Pacman4K

[gambler172]

Hi

Impressive for a 4k game.

Good work.

greetings gambler172

[Cybergoth]

I can understand but I hope you can tell what I was trying to do even with the 20Hz flicker. I'll work on a better flicker in the larger ROM.

 

Is the 8K flicker approach somehow going in the direction of Venture? It has a couple restrictions of it's own, but it can give you 6 sprites at a constant @30Hz

[DEBRO]

I can understand but I hope you can tell what I was trying to do even with the 20Hz flicker. I'll work on a better flicker in the larger ROM.

 

Is the 8K flicker approach somehow going in the direction of Venture? It has a couple restrictions of it's own, but it can give you 6 sprites at a constant @30Hz

That's not the plan. If I go with restrictions then it takes away from the monster's movement which would take away the feel of the game to me. Ideally I would prefer no restrictions and sharing both sprites.

[Cybergoth]

That's still a worst case 20Hz then.

 

Basically Venture is not allowing more than 4 sprites in either half of the screen, I'm not sure how severely this'd impact the gameplay.

[Steril707]

Wow, this looks certainly impressive...

[DEBRO]

Pac-man4K is now done. I haven't seen any reports of screen rollings and I haven't seen any either while playing on my 2600 or 7800.

 

Here is a zip file that contains the NTSC and PAL versions. I do ask that you don't make any carts out of this without contacting me first.

 

Enjoy...

Okay after some PM's from Nukey Shay I'm recalling the "final" on this.

 

A little history...he and I had been PMing weeks before about adding the bonus point sprites for eating the monsters. I guess the other day I got tired and stopped. I picked the source up again today and now I've got them in with one bug to remove. The sprites fit perfectly after the eye sprites (as Nukey Shay pointed out) which makes the coloring of the bonus points WHITE by default. It helps having another set of eyes...thanks again Kurt!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Any plans for a cart release via AtariAge?

[Breakpack]

Any plans for a cart release via AtariAge?

 

Or a Pac-Man collection??!

 

 

[Cybergoth]

Any plans for a cart release via AtariAge?

 

Dennis will release the full version on cartridge. This one was to see how much can be done in 4K

[Breakpack]

Any plans for a cart release via AtariAge?

 

Dennis will release the full version on cartridge. This one was to see how much can be done in 4K

 

He's got my money!!

 

:D

[vdub_bobby]

Will you submit the final 4K version to the minigame competition?

[Nukey Shay]

Okay after some PM's from Nukey Shay I'm recalling the "final" on this.

 

A little history...he and I had been PMing weeks before about adding the bonus point sprites for eating the monsters. I guess the other day I got tired and stopped. I picked the source up again today and now I've got them in with one bug to remove. The sprites fit perfectly after the eye sprites (as Nukey Shay pointed out) which makes the coloring of the bonus points WHITE by default. It helps having another set of eyes...thanks again Kurt!

No prob...I was trying to think of an overly-complicated solution as well until you mentioned that the point sprites must exist on the monster's page (which I read as any page used by the monsters).

 

What's the deal here anyway? You are running out of bells and whistles to add once you start bankswitching!

[Nukey Shay]

That's still a worst case 20Hz then.

20hz rarely seemed to cause riots back in the day...especially since this uses a black background. It was when a game went lower than it when people started buying rope and torches.

 

Basically Venture is not allowing more than 4 sprites in either half of the screen, I'm not sure how severely this'd impact the gameplay.

Naaah...he's GOTTA have free-roaming monsters (even tho that solution would probably only affect 1 monster at any given time). Change it and it ceases to be PacMan!

[Cybergoth]

Naaah...he's GOTTA have free-roaming monsters (even tho that solution would probably only affect 1 monster at any given time). Change it and it ceases to be PacMan!

 

Hehe, when worlds collide

 

Well, best approach should then be... *counts* ... creation of 11 Venture zones instead of just 2. Then it only goes to 20Hz when really 5/6 sprites share the same row

[Jess Ragan]

Holy Krabappel, this is great! It may only be 4K, but there's delicious arcade-quality goodness in every byte. Was this designed as a proof of concept, or are you planning to do anything more with it?

 

JR

[DEBRO]

Holy Krabappel, this is great! It may only be 4K, but there's delicious arcade-quality goodness in every byte. Was this designed as a proof of concept, or are you planning to do anything more with it?

 

JR

Thanks...

 

The 4K version is done and is being play tested a little more to make sure I didn't overlook something. So far it passes on Tony's Jr. (which was having screen roll problems before). I've tested it on my 4-switch 2600, 7800, and Sears Video Arcade II...again no bugs

 

I've got it out to 2 other testers. One being a Pac-man fan like me to make sure everything is okay. I've heard back from one with the green flag. Now I'm just waiting to hear from the other. I think you'll be pleased with the final final version so just hold on a little longer.

 

Once I get the green flag then I'll post the final final binary here, post the source to [stella], and look into expanding this to a larger size and bring in the variable flicker algorithm. Hopefully I won't get caught up like Keithen Hayenga did with 5200 Tempest and end up playing the 4K version so much that I don't get the larger version done.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Once I get the green flag then I'll post the final final binary here, post the source to [stella], and look into expanding this to a larger size and bring in the variable flicker algorithm.

...and post the 4K version to the Minigame Compo?

[DEBRO]

Once I get the green flag then I'll post the final final binary here, post the source to [stella], and look into expanding this to a larger size and bring in the variable flicker algorithm.

...and post the 4K version to the Minigame Compo?

Oops, I never did answer that question.

 

Right now I'm seriously considering it. So much so I'm trying to take screen shots for the site I know the judges don't take to well to flicker and this game has a lot of it.

[Nukey Shay]

Final-final 4k version done, then?

 

BTW one of the things that always bugged me when doing the hack of Pesco was that the center wall needed to be 2 pixels wide. I didn't realize it, but Mousetrap had a relatively simple solution to this by using a centered ball sprite instead.

 

Now I just need a time machine

[DEBRO]

Final-final 4k version done, then?

Yes, it's done and I meant to post it by now. Sorry about that. Here is the final completed version. Both NTSC and PAL versions are in the zip file.

BTW one of the things that always bugged me when doing the hack of Pesco was that the center wall needed to be 2 pixels wide. I didn't realize it, but Mousetrap had a relatively simple solution to this by using a centered ball sprite instead.

Hmmm...not a bad idea. I might have to look into that.

Pacman4K.zip

[Shannon]

cool. Totally forgot about this. Need to check it out.

[xorxif]

I didn't follow the development of this from the beginning, which is probably why I was so stunned when I tried it.

This had me misty-eyed. I spent the whole time playing with my mouth wide open, aghast. Why? It does the things I wanted the original 2600 version to do:

1. Eating dots slows you down so the monsters outrun you.

2. The ghosts go slow through the tunnels. *

3. The maze flashes when you finish a screen.

4. It has all the prizes.

5. The monsters have individual behaviors, and face whatever direction they are moving.

6. The monsters flash the appropriate number of times for whatever level you are on, after you eat an energizer.

7. The scoring matches the arcade.

8. You get an extra man at 10,000, complete with sound effect.

9. THE SIREN! It even changes pitch and speed as you eat more dots, like the arcade!

10. You DON'T stop when you eat the fruit.

11. Pac-Man dies with appropriate animation and sound effects.

 

This is absolutely great! By any chance do you have any more bytes left? There's only two things that I noticed that I think might be possible, and I think would make it even better:

 

1. * The ghosts do NOT slow down in the tunnels when they are blue. Is there enough room to make them do this?

2. Can you implement "DIP switches" using either game select or the difficulty switches? In the arcade you can select 3 or 5 lives, and extra life at 10,000 / 15,000 / 20,000.

 

I would imagine there's not enough space left to implement game difficulty at easy or hard, or 1 or 2 players.

 

I gotta say the achievement on this just blows me away. This is the Pac-man I wanted as a kid so badly back in the day. I was instantly transported back to my childhood and was sitting on the floor playing atari, only this time playing the REAL Pac-man!

[DEBRO]

I didn't follow the development of this from the beginning, which is probably why I was so stunned when I tried it.

This had me misty-eyed. I spent the whole time playing with my mouth wide open, aghast. Why? It does the things I wanted the original 2600 version to do:

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.

By any chance do you have any more bytes left? There's only two things that I noticed that I think might be possible, and I think would make it even better:

 

1. * The ghosts do NOT slow down in the tunnels when they are blue. Is there enough room to make them do this?

Oops, I didn't notice that...sorry. This could be done by re-arranging the MonsterDelayTable and placing the tunnel check before the monster blue check. I'll do that for the expanded version. I consider this one done now because I've had carts made

2. Can you implement "DIP switches" using either game select or the difficulty switches? In the arcade you can select 3 or 5 lives, and extra life at 10,000 / 15,000 / 20,000.

I thought about adding that but with only 4 bytes of ROM left I decided to sacrifice it.

I would imagine there's not enough space left to implement game difficulty at easy or hard, or 1 or 2 players.

There's not enough RAM for 2 players. I only have 128 bytes to play with.

I gotta say the achievement on this just blows me away. This is the Pac-man I wanted as a kid so badly back in the day. I was instantly transported back to my childhood and was sitting on the floor playing atari, only this time playing the REAL Pac-man!

This is why I wanted to do it. I felt the same way.

[Nukey Shay]

Per level basis, 2 players could be implemented with only 3 bytes of ram required for the other score + lives (held in the static nybble of the score). The remaining bit could be used to determine who's up.

 

Might get kind of boring for a player if he loses all his lives on a board tho...but it's a way of getting it in there without needing all that overhead holding dot patterns.

[Raiu]

Just as a note - the ghosts don't slow down in the tunnels while blue in the arcade version, either, but that's because the blue ghosts always go at the same speed that the non-blue ghosts go through the tunnels.

 

This looks and plays really great anyway. (Though, to be quite honest, I rather prefer the 5200-style ghosts of the original kernal demo)

 

=DS=