting that authentic arcade experience at home, as much as possible. Again, I see Pac-Man, and to a lesser extent the other three biggest arcade ports of 1981/early-1982 -- Defender, Asteroids and Missile Command -- as drawing the line in the sand, or maybe several lines in the sand, about what a good port should and shouldn't have.

 

 

"We were still new at doing advanced arcade ports to the VCS . There was Space Invaders and Asteroids; both of those used their own color schemes and Asteroids looked and played different from the arcade. I wanted to add more color to the maze instead of black and blue, so I chose the colors."

 

- Tod Frye

 

I can't comment on the contradictions in Frye's answers now and then, but regardless of who made the final choice in Pac-Man's colors, I still wouldn't blame Frye personally. Again, he wasn't doing anything differently than the other programmers, and at the very least there was no one above him telling him not to make such radical design changes.

 

 

Regarding this, I just shot a message over to Steve Woita who was there in this time period ('82-'84) and did the 2600 games Quadrun, Taz, Asterix and Garfield during that period. His answer:

 

"That is pure garbage! No one told me to do anything while I was there."

 

He proceeded to also provide his own games Taz/Asterix and Garfield as examples of non-space games with black backgrounds.

 

Note that by the time Steve Woita was working on his games, Atari had abandoned any "black in space only" policy. Centipede, Haunted House and Berzerk (arguably a space game, but not really) all had black backgrounds before any of Steve's games were released, and Joust and Mario Bros. would have been in development at the same time. I think it's obvious a lot of policies changed when the silver-label era was begun.

[MaximRecoil]

That's the modern definition, certainly. Things weren't so crystal back in the early days of home consoles. Just getting to play any sort of flavor of a favorite game at home was often enough, and so companies like Atari and Mattel (and their programmers) were less dissuaded from putting their own personal mark on things. Of course as arcade games also became more popular, players became more demanding about getting that authentic arcade experience at home, as much as possible. Again, I see Pac-Man, and to a lesser extent the other three biggest arcade ports of 1981/early-1982 -- Defender, Asteroids and Missile Command -- as drawing the line in the sand, or maybe several lines in the sand, about what a good port should and shouldn't have.

 

"Port" has always had the same definition, and it relates to software in general, not just video games. A perfect port would be one with no perceptible differences between it and the original, and the more perceptible differences there are, the less perfect the port is. Obviously a perfect port of Pac-Man isn't possible on the 2600, but the differences should be limited to necessary ones due to hardware limitations, rather than being compounded due to the whims of the programmer and/or his higher-ups.

 

 

 

I can't comment on the contradictions in Frye's answers now and then, but regardless of who made the final choice in Pac-Man's colors, I still wouldn't blame Frye personally. Again, he wasn't doing anything differently than the other programmers, and at the very least there was no one above him telling him not to make such radical design changes.

 

Yes, his supervisor/boss is ultimately to blame. Someone above him should have said no to the weird colors and maze layout which was drastically different than the arcade layout.

 

 

 

Note that by the time Steve Woita was working on his games, Atari had abandoned any "black in space only" policy. Centipede, Haunted House and Berzerk (arguably a space game, but not really) all had black backgrounds before any of Steve's games were released, and Joust and Mario Bros. would have been in development at the same time. I think it's obvious a lot of policies changed when the silver-label era was begun.

 

Which is why "Howard" was also asked about it, who, according to that thread I linked to, was there a year earlier than Woita. His reply was:

 

"Nope. Never heard anything like that."

[BigO]

I've been meaning to for a long time, but I don't have a 2600 trackball controller, and I don't think the one in my Missile Command arcade machine would play nice with my 2600.

What I've gleaned from the descriptions provided by the programmer in another thread,

(http://atariage.com/forums/topic/243453-atari-2600-trak-ball-games/?p=3342740)

the "ST Mouse" (some? CX-80's) compatible version probably will work with an arcade track-ball.

 

That is, assuming that an arcade track-ball:

• Outputs gray code as would come directly from the typical optical quadrature encoders
• Can be powered by the 5 volts available from the 2600.

Edited October 23, 2015 by BigO

[+darryl1970]

I hate to hijack the 2600 Pac-Man thread much more over the difference between early terms, but I've had some reoccurring thoughts as a response to some things that I've read.. Development was more challenging back then, so that's one given. I don't think Tod had a passion for Pac-Man. He didn't understand the draw of the look,feel, and unique sound effects, all which gave it that addicting element. He didn't understand why the top bottom escape route was an issue. He saw it from a play mechanics angle, instead of seeing the full experience. Maybe he's less of an artist/designer and more programmer; as someone pointed out, one would think he'd realize the big deal of these missing elements in hindsight. Maybe it's just a lack of passion for Pac-Man. Either way, it was a great video, and it was a huge compliment to Dintari.

 

Good point about the maze. I didn't like it because it didn't have variety like a true maze. It was the same boring pattern all over. Ms Pac-Man wasn't exact, but it also wasn't a board of repeating rectangles and center rows. There's just something very unappealing about that layout. I personally think it's more than just the color. Yes, black color helps, but it's still a bunch of boxes. Even KC munchkin had a true maze, vs a bunch of rectangles. Variety feels like exploration. VCS Pac-Man feels like going around the same block over and over.

 

Top/Bottom escape routes didn't show the monsters lagging behind. It also didn't give much suspense of getting trapped. In fact, Pac-Man went through monsters in the tunnel. However, the ill-named "ghosts" rarely used the tunnels. They all flew out of the box at the same time. .. they had to wait for the energizer to end before coming back out (all at the same time). The monsters eyes were not smart. The game lacked ALL the personality of the arcade.

 

I appreciate it for being part of my childhood. I appreciate it for the imagination it took for me to pretend it was Pac-Man (playing Pac-Man Fever in the background for sound effects). I appreciate it still left me something to want, otherwise arcades may have died before I had these wonderful memories. Furthermore, Dintari's Pac would not be as outstanding,and I wouldn't be more and more amazed every day at what the antique VCS can do!

[+FujiSkunk]

"Port" has always had the same definition, and it relates to software in general, not just video games.

There is the dictionary's definition and then there is the meaning accepted in context. Back then players were a lot more willing to call an imperfect adaption of an arcade game a "port." Even nowadays you'll still hear them called ports when everyone knows a close-as-possible translation may not have been in the original cards. But in the end that's just haggling over semantics, and I've done enough haggling about that this week.

 

Which is why "Howard" was also asked about it, who, according to that thread I linked to, was there a year earlier than Woita. His reply was:

 

"Nope. Never heard anything like that."

 

Gotcha, sorry, missed that one the first time around. That would certainly be at about the same time as Pac-Man. Not to try and be contrary still, but I wonder if different programmers got different impressions about what management and marketing wanted. I may be misremembering, but I seem to recall it wasn't just Frye who said Atari wanted games to be colorful wherever possible.