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Pac-Man Collection - 40th Anniversary Edition


PacManPlus

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5 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

I think he means that when he is at the top of the maze, the extra lives are scrolled off the bottom and not visible. Which, I think (?), is normal behavior. The entire screen scrolls, not just the maze. That’s correct, right?

Yes that is what I was meaning.  

 

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On 5/27/2020 at 3:11 AM, Jinks said:

Ok here is my u tube video. Coming in 5 min.

 

 

 

The game displayed on CRT is amazing. High resolution, excellent sound and accurate gameplay almost confuse you while they give you the feeling of having the arcade cabinet at home.

 

And to know that you are not playing under emulation (MAME included), but with real hardware manufactured in 1984, for me it makes the experience really fascinating.

 

Thanks again for this 7800 wonder! :)

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I actually like the Jakks Pacific Pac-Man TV games, other than their (usually)janky joysticks.  The gameplay is not terribly accurate to the arcade games, but I just view them as yet another Pac-Man or MS variant.

 

Bob's 7800 creations blow those games out of the water.  They even play quite well with an 8-way joystick, unlike so many of the home Pac-Mans.

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9 hours ago, SearsRoebuck said:

I think Bob said something about Defender ? (just to note Bob - I didn't buy the colecovision version of it in anticipation of your port ?)

That's one of them ;)  But thank you!   (I didn't know Colecovision had a Defender port?)

 

Thank you.  I'm very pleased with how it came out.  @tep392's Awesome Yamaha skills and @Defender_2600's and @Trebor's graphics twerking and advice pushed me (as always) to make this better.  It definitely wouldn't have been as good without all involved.

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Hey Bob - minor thing - who cares, but just FYI - for me anyway, when playing on a mac, on OpenEmu3, during the first intermission after 2 boards on Ms. Pac-Man, the in-between section is blocked out by some rectangular sections of black.....so you can't see the "celebration" in full....I'll try to capture a screen shot or video.....

 

Edited by thursday83
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1 hour ago, thursday83 said:

Hey Bob - minor thing - who cares, but just FYI - for me anyway, when playing on a mac, on OpenEmu3, during the first intermission after 2 boards on Ms. Pac-Man, the in-between section is blocked out by some rectangular sections of black.....so you can't see the "celebration" in full....I'll try to capture a screen shot or video.....

 

IMG_6462.MOV

Adjust your tv setting brightness perhaps? 

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1 hour ago, thursday83 said:

Hey Bob - minor thing - who cares, but just FYI - for me anyway, when playing on a mac, on OpenEmu3, during the first intermission after 2 boards on Ms. Pac-Man, the in-between section is blocked out by some rectangular sections of black.....so you can't see the "celebration" in full....I'll try to capture a screen shot or video.....

 

IMG_6462.MOV

My guess is that OpenEmu3 is based on ProSystem.

 

The original ProSystem code has defects in its handling of Holey DMA. These issues were really obvious on Pac-Man 320 (and related releases). 

 

Chris

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Do we ever need everyone running multicarts to test games on real hardware. I can confirm on the real 7800 which the game was programmed for it looks, plays, and sounds excellent. 

I think they spent some time checking the colors to make sure it would look good on the real deal not on a whateversystem emulator version 3.214 thru a 8k monitor. 

When the colors are off on these newer homebrews much of the game can be hard to see and look good in an emulator but will be unplayable on a real tv. I really do appreciate the attention to detail in this game. The final production is superb. 

 

 

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58 minutes ago, thursday83 said:

Jinks - that isn’t the issue unfortunately.  It’s a computer screen, regardless....but no, the screen brightness is fine.  The graphic cuts out completely.  

You can play it the ROM, perfectly fine (TIA sound), regardless of OS, in your web browser, at this link.

 

Thanks to @raz0red for his great emulator, and @RevEng for the tip.

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I’ve been playing the latest build on my XM using the Devcart and it looks and sounds ? great on my crt’s. Haven’t found any bugs yet but have not gone into all the variations yet. Just sticking to Pac-man and Ms Pac-man so far. I really like the additional screen area visible with the score and fruit lines moved and no more bounding boxes. 

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I am late to the party here. This is really impressive.

 

The pursuit of the perfect Pac-Man on old Atari systems truly draws me in. I am amazed at how the tia sound effects have evolved. I saw a video online with the Yamaha sound, and I was pretty blown away; however, there is something especially satisfying about seeing the lowest common denominator being pushed to the limits.

 

I do not know if development is only in a bug-fixing stage, but one thing that I would really like to see is the ability to steer Pac-Man's direction when stopped. That is something that I find myself doing constantly when playing the arcade games, and it feels especially satisfying when a home version includes this arcade-accurate feature. I remember being completely confused as a child, wondering how the great Pac & Ms Pac players would face a direction, in the corner, they were not moving. Now it just feels like a necessary thing to do when waiting for the monsters to approach the energizers!

 

PacExample.thumb.JPG.851fe3240f63f1e9781e225a5c40d3c3.JPG

 

Great job. I love it, regardless.

 

I didn't understand the reason for the dithered eyes, as it appears the eyes are dithered with white (or maybe a bright white-ish blue)? I don't question the necessity, as I am familiar with things not looking as one might expect. I just wanted to understand more clearly. I understand the limited pallette too. It just appears to my eye that "whiteish" is being dithered. Does that whiteish color not look right by itself, adjacent to the monster's costume color? If somebody wants to PM me and explain, I'd appreciate that. I don't want to hijack this thread. I would like to understand what I am missing. I have experienced similar limitations before. I know things often do not display on regular hardware as one might expect. I am wondering if it's something like that.

 

This is the picture that has me kind of confused. Why not just use the white? Ms.Pac-man320_spriteswithtransparency_V6.thumb.PNG.a6742b37e2f218cb83c8fa8f0d1aebf7.PNG

 

--Darryl

 

 

Edited by darryl1970
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On 5/16/2020 at 5:01 PM, Defender_2600 said:

Among the many notable features, certainly we have to mention the *real* "Plus" mode for Ms. Pac-Man, it is truly a remarkable *exclusive* of this spectacular Pac-Man Collection 320 for Atari 7800. :)

 

 

 

 

PMC_XM(9)_02.thumb.PNG.fe4c788b9b2b0b273d825eddecaa5bf4.PNG

 

 

 

 

 

PMC_XM(9)_01.thumb.PNG.1cdc01598b57a39d1a2476a702e31f54.PNG

 

"Ms Pac-Man Plus" has become one of my favorite "remixes", as found in the arcade upgrade, "Pac-Man Multi-Kit". I especially favor the "fast" version.

 

The attract mode even captures the through bug, around 10s in. Video Here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NKdpaxjDgaZM19137

 

20200604_101337.thumb.jpg.a71b9992f6008d39b2b8399202e34a50.jpg  20200604_101533.thumb.jpg.49951f646829db8338c55c4753498102.jpg

 

20200604_101423.thumb.jpg.4fbbce7a267d609bbc0fc46eb7d42ff9.jpg 

 

I was pretty excited to see "Popeye Pac-Man" included in the lineup. I saw it in the wild one time, and it was the Hangly variation.

 

 

 

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On 5/18/2020 at 8:17 PM, PacManPlus said:

Honestly?  Because I wanted it there. ;) Popeye Pac-Man has personal history with me.  The first time I saw any bootleg of Pac-Man, it was the Popeye Pac-Man (with the Hangly-Man mazes) in a cabaret cabinet at a corner Stationary Store.  Plus, I wanted *something* to be exclusive to this version.  I originally also wanted  'Largest Pac-Man' in there to have something else exclusive, but that game keeps track of everything separately (the dot total points, energizer total points, blue monster total points, etc.  and I was already starting to have issues with cycles so I didn't want to add to it by counting everything separately. 

 

As it stands, having the actual Ms. Pac-Attack, Popeye Pac-Man, and having a real random maze generator end up being the three things exclusive to this version (other than better TIA sounds and XM sound).

Thanks for sharing. I feel the same way. Although Hangly-Man was prevalent in my neighborhood, I came across Popeye Pac-Man one time. It was also the Hangly-Man play mechanics, which I also find to be one of the best remixed Pac-Man hacks. I had read about the Popeye variation in one of my video game books. It seemed to be urban legend. I was so excited when I finally found one at "Good Time Pizza". I felt as if I'd found Bigfoot. That really stuck with me.

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Hey, I was wondering when you would show up...

 

1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

I do not know if development is only in a bug-fixing stage, but one thing that I would really like to see is the ability to steer Pac-Man's direction when stopped. That is something that I find myself doing constantly when playing the arcade games, and it feels especially satisfying when a home version includes this arcade-accurate feature. I remember being completely confused as a child, wondering how the great Pac & Ms Pac players would face a direction, in the corner, they were not moving. Now it just feels like a necessary thing to do when waiting for the monsters to approach the energizers!

 

It actually is in a 'bug-fix only' stage, but I put that in.  It was easier than I thought.  So, I *think*, the only nuance that isn't there is the monsters 'look ahead' before actually turning.  That's never been in any 7800 version (either GCC's version or mine - and I think that includes the 5200 version as well), as I honestly don't know how to pull it off without breaking the routine (I've tried).  So, it's out.

 

1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

I didn't understand the reason for the dithered eyes, as it appears the eyes are dithered with white (or maybe a bright white-ish blue)? I don't question the necessity, as I am familiar with things not looking as one might expect. I just wanted to understand more clearly. I understand the limited pallette too. It just appears to my eye that "whiteish" is being dithered. Does that whiteish color not look right by itself, adjacent to the monster's costume color? If somebody wants to PM me and explain, I'd appreciate that. I don't want to hijack this thread. I would like to understand what I am missing. I have experienced similar limitations before. I know things often do not display on regular hardware as one might expect. I am wondering if it's something like that.

 

It's a limitation of that graphics mode of the 7800.  In my prior 320B versions, I had transparency turned off.  That was why you saw black boxes around the sprites.  In that mode, all three colors from the palette are available.  With transparency on (as in this version), you don't see any black boxes, but color 1 (in this case white) has the limitation of not showing up if it's in a pair with either itself or the background.  This means that for each pair of pixels, Color 1 (white) needs to be next to color 2 (red in the screenshot) or color 3 (lt. red in the screenshot) to even show up.  Otherwise it's black. 

 

41 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

Thanks for sharing. I feel the same way. Although Hangly-Man was prevalent in my neighborhood, I came across Popeye Pac-Man one time. It was also the Hangly-Man play mechanics, which I also find to be one of the best remixed Pac-Man hacks. I had read about the Popeye variation in one of my video game books. It seemed to be urban legend. I was so excited when I finally found one at "Good Time Pizza". I felt as if I'd found Bigfoot. That really stuck with me.

Thank you - the version I saw stuck with me as well.  I also made sure the 'stop moving when pressing right in the vertical tunnel' feature was there.

 

Interesting about Ms. Pac-Man Plus... I've NEVER seen that version in the wild, and believed it didn't exist!

 

Attached are the latest versions, with the 'direction stopped' addition in.

 

 

PMC_XM.A78 PMC_XM.BIN

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2 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

 

 

I didn't understand the reason for the dithered eyes, as it appears the eyes are dithered with white (or maybe a bright white-ish blue)? I don't question the necessity, as I am familiar with things not looking as one might expect. I just wanted to understand more clearly. I understand the limited pallette too. It just appears to my eye that "whiteish" is being dithered. Does that whiteish color not look right by itself, adjacent to the monster's costume color? If somebody wants to PM me and explain, I'd appreciate that. I don't want to hijack this thread. I would like to understand what I am missing. I have experienced similar limitations before. I know things often do not display on regular hardware as one might expect. I am wondering if it's something like that.

 

This is the picture that has me kind of confused. Why not just use the white? Ms.Pac-man320_spriteswithtransparency_V6.thumb.PNG.a6742b37e2f218cb83c8fa8f0d1aebf7.PNG

 

--Darryl

 

 

 

 

The motivation is clearly described in the picture, but it does not matter, now that picture is obsolete.

 

In the current version, dithering for energizers, dots and ghost eyes has been eliminated. Currently, energizer and dots are single color like the arcade version and the eyes of the ghosts have just a subtle and imperceptible reflection in cartoon style. :)

 

 

1281563267_newghosteyes.PNG.a82379b60f3c1f515ef0359cde4ef181.PNG

 

 

 

 

Anyway, I want to remember again that small imperfections for ghost eyes will be almost unnoticeable on real hardware and almost invisible on CRT TV. ;)

 

Indeed we must consider that the 7800 320 mode (320×240) shows square pixels with pixel aspect ratio 0.9 NTSC and 1.0 PAL (approximately 1.2 NTSC and 1.4 PAL on the NES with 256 horizontal pixels).

 

Here is this new 7800 Pac-Man Collection 320 on CRT TV. ;)

 

 

1070378432_newghosteyes..thumb.PNG.8ef1f794fbac7827e9abc8fde647a090.PNG

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1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

Hey, I was wondering when you would show up...

That made me feel good! Thanks! I am glad I didn't miss it too terribly late in the game.

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

 

It actually is in a 'bug-fix only' stage, but I put that in.  It was easier than I thought.  So, I *think*, the only nuance that isn't there is the monsters 'look ahead' before actually turning.  That's never been in any 7800 version (either GCC's version or mine - and I think that includes the 5200 version as well), as I honestly don't know how to pull it off without breaking the routine (I've tried).  So, it's out.

I did find one minor missing nuance that was present in every Ms Pac, from A8/5200 to Ms Pac320. The fruit is supposed to bounce through Ms Pac if she's not moving. In this version, the fruit will be eaten if it bounces into a stationary Ms Pac. Was this code based off of Pac320, or is it rewritten from scratch?

 

The eye looking ahead thing would be pretty epic too. I rarely caught that, unless I died at the wrong moment, but it was a cool thing. I think I may recall it being apparent in a frozen frame for the attract mode. As a child, I felt as if the monsters were looking for me. lol.

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

 

It's a limitation of that graphics mode of the 7800.  In my prior 320B versions, I had transparency turned off.  That was why you saw black boxes around the sprites.  In that mode, all three colors from the palette are available.  With transparency on (as in this version), you don't see any black boxes, but color 1 (in this case white) has the limitation of not showing up if it's in a pair with either itself or the background.  This means that for each pair of pixels, Color 1 (white) needs to be next to color 2 (red in the screenshot) or color 3 (lt. red in the screenshot) to even show up.  Otherwise it's black. 

Thank you! I knew it had to be something off the wall, like this. The dithering actually works well. There are some really weird quirks to the 320 modes. lol.

 

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

Thank you - the version I saw stuck with me as well.  I also made sure the 'stop moving when pressing right in the vertical tunnel' feature was there.

Awesome. I actually saw that in a video before I found this on AA! Nice detail! This is awesome.

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

Interesting about Ms. Pac-Man Plus... I've NEVER seen that version in the wild, and believed it didn't exist!

It didn't exist back in the day. This is a more modern mod. There have been other arcade multi-mods before, but this is one of the latest. There is a community for arcade game mods, just like our homebrew scene. I have a Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man cabaret. The Pac-Man was my original purchase. It had
Hangly-Man installed. It was just like I remembered it at the YMCA, Boy's Club, CYC, and corner store. All had the same Hangly-Man cabaret. I saw this in at the local YMCA. It COULD (??) be one of the ones I played growing up.

I never saw a Ms Pac-Man cabaret in the wild. They were always full-sized in this area. When I found a good price on Craigslist, I snagged one. I wanted the pair. I purchased a high score mod. It's a daughterboard that plugs into the arcade board: Pull out the z80, plug the z80 into the daughterboard, and plug the daughterboard into the z80 slot. Now it includes all of the games on that menu. It could be used commercially, but it would be awkward.  I got it for the "true" free play mode. If the arcade Pac-Man/Ms is set to free play, it stays on the "Press 1 or 2 player start" screen. Not only could that cause burn-in, but it also eliminates the attract mode. Boring!
 

This mod adds other versions of Pac-Man/Ms. It also includes Pengo, oddly. It stores the top 10 highscores and initials for each game. The kicker is that it will upload the high scores to the Internet, and there is an online high score board. So, I get to compete against people in different countries who own this mod. It's really cool.

image.png.dbfc5ae813d45e75680efb7d64bdb345.png

 

Here's the link to the mod

https://highscoresave.com/online-pacman/ms-pacman-multigame-free-play-and-high-score-save-kit/

 

Here are all of the arcade games that have online high score kits, along with the top players: http://arcadehighscores.com/global

 

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

Attached are the latest versions, with the 'direction stopped' addition in

I started to comment on this before I realized these were new "direction stop" fixes. That is really cool. I just had to stop and try it as I was typing this. That is AWESOME! Did you just do that now, or was that something you had already wanted to tweak?

1 minute ago, PacManPlus said:

 

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42 minutes ago, Defender_2600 said:

 

 

The motivation is clearly described in the picture, but it does not matter, now that picture is obsolete.

 

In the current version, dithering for energizers, dots and ghost eyes has been eliminated. Currently, energizer and dots are single color like the arcade version and the eyes of the ghosts have just a subtle and imperceptible reflection in cartoon style. :)

 

 

1281563267_newghosteyes.PNG.a82379b60f3c1f515ef0359cde4ef181.PNG

I was not aware that positional circumstances would cause color 1 not to display. That was the piece I was missing. I agree that it's barely noticeable, EVEN in emulation. I knew there had to be a "WHY?", and that is what I didn't know. (eg. Why not just use all white?)

 

Quote

 

Anyway, I want to remember again that small imperfections for ghost eyes will be almost unnoticeable on real hardware and almost invisible on CRT TV. ;)

 

Indeed we must consider that the 7800 320 mode (320×240) shows square pixels with pixel aspect ratio 0.9 NTSC and 1.0 PAL (approximately 1.2 NTSC and 1.4 PAL on the NES with 256 horizontal pixels).

 

Here is this new 7800 Pac-Man Collection 320 on CRT TV. ;)

 

 

 

1070378432_newghosteyes..thumb.PNG.8ef1f794fbac7827e9abc8fde647a090.PNG

Yes! It looks incredible! Nice work to you and all who contributed!

 

 

On a side note. I have two EPROM carts. One is 32K for Pokey sound. The other can handle up to 48K. I have 128k EPROMS I believe. Are you loading this on such a cartridge? I'd love to load this onto an EPROM to check out on my CRT! I actually like the TIA sound!!!

 

Edited by darryl1970
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