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Pac-Man Review from 1982


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Simple things like a black background and the bonus item being something other than a block called a vitamin were inexcusable for such a hot title. I get the 4k 2 player restrictions but he blew it on alot of other levels.

As previously mentioned, the colored background was also done on purpose. With the limitations on graphics he wanted to do something try and make it more interesting, hence the colored background and flickering ghosts that to him were more ghost like. As for the bonus items, if the graphics are limited because of the project specs vs. the resources that would include thinks like the bonus block. There wasn't a lot of resources left to play with for that kind of stuff.

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Poor Todd Frye.

He takes a lot of flack, in the same way so many people blame the guy making the hamburger that the meat quality is sub-par and the prices too high.

That guy doesn't choose where the stock is purchased, and he doesn't set the prices either...

That guy is just doing what he's told to do.

He can't do things the way HE wants in order to please a customer, either because it's beyond his means, or if it IS within his means, he isn't allowed to.

 

That's the job Todd Frye had.

He did as he was told.

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I call "BS" on the 'ghost' crap.

 

Every instruction card in every Pac-Man game back in 1980 called them 'Monsters':

post-1787-0-82075900-1421871518_thumb.jpg

 

The second cut-scene has the monster tearing it's kilt/dress/whatever and showing a leg underneath.

The third cut-scene has it sewn - *and has the actual monster (without the kilt/dress/whatever) running back to the right*

 

Atari / Tod didn't make them flicker because he thought they were ghosts, they called them ghosts because they had to flicker the sprites. (Which is completely understandable, but let's call a spade a spade).

 

Period.

Edited by PacManPlus
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So why are Space Invaders and Asteroids so well regarded despite having nearly no look or feel of their arcade counterparts? Like Pac-Man, they feature only the most broad and vague gameplay similarity to their parent inspiration.

 

Space Invaders is a solid port. Compared to Atari 2600 Pac-Man, the aliens don't flicker like crazy, the sound effects are as they should be instead of harsh bonks , and the control is good (plus you get a crapload of different game variations).

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There are several versions of the Pac-Man story. Some have mentioned Japanese folklore about ghosts. Iwatani doesn't mention it in any of the newer interviews, though. Regardless, there's no reason to flicker the ghosts so badly other than programming convenience. It keeps you from needing a sprite multiplexer and it keeps you from having to determine which ghost caused a collision detection.

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As previously mentioned, the colored background was also done on purpose. With the limitations on graphics he wanted to do something try and make it more interesting, hence the colored background and flickering ghosts that to him were more ghost like. As for the bonus items, if the graphics are limited because of the project specs vs. the resources that would include thinks like the bonus block. There wasn't a lot of resources left to play with for that kind of stuff.

Agreed on all of that, but even giving Todd that, I still have the same issues that I raised earlier -- Atari really blew it by not allowing 8k of space to work with and allowing Todd the time and tools and memory to make Pac-Man closer to the arcade game. It really seems like Atari knew the game would sell like hotcakes and didn't get a damn about what it looked like. We all knew even as kids the 2600 didn't have perfect arcade ports, but most of them were good efforts. This one was SO far removed from the arcade game it's not even funny. It's this kind of hubris that started to show serious problems at Atari.

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I thought the monsters were ghosts to begin with or at least the idea was there for that for the arcade game, but I don't remember where I read that or it it was true.

 

One thing that may have been overlooked, but I am not a programmer, so I don't know for certain. A lot was done in later games and with home brew with tricks to squeeze every little bit out of the 2600 hardware, correct? So how many of those tricks where known when Todd programmed this? Could Solaris have been done even in his day? Then you have the 4 k limit. Sure, there examples that show more could have been done with that 4k, but is all of that hindsight and from our perspective today?

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You sure? Dodge Em, Missile Command, Centipede, Berzerk, Haunted House, Yars', Basketball, Video Pinball, etc.

 

They don't count because something, something, something, dark side; something, something, something, complete!

 

youtube.com/watch?v=8ngGlPoI1vw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ngGlPoI1vw

 

:D

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You sure? Dodge Em, Missile Command, Centipede, Berzerk, Haunted House, Yars', Basketball, Video Pinball, etc.

Read it in this forum; just repeating what was said. (Isn't Yars' Revenge space-themed???) Might have been a rule during Frye's time.

Edited by Dauber
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I call "BS" on the 'ghost' crap.

 

Every instruction card in every Pac-Man game back in 1980 called them 'Monsters':

attachicon.gifMs_Pacman_Instruction_Card.jpg

 

The second cut-scene has the monster tearing it's kilt/dress/whatever and showing a leg underneath.

The third cut-scene has it sewn - *and has the actual monster (without the kilt/dress/whatever) running back to the right*

We've gone through this already. After Pac-Man's release, both players and the media viewed them as ghosts (because of their look) rather than the generic original monster term. Enough so that when Ms. Pac-Man was released in January '82 they had been officially renamed as ghosts:

 

http://www.arcade-museum.com/manuals-videogames/M/MsPac-Man.pdf

http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=707&image=2

 

Atari did not originate calling them ghosts or push for the move to that.

 

Even Tōru Iwatani refers to them as ghosts and "ghost shaped monsters" and explains he had ghosts in mind when creating the four of them:

 

https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pacman-designer/

 

http://www.wired.com/2010/05/pac-man-30-years/

"Pac-Man is inspired by all the manga and animation that I’d watch as a kid. The ghosts were inspired by Casper, or Obake no Q-Taro."

 

http://pacmanmuseum.com/history/Toru-Pac-ManCreatorSpeaks.php

"Some of the elements are related to ghosts. The way the ghosts were designed, it’s not something nasty. It’s an enemy, but still somewhat amicable, lovable. "

 

http://www.onlinespiele-sammlung.de/pacman/interview2.html

'Yes. The relationship between PAC-MAN and the Ghosts is like Tom and Jerry’s "Fight in a friendly way . . . " PAC-MAN does not eat until he dies. It’s just a fight over the cookies, something like "Don’t eat my cookies."'

 

Also see this article on the difference between ghosts and the term "monsters" in Japaense culture (which apparently there is not much of the difference that westerners lay on the terms):

 

http://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/11/15/whats-the-difference-between-yurei-and-yokai/

 

 

Atari / Tod didn't make them flicker because he thought they were ghosts, they called them ghosts because they had to flicker the sprites. (Which is completely understandable, but let's call a spade a spade).

 

Period.

Yes lets, lol. What you stated is an opinion and it's not based not based on any fact. Period. :) Atari didn't change them into being called ghosts (see above). Likewise, Tod wrote an anti-flicker for Pac-Man which was leveraged by several other games also in development at the time that hit the market before Pac-Man, one of which was Asteroids. He's stated this in numerous interviews, including directly to Curt for our book interview, and it's been verified by others there at the time. He had the tools to not make them flicker as much, he's stated that point blank to us, but *chose* to have them flicker to be more ghost like. His impression, as with many (see above) was that they were supposed to be ghosts. Wanting to try and jazz things up given the project limitations, he changed the background and made the ghosts/monsters flicker like ghosts. He has no reason to lie or play cover thirty some years later.

Edited by Retro Rogue
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...he's stated that point blank to us, but *chose* to have them flicker to be more ghost like. His impression, as with many (see above) was that they were supposed to be ghosts.

 

He chose to have them flicker. Surrrrre he did. :)

 

This sounds like revisionist rationalization to me. It's possible that some of the interviewees weren't being truthful with you, you know. The monsters weren't referred to as "ghosts" in any official capacity before the VCS manual. (I know, I know...but isn't it fun arguing about stuff that isn't important?)

 

post-1434-0-79561900-1422044505_thumb.jpg

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He chose to have them flicker. Surrrrre he did. :)

 

This sounds like revisionist rationalization to me. It's possible that some of the interviewees weren't being truthful with you, you know.

Nope. It's quite the opposite actually. You've had people surmising all this time (without any real directly knowledge of what went on) that it was poor coding or rushing vs. Tod just making bad decisions. The revisionism is what's been going in public this time. Rumors and myths told long enough become truth to some, and any attempt to clear up those long held misconceptions because "revisionist thinking."

 

The problem with that is Tod has been saying the same thing for years, and like Howard has no skin in lying about the development of a game from 30 some years ago that was universally poorly received, which they both accept. There's nothing apologetic about it, it's mentioned matter of factly about the design process. If it had changed over time or was presented in a covering manner, I'd find it suspect. Likewise the others we interviewed that corroborated about the anti flicker code they borrowed did so in the course of normal interview about their game, not in a "let's talk about Tod" and defend him scenario. There's no mass conspiracy of defending Pac-Man by ex-employees going on. We're very careful not to "lead the witness" in our interviews and instead look for blind confirmation. And in fact the only time we specifically asked people to discuss Pac-Man was the one time when we did group interviews in front of their old building over two days and simply asked them what their thoughts were on the game.

 

The monsters weren't referred to as "ghosts" in any official capacity before the VCS manual.

 

attachicon.gifpacman_glass_2.jpg

That claim wasn't any more accurate than when it was mentioned a few posts up or all the previous times in other threads. I already showed it was being used in an official capacity before 2600 Pac-Man and provided the links, plus Iwatani himself was and continues to do so.

 

(I know, I know...but isn't it fun arguing about stuff that isn't important?)

All I care about is preserving info as accurately as possible, something I take very seriously. Nothing is unimportant to me.

Edited by Retro Rogue
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You sure? Dodge Em, Missile Command, Centipede, Berzerk, Haunted House, Yars', Basketball, Video Pinball, etc.

 

Missile Command = Space themed. The rulebook states the missiles are coming from an interplanetary source. In any event, not all screens have black backgrounds.

 

Centipede and Berzerk = Came After Pac Man, so are mostly irrelevant to the topic.

 

Yar's Revenge = space themed. The Zorlon cannon is on the Yar's homeworld, so the Yar is traversing interplanetary space.

 

However, you do have a point with Dodge 'Em, Haunted House, Basketball, and Video Pinball. I can see Haunted House getting an exception because of the theme. The other three may be too early in the history of the 2600 for the rule to have been born yet.

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And yet, there's that inconvenient "Monsters" designation on the U.S. arcade cabinet.

And yet there's the inconvenient use of Ghosts on Ms. Pac-Man's US release flyers and operations manuals when the game was released in January 1982 several month's before Atari's Pac-Man(not to mention that those flyers were first available during the October 1981 AMOA). Likewise for Iwatani's statements quoted. Once again, Atari was not the first to call them ghosts. Your statement "The monsters weren't referred to as 'ghosts' in any official capacity before the VCS manual" is wrong. Iwatani and Bally/Midway did it before Atari. The fact it wasn't on the instruction card doesn't make the fact it was used on those other two official items go away. You're just getting obnoxiously silly already with the willful ignoring of these facts, it's hard to tell anymore if you're being serious or just trolling to draw this out.

Edited by Retro Rogue
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And yet there's the inconvenient use of Ghosts on Ms. Pac-Man's US release flyers and operations manuals when the game was released in January 1982 several month's before Atari's Pac-Man(not to mention that those flyers were first available during the October 1981 AMOA). Likewise for Iwatani's statements quoted. Once again, Atari was not the first to call them ghosts. Your statement "The monsters weren't referred to as 'ghosts' in any official capacity before the VCS manual" is wrong. NAMCO and Bally/Midway did it before Atari. You're just getting obnoxiously silly already with the willful ignoring of these facts.

 

"Obnoxiously silly" because we're debating simple video-game facts? I think I'm starting to get the idea here. You like to quickly and impulsively personalize things, especially when the possibility rears its head that there are more angles to consider than the single one you've settled on.

 

So: Never mind. You're correct all the time, and you are the forum sheriff of video-game history, in spite of the fact that many of us have been writing professionally about games since you were in grade school. People's subjective views, their memories, and programmers' potentially faulty recollections are not to be taken into account. Got it!

 

So forget it -- just don't write me a ticket, okay?

Edited by Chris++
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You're describing yourself to a tea on the other claims, you came into this with continually chiding commentary and claims that it's all wrong because people lie and there's some big conspiracy of lies regarding the flickering and further inferring that somehow we've never heard these other "angles" and didn't vet the hell out of them (including Tod's statements). Also, there is no other angle about the claim that 2600 Pac-Man was the first official material to use ghosts. Either other official materials existed before 2600 Pac-Man's release or they didn't. Guess what, they did. It's a binary situation.

 

But this:

 

People's subjective views, their memories, and programmers' potentially faulty recollections are not to be taken into account. Got it!

is just an overemotional and patently false inference about me and the research Curt and I have done and continue to do. I've stated fifty times over we don't go by one person's memories and recollections, nor do we even go just by people.

 

http://ataribook.com/book/example-vetted-info/

 

 

I'll be happy to bow out of this convo and you can continue to infer and make claims all you like. No fear of ticketing needed.

Edited by Retro Rogue
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I stated all of that about big conspiracies? How scary -- I have no such memory. It just goes to show that one can indeed black out if he drinks too much coffee.

 

Marty, it's cool. I just thought it was a fun discussion about a 35-year-old game. You're extremely defensive, and the reasons behind that, perhaps based on things in the past, aren't my business to contemplate. I wish you great success with the Atari book.

Edited by Chris++
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