+Defender_2600 Posted October 13, 2015 Share Posted October 13, 2015 As good as this game is, Mr. Mueller did not invent Ms. Pac-Man. He's recreated the arcade classic. Yes the result is glorious, like several of the ports on 7800 Bob D. has done. But porting a legendary game, and designing a game from scratch are not quite the same thing. Not the same thing, however porting a legendary game still can require more work and study than designing a game from scratch. It depends on the result you want to achieve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 13, 2015 Share Posted October 13, 2015 Out of curiosity, let's say people willing to return their old Ms Pacman PCB for an upgrade or simply purchase an upgraded one. Would this be feasible? Or too much effort and cost? I'd probably pay a good $5-10 for a replacement PCB. Just a thought. When if another multicart ever releases this will be less of an issue for those who buy/bought the ROM. I ended up getting a hold of David re: the update and he was more than happy to reprogram the chip for me at the expense of shipping, which was less than $10 to and fro. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pimpmaul69 Posted October 13, 2015 Share Posted October 13, 2015 Back on topic, carl is still selling the ms pacman rom if anyone wants it. This game is definitely worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 porting a legendary game still can require more work and study than designing a game from scratch. It depends on the result you want to achieve. Absolutely agreed. While from a creative perspective I'd much prefer people come up with truly NEW games (well, as new as anything can be when everything's already been tried), it's often damned hard to make good ports. Much harder than just making something yourself. Sometimes replicating specific graphics and sounds is much harder than just coming up with something new. As one example, I'm amazed they got Boulder Dash to look and sound as good as it does. Even if I still prefer that we had more original homebrew coming out instead of yet-another-clone-slash-port. But I certainly wouldn't think of taking anything away from the actual effort BD took to create. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Right. I guess that's exactly the reason why every home-brewer makes yet another port of a game. Nobody wants to make original games because it's just much too easy. It certainly takes a different set of skills and a lot of hard work to reverse-engineer and port a legendary game to a different platform, but there's an entire layer of effort that is skipped for designing the look, story, characters, and game-play mechanics that made that legendary game in the first place -- especially when the author did not have a previous legendary game nor its original code in which to base it on. Sometimes it astonishes me that the skill, imagination -- and yes even labour and effort -- needed to create something from a blank slate is not so respected in the retro-gaming community, which I feel misses the point by a mile. Authors of truly original works are celebrated for a reason -- this entire genre is fueled by the nostalgia for works created by people, most of whom were blazing the trails for what we now consider commonplace and ordinary. This is not to take anything away from the great work put into the Donkey Kong and Ms. Pac-Man ports, they are very good indeed; just to add some severely lacking perspective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 You misinterpret. Or I phrased poorly. All I'm saying is: if I was gonna make random genre game X, it's often easier to whip up a visual style/control scheme that works for my game than it is to get pixel-perfect accurate replication of something that already exists - especially if it's from a very different platform. I can make a jumping platformer for the Intellivision that is fun and looks nice (in fact I already kinda have), but getting the jump (in terms of button timing and gravity and in-air steering) to EXACTLY match Mario? That can be a ridiculous amount of work. Same with music and sound effects. I've whipped up some pretty nice tunes in an afternoon. Sound effects in an hour. But trying to match the exact tone and timing etc of an existing game? Damn hard, sometimes. Especially when you're on hardware that shouldn't be able to replicate it, so you have to come up with all sorts of tricks to fake out more sound channels than you've got, or whatever. Easier to just make a nice piece of music that works naturally on the hardware you've got. From a creative perspective though, of course copying something is about a thousand times easier. And far more marketable, sadly. I think at the end of the day, this is why we see almost nothing but clone, clone, port, clone. You can make the best game in the world from a gameplay and visual perspective, but people will still flock to a mediocre port of something they're already familiar with. Hence Hollywood, hence much of the current video game industry.... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 You misinterpret. Or I phrased poorly. All I'm saying is: if I was gonna make random genre game X, it's often easier to whip up a visual style/control scheme that works for my game than it is to get pixel-perfect accurate replication of something that already exists - especially if it's from a very different platform. I can make a jumping platformer for the Intellivision that is fun and looks nice (in fact I already kinda have), but getting the jump (in terms of button timing and gravity and in-air steering) to EXACTLY match Mario? That can be a ridiculous amount of work. Same with music and sound effects. I've whipped up some pretty nice tunes in an afternoon. Sound effects in an hour. But trying to match the exact tone and timing etc of an existing game? Damn hard, sometimes. Especially when you're on hardware that shouldn't be able to replicate it, so you have to come up with all sorts of tricks to fake out more sound channels than you've got, or whatever. Easier to just make a nice piece of music that works naturally on the hardware you've got. Completely agree, I could not say it better. Thanks for your post, freewheel. Here, your thought in an example: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/171671-surprise-donkey-kong-with-pokey-sound/page-7?do=findComment&comment=2718757 @ DZ-Jay, congratulations for your Christmas Carol, it is wonderful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Here, your thought in an example: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/171671-surprise-donkey-kong-with-pokey-sound/page-7?do=findComment&comment=2718757 Yeah. And that illustrates perhaps better where my head is on this. From a purely technical perspective, what you've done there is damned impressive. From a creative perspective, not so much. Anyway I'm more than on record in my preference for original games. Ports are interesting tech demos to me, but I'd much rather play something new and inspired. Clone #56 of game X is... yawn, when it comes to PLAYING. But I sure can appreciate the effort that it takes to get as close as possible to the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Just to put the implied arguments to rest, I am not talking about my game at all. Christmas Carol was inspired by another legendary game, and the core mechanics were actually ripped off from it; though eventually altered and evolved as the game came into its own. When it started as a Pac-Man clone, I didn't read the original code, but I took great pains in tracking visually and chronologically the original mechanics and the timing of all elements, with the Pac-Man Dossier as the specification, and a copy of the ROM in MAME. I got most of it right, at least until I diverged it and turned it into Christmas Carol. And you know what? I consider all that Pac-Man mimicking the easy part. Sure, it was a lot of effort, but I consider it "cheating" since I already knew that the original worked and how (to some extent), and didn't have to figure any of that out. Had I had to invent a new mechanic from scratch, without any idea if it would be effective or not, or whether it would be fun or not; that would have been REALLY hard. Figuring that out -- and then implementing it on top of it all -- that's the real challenge. At least in my opinion. Some of the mechanics in Christmas Carol required that effort, iterating through various ideas to see if they worked or not, and if they improved or diminished the game-play. But even those were inspired by my 30 years of playing video games. I do take credit for a lot of it, don't get me wrong; but I still think that the originals that inspired me are clearly superior and much more notable, and I only dream to be able to do something half as good from scratch myself. So, my comments are not to defend my game or to detract from Carl's accomplishment. I personally feel he could code circles around me, and he is truly talented (while I'm just a hack with a fortunate hit). My comments are to argue something more fundamental: the lack of respect or appreciation for truly original and creative works (any works) and the labour and effort inherent in them. I believe that original ideas have greater value, and the community should clamour for them and encourage them more. Unfortunately, I feel that it only serves to discourage burgeoning creative programmers when posts like yours celebrate the virtue of making yet another pixel-perfect port, and value that over making a truly original game fit for the hardware on which it was designed. Sorry for the rant. And my apologies to Carl for hijacking his thread. D2K and Ms. Pac-Man are very good ports and Carl's technical talents are impressive. dZ. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 Anyway I'm more than on record in my preference for original games. Ports are interesting tech demos to me, but I'd much rather play something new and inspired. Clone #56 of game X is... yawn, when it comes to PLAYING. But I sure can appreciate the effort that it takes to get as close as possible to the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 I (of course) like ports/clones. In case no one noticed. But I have ideas for original games, one day....one day! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjarnold7 Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Galaga, Pony Express Pete..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhoenixMoonPatrol Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 (edited) Is DK2Arcade an arcade port or is this original? Cause as much as I love Donkey Kong this sequel is fucking amazing. In every way from level design to fun factor its just an incredible thing of beauty. Well done. And as for Ms Pacman for Intellivision.... though the mazes aren't arcade perfect theyre very very fun,i find myself playing it more than the 7800 PacMan Collection as of late. I guess because I love seeing every console having its own flavor of a classic game. They don't always play the same for whatever reasons, and thats what makes retro gaming so fun to me. Seeing how each version of a game differs from one console to the other. To see its pros and cons. I love stuff like that. To see how these home brew programmers have mastered the hardware and have gotten these old consoles to do tricks and make us marvel at their genius. I love stuff like that! Oh and feel free to make sequels to Moon Patrol and Phoenix please. Let's just forget that arcade sequel, Son of Phoenix though...I hate that game. Meh. LOL. Edited October 17, 2015 by PhoenixMoonPatrol 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grips03 Posted October 17, 2015 Share Posted October 17, 2015 Carl's games rock!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DZ-Jay Posted May 9, 2016 Share Posted May 9, 2016 Was there a scoring bug and a cartridge recall to fix it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
First Spear Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 Re-reading this, I wish I I could give that post an extra "like" somehow. New ideas are few and far between. We need to celebrate them over ports where we can. The Intellivision was superior to the competition in par because the games were different, not because it has copies of games a buyer could get anywhere else. /snip/ Sorry for the rant. And my apologies to Carl for hijacking his thread. D2K and Ms. Pac-Man are very good ports and Carl's technical talents are impressive. dZ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m-crew Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 Ms Pac Man One of my favorite intv games, Carl you will be missed... DKjr for a last hurray,, I will take it with scoring bugs and all. Thanks again for all you have done.. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgdgagdae Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 (edited) Now that I have an Ultimate Intellivision Flashback, I'd like to purchase the Ms. Pac-Man ROM. I don't see it on Carl's site anymore. Is it no longer available for purchase? Edited May 22, 2016 by dgdgagdae Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl Mueller Jr Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 Please be patient. A solution will be worked out soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgdgagdae Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 Thanks! I'm the guy who bought your Ultimate FB, and now I want to buy your ROM for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 Check the site again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgdgagdae Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 I certainly wasn't expecting that! Carl or Freewheel, whoever is responsible for that, thanks! Very generous! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freewheel Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 I certainly wasn't expecting that! Carl or Freewheel, whoever is responsible for that, thanks! Very generous! This one is all Carl - I've got nothing to do with it. I just noticed the 2 threads at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vindex Posted December 7, 2018 Share Posted December 7, 2018 No more free? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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