Idea for homebrew title that 7800-homebrew dev. may consider to produce: Pac Land 1984

[Lynxpro]

I've been away from AtariAge for a bit and I find this thread. This is awesome! Pac-Land was originally planned for the 7800. Suffice to say, had Atari Inc survived [meaning no Consumer Division sale to TTL], we would've had Pac-Land on the 7800 by Christmas 1985. Hell, it probably would've been the pack-in by that point too as a way to stiff Nintendo's efforts to bring the Famicom/NES to America around that time with their NYC test market.

 

Some thoughts... the C64 version is slow! The NES version is such a$$ it leads me to speculate whether Nintendo actually paid Namco to deliberately gimp it so Super Mario Bros. would look even better. Why didn't the Atari ST version reuse the audio from the Amstrad version? What's with the Amiga version? For an ST port, it appears they shrunk the play field. Did they use all of the spare CPU cycles on DMA audio for PAULA? Yikes. 

 

Reusing Bob's BBCQ engine would be genius*. How much RAM are we speculating the game would require? What about HSC/SaveKey/AtariVox scoring support?

 

As much as I like Single and Multiple POKEY and TIA usage, what about using the Bup chip? It should be able to play the Namco audio chip music, or the Sharp 68000's version's YM2151-based audio. Oops, I referenced the YM2151, RAM, and HSC. 

 

Finally, maybe some A8/5200 devs should be added to the fray. They also didn't get Pac-Land on their systems back-in-the-day. And I think the 1088XEL folks are working on a modern audio chip solution, if they haven't done so already. Kinda reminds me of that Commodore audio expander cartridge for the C64 that used a Yamaha chip that 99.999% of that platform's software library didn't support [although apparently some modern C64 enthusiasts have been adding audio support to certain C64 games that also had DOS ports that used AdLib audio]...

 

 

*7800 Kung-Fu Master could certainly use some of Bob's code added to it. Maybe then the defeated enemies could be flung off the screen like the arcade original, since BBCQ does similar with its expert handling of the MARIA...

Edited October 14, 2019 by Lynxpro
Because I forgot to include my point about Kung-Fu Master...

[+save2600]

You didn't mention the TG-16 version. That one seems to look and play well enough.  

[TrekMD]

7 hours ago, gambler172 said:

Hi Guys

 

just lmk,if i shoukd continue work on  Pacland Homebrew....or not.. i do not want to put a lot of work in a project and nobody wants it.

Yes, please!  I'd love to see this on the 7800!  I'm sure I'm not alone!

[Jinks]

If it is totally a new game I would be interested. If it is a Bentley Bear variation setting not really. Nice to see more frames on at least the pac man character.

Why not hold off till Bob gets a chance to see what he can do to alter the Bentley engine to optimize for this game?

I am sure some people would be intetested whichever way you go. 

 

 

 

[Jaden (JRH)]

This is something that I really want to see come together. Pac-Land is one of the games that I want to see come to the 7800 the most and I think that it's very possible. However, I do think that it needs more done with it than just some sprites and music. I'm not a skilled programmer by any means, but if I have time to, I would love to try and help program the game. Of course, I need to learn how to program for the 7800 first. But I have some experience and I think I can help out at least a little bit. The one thing I don't want to see if for this project to fall apart and be completely forgotten.

[TIX]

I want to see this game get made too, but at the moment I find the luck of frames limiting..

For me the main characteristic of Pacland was the cartoony feel of the graphics, and that effect is diminished with the jerky 2 frames movement 

In a couple of months hopefully most of my projects will be completed, if by then we have an improved engine available I will come back to this !

[Giles N]

17 hours ago, TIX said:

I want to see this game get made too, but at the moment I find the luck of frames limiting..

For me the main characteristic of Pacland was the cartoony feel of the graphics, and that effect is diminished with the jerky 2 frames movement 

In a couple of months hopefully most of my projects will be completed, if by then we have an improved engine available I will come back to this !

TIX, I’d really like to encourage you to continue developing grfx for PacLand7800; your contributions so far are great, and we are still at demo-and-trial-level.

 

If someone can find ways to implement 3-7 frame-animations on the Bentley engine (in the not-so-far-future), a lot of arcade-quality will be passed on.

 

I’m still working to get aquainted with the 2:1 pixel ratio, but its been a while since I did much grfx.

(Right now I try to find good solutions for BabyPac) 

 

Drawing some objects, tiles or sprites, every now and again will accumulate over time.

 

Now, we learned that Bentley engine allowed 12 colour sprites; that can improve the potential gfrx quality many times.

 

 

[Giles N]

I will also encourage everyone at this thread which may have skills, or interes in developing skills in:

- grfx

- sound

- programming

- level-layout

- game-testing

- hardware-analysis

 

... to put in contributions on this thread.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Giles N

[Giles N]

23 hours ago, Jinks said:

If it is totally a new game I would be interested. If it is a Bentley Bear variation setting not really. Nice to see more frames on at least the pac man character.

Why not hold off till Bob gets a chance to see what he can do to alter the Bentley engine to optimize for this game?

I am sure some people would be intetested whichever way you go. 

 

 

 

If you know Bob, please do invite him or ask if he has any interest in it - after all its a Pac-game!

[Giles N]

On 10/14/2019 at 9:31 PM, save2600 said:

You didn't mention the TG-16 version. That one seems to look and play well enough.  

The Turbografx version looks very well. Not played it. But looks close.

I’ve found sprite sheets from it that can be useful.

[Giles N]

On 10/12/2019 at 4:17 PM, Jinks said:

Need more frames man. 

Remember we are at initial developing stage.

[+mksmith]

10 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Now, we learned that Bentley engine allowed 12 colour sprites; that can improve the potential gfrx quality many times.

Be wary of using them for everything - take up a lot more gfx bank space and extra render time.  

[Giles N]

On 10/13/2019 at 7:41 PM, Synthpopalooza said:

Boss enemy needs to be Mezmeron, an evil wizard from the Pac Man cartoon.

 

https://www.deviantart.com/mrmachination/art/Pac-man-Mezmeron-311766843

What about this character (dunno the name)?

Edited October 16, 2019 by Giles N

[Giles N]

On 10/4/2019 at 3:30 AM, Jaden (JRH) said:

I drew up some sprites in Atari Dev Studio. I don't know how helpful these are, since they're just items. But hopefully these will help out. And I'm definitely open to doing more sprites for the games. Maybe I could even draw backgrounds. All of these sprites are 12 by 12 and use 3 colors.

strawberry.spe 442 B · 4 downloads cherry.spe 442 B · 3 downloads melon.spe 443 B · 3 downloads apple.spe 441 B · 3 downloads orange.spe 442 B · 2 downloads power pellet.spe 766 B · 3 downloads

I think these are cool stuff.

 

I’m trying to get to grasps with pixels that are 2:1 ratio (two pixels wide and one in height).

 

Try to experiment with converting these to that standard.

 

I think these pick-ups actually are in the PacLand game.

 

Taking screen-capture of how things are drawn on 5200 and 7800 ports of PacMan-games and magnifying to look at details can be a start.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Giles N

[8th lutz]

1 hour ago, Giles N said:

The Turbografx version looks very well. Not played it. But looks close.

I’ve found sprite sheets from it that can be useful.

I own the Tg-16 version of Pac-land. It is a good game. The Tg-16 version has an ending. I beaten the game before. 

 

 

[Giles N]

1 minute ago, 8th lutz said:

I own the Tg-16 version of Pac-land. It is a good game. The Tg-16 version has an ending. I beaten the game before. 

 

 

How would you say it compares to the Arcade (if you’ve played that)?

[8th lutz]

2 minutes ago, Giles N said:

How would you say it compares to the Arcade (if you’ve played that)?

I don't know, but I would like play it at some point. I only played the Famicom and the Tg-16 version.

 

I did not have a chance to play it in the arcade back in the day and I did not recall seeing that arcade cabinet. I also did not recall seeing that arcade game at the 2 Midwest Gaming Classics I went to aka last year and this year. 

[Giles N]

39 minutes ago, 8th lutz said:

I don't know, but I would like play it at some point. I only played the Famicom and the Tg-16 version.

 

I did not have a chance to play it in the arcade back in the day and I did not recall seeing that arcade cabinet. I also did not recall seeing that arcade game at the 2 Midwest Gaming Classics I went to aka last year and this year. 

Ok, thanks.

 

One of the reasons I think it would be a very nice addition to the 7800 retro-library, is because platformers are few and far bewteen on the console.

 

You have Scrapyard Dog, which despite a common opinion to be too generic and too difficult, I really enjoy, and then you have Bentley Bear from 2013.

 

But except from that, platformers are not that conmon on the 7800.

 

But as the homebrew-library has grown, PacMan has become quite prominent, so I just thought a Pac-platformer, colourful and with cool 80ies arcade-sound would be a really nice addition.

 

(and if you have any skills in grfx, sound, music, programming, tile-setup, hardware-knowledge, play-testing-skills - anything - consider to contribute at leisure).

Edited October 16, 2019 by Giles N

[Synthpopalooza]

3 hours ago, Giles N said:

What about this character (dunno the name)?

Never seen him before, but yeah ... looks fierce.

[Giles N]

On 10/13/2019 at 11:18 AM, gambler172 said:

Hi Guys,especially for Tix and Giles

 

here is a first easy WIP of a playable first Level....The Titlescreen can be changed in an easy way...I adde the sprites in the Bentley engine...they look very well.

Do not care about my Pac Man sprite....it is not perfect,but i wanted it with HAT.

It can be changed .....Hardest enemy is CLYDE...very easy sprite,but Looks good

and is hard to beat.Backgrounds can be changed aswell.What i Need.....

I can only continue work on this,if there is enough interest.....

Have a look at my Asterix hack,based on Bentley....then you can see,what is possible....Then i would nee the help from TIX and GILES......maybe SYNTHPOPALOOZA could add Music in a finished Project??

I could Need more enemies.....they Need not to be from PACLAND,but they should fit in the Scenario.....I Need a Boss enemy.....

I Need a MS PAC MAN sprite....8x15......for the beginning....maybe a PAC BABY also.....

here is the file.....enjoy.....

i will continue on this...only with your help

The game will be HOMEBREW PACLAND...not original...so we can add,

what we want and it will be based on the old BENTLEY engine....

 

 

greetings Walter

Bentley.a78 144.13 kB · 17 downloads

 

Baby Pac frame 1 and 2

(at least first go):

[Giles N]

[gambler172]

12 hours ago, Giles N said:

looks good....do you have a MS Pac Man in mind?

i could need a Ms Pac Man sprite 

[Giles N]

10 hours ago, gambler172 said:

looks good....do you have a MS Pac Man in mind?

i could need a Ms Pac Man sprite 

Yeah, she is next.

[Lost Dragon]

On 10/14/2019 at 8:06 PM, Lynxpro said:

I've been away from AtariAge for a bit and I find this thread. This is awesome! Pac-Land was originally planned for the 7800. Suffice to say, had Atari Inc survived [meaning no Consumer Division sale to TTL], we would've had Pac-Land on the 7800 by Christmas 1985. Hell, it probably would've been the pack-in by that point too as a way to stiff Nintendo's efforts to bring the Famicom/NES to America around that time with their NYC test market.

 

Some thoughts... the C64 version is slow! The NES version is such a$$ it leads me to speculate whether Nintendo actually paid Namco to deliberately gimp it so Super Mario Bros. would look even better. Why didn't the Atari ST version reuse the audio from the Amstrad version? What's with the Amiga version? For an ST port, it appears they shrunk the play field. Did they use all of the spare CPU cycles on DMA audio for PAULA? Yikes. 

 

Reusing Bob's BBCQ engine would be genius*. How much RAM are we speculating the game would require? What about HSC/SaveKey/AtariVox scoring support?

 

As much as I like Single and Multiple POKEY and TIA usage, what about using the Bup chip? It should be able to play the Namco audio chip music, or the Sharp 68000's version's YM2151-based audio. Oops, I referenced the YM2151, RAM, and HSC. 

 

Finally, maybe some A8/5200 devs should be added to the fray. They also didn't get Pac-Land on their systems back-in-the-day. And I think the 1088XEL folks are working on a modern audio chip solution, if they haven't done so already. Kinda reminds me of that Commodore audio expander cartridge for the C64 that used a Yamaha chip that 99.999% of that platform's software library didn't support [although apparently some modern C64 enthusiasts have been adding audio support to certain C64 games that also had DOS ports that used AdLib audio]...

 

 

*7800 Kung-Fu Master could certainly use some of Bob's code added to it. Maybe then the defeated enemies could be flung off the screen like the arcade original, since BBCQ does similar with its expert handling of the MARIA...

The ST version was done by Mr Micro, Jim Gregory's company before he created Hand Made Software and it's coder John May also worked on Power Factor on Lynx and Total Carnage on Jaguar.

 

Given what's recently come to light about the working environment of Handmade Software, it's of little surprise now to find the ST and Amiga versions being so poor.

 

Past employees talk of staff conflicts, wasted development time, unpaid wages and bonuses,  lack of direction you name it.

 

Mr Micro closed owing people an awful lot of money, so i suspect little effort was made to utilise the extra hardware of the Amiga, game was simply ported from the ST and delivered to Grandslam so payment could be made.

 

 

This was the only ST game I could find John had written, he seems to of done far more on the ZX Spectrum for Mr Micro

Edited October 17, 2019 by Lost Dragon

[Lost Dragon]

On 10/14/2019 at 8:06 PM, Lynxpro said:

I've been away from AtariAge for a bit and I find this thread. This is awesome! Pac-Land was originally planned for the 7800. Suffice to say, had Atari Inc survived [meaning no Consumer Division sale to TTL], we would've had Pac-Land on the 7800 by Christmas 1985. Hell, it probably would've been the pack-in by that point too as a way to stiff Nintendo's efforts to bring the Famicom/NES to America around that time with their NYC test market.

 

Some thoughts... the C64 version is slow! The NES version is such a$$ it leads me to speculate whether Nintendo actually paid Namco to deliberately gimp it so Super Mario Bros. would look even better. Why didn't the Atari ST version reuse the audio from the Amstrad version? What's with the Amiga version? For an ST port, it appears they shrunk the play field. Did they use all of the spare CPU cycles on DMA audio for PAULA? Yikes. 

 

Reusing Bob's BBCQ engine would be genius*. How much RAM are we speculating the game would require? What about HSC/SaveKey/AtariVox scoring support?

 

As much as I like Single and Multiple POKEY and TIA usage, what about using the Bup chip? It should be able to play the Namco audio chip music, or the Sharp 68000's version's YM2151-based audio. Oops, I referenced the YM2151, RAM, and HSC. 

 

Finally, maybe some A8/5200 devs should be added to the fray. They also didn't get Pac-Land on their systems back-in-the-day. And I think the 1088XEL folks are working on a modern audio chip solution, if they haven't done so already. Kinda reminds me of that Commodore audio expander cartridge for the C64 that used a Yamaha chip that 99.999% of that platform's software library didn't support [although apparently some modern C64 enthusiasts have been adding audio support to certain C64 games that also had DOS ports that used AdLib audio]...

 

 

*7800 Kung-Fu Master could certainly use some of Bob's code added to it. Maybe then the defeated enemies could be flung off the screen like the arcade original, since BBCQ does similar with its expert handling of the MARIA...

The ST version couldn't use the Amstrad CPC versions music as coding duties given to different software houses.

 

 

Gannon Designs had responsibility for the 8 bit Home Micro versions and little support from Namco bar a photocopied manual in Japanese and a single arcade machine on loan.

 

 

They talk of having to code it under a tight deadline. 

 

 

Mr Micro handled the ST and Amiga versions. 

 

 

Harlequin were going to do the A8 version some years later i believe?

 

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-prev-pac-land_6931.html

 

And here:

 

 

Edited October 17, 2019 by Lost Dragon