+SpiceWare Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Nice! I did see a glitch where pacman started jumping around the screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! I 'd like to place an order when complete!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted October 30, 2006 Author Share Posted October 30, 2006 I did see a glitch where pacman started jumping around the screen. Yeah, this has to do with the variable flicker I'm still working on. I'm ending HMOVE at cycle 74 so the HMOVE line doesn't show when you move in or out of the left tunnel. The problem happens when I switch monsters for the variable flicker in the kernel and don't have enough time to draw this monster. Since I'm ending HMOVE at cycle 74 I have to fine move the sprites right 8 pixels. Right now the kernel is so tight I can only do this when I'm not swapping monsters. If I swap monsters right after swapping another one then the 8 pixel shift is skipped and you see this jumping. I hope this makes sense. I'm working on another one that will remove conflicting sprites so this won't happen. I'm going to try to list the bugs in this WIP so far. Going from memory... [1] you can eat dots early while entering the opposite side of the tunnel [2] I broke the monster skirt movement [3] there is no game over...you keep playing [4] no sound for energizers [5] no sound for eating a monster [6] no sound for game startup [7] death sound is awful (sounds like something falling in Climber 5 ) [8] fruit sprite trashed when showed during death sequence [9] variable flicker needs work [10] monster AI needs work...they can get stuck in a loop looking for Pacman if you're in the right spots [11] release times don't vary per game board Wow, that seems like a lot but it's still playable to an extent 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted October 30, 2006 Share Posted October 30, 2006 Wow this maybe the BEST Pac-Man port ever once your done with it, keep up the good work^_^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted December 12, 2006 Share Posted December 12, 2006 Heh,any wurd on an update? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 Heh,any wurd on an update? Same Here! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted December 20, 2006 Share Posted December 20, 2006 Imagine a Pac-Man Collection 2600 based on this game when it's finished....? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted December 23, 2006 Author Share Posted December 23, 2006 Hi there, This project is not dead [yet] just on hold while I get some other things done. I did get a chance to look at it a couple of days ago. I've decided to shoot for 4K at the moment because I like the challenge (still not up to the 1K challenge yet, Thomas ). I removed the variable flicker routine for the 4K version so all the objects flicker at 20Hz. It doesn't look too bad to me. I'll put the [working] variable flicker in a larger ROM size. I really want to get a working game in 4K. Call me crazy but I think it's fun. The game is playable now. So much so that I had to stop myself from playing so I could work on the last items. I'm now trying to free up more ROM space. I'm also experimenting with sound. Bob sent me the sound data for his 7800 Pac-Man Collection. I'm going through it seeing where I can reduce the space to fit in this ROM. I don't have a lot space remaining. Maybe something around 20 to 30 bytes if that many. I have some features in mind that can be sacrificed. There's also one item that bugs me that I can't figure out. I think it has to do with VDELing the players but I'm not sure. I'll send it off to [stella] if I can't figure it out on my own. It might save me 2 bytes 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted December 23, 2006 Share Posted December 23, 2006 Glad to see you are still working on this. Can't wait to play it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loccy Posted December 27, 2006 Share Posted December 27, 2006 I'm sure I'm just echoing the views of many people on the forum, but please prioritise this project. Having played your demo from October it's absolutely brilliant. I've thoroughly enjoyed Nukey Shay's hacks of various Pac-alikes (bizarrely, my favourite is his hack of Tod Frye's original Pac-Man, which I think plays better than Hack 'Em even if it's not as authentic to the arcade; Hack 'Em has the Pac-Dude flying around like there's a rocket up his arse). However, yours gives the Pac-Bloke what he needs - a recode from scratch. The speed is spot on in your version and all it needs is a bit of spit and polish. Finish it and I might even make it the first homebrew cartridge that I buy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 Hack 'Em has the Pac-Dude flying around like there's a rocket up his arse). Check your difficulty switches...one of them slows pac-man down to the normal pace Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loccy Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 Check your difficulty switches...one of them slows pac-man down to the normal pace ALL-FRICKIN'-RIGHT!!! Thank you! My excuse is that I've been playing it on Stella on my GP2X rather than on real hardware, so it never even occurred to me to check out the difficulty switches. You can relax a bit now, Debro, Hack 'Em with the difficulty set right is now fulfilling my immediate itch for decent VCS Pac-Man. Although don't think I'm letting you off the hook Now I just need a copy of Hack 'Em to play on real (preferably PAL) hardware. Anyone up for burning me a cartridge? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted December 28, 2006 Author Share Posted December 28, 2006 I'm finishing up the 4K version now. I was hoping for a Christmas release but I ran into some bugs. I'm down to about 4 bytes of ROM (only 3 usable) right now. I'm testing this to see if I can find any more bugs before I release it. When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Hopefully I've removed them today. I do want to claim some more bytes to add a pause between levels. I believe I can find them but it's going to take time (the fun part) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loccy Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 I'm finishing up the 4K version now. I was hoping for a Christmas release but I ran into some bugs. I'm down to about 4 bytes of ROM (only 3 usable) right now. I'm testing this to see if I can find any more bugs before I release it. When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Hopefully I've removed them today. I do want to claim some more bytes to add a pause between levels. I believe I can find them but it's going to take time (the fun part) Maybe you could fit some inter-level transitions into those 3 bytes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 I'm finishing up the 4K version now. I was hoping for a Christmas release but I ran into some bugs. I'm down to about 4 bytes of ROM (only 3 usable) right now. I'm testing this to see if I can find any more bugs before I release it. When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Hopefully I've removed them today. I do want to claim some more bytes to add a pause between levels. I believe I can find them but it's going to take time (the fun part) Maybe you could fit some inter-level transitions into those 3 bytes! or intermissions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loccy Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 Hey, I'm English - so sue me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted December 28, 2006 Share Posted December 28, 2006 When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Personally, I think screen rolls are acceptable when RESET is pressed, but maybe that's just me! I mean, hey, if somebody presses RESET, I think they ought to expect the screen to go a bit funky for a split second while the program is resetting itself. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 I'm finishing up the 4K version now. I was hoping for a Christmas release but I ran into some bugs. I'm down to about 4 bytes of ROM (only 3 usable) right now. I'm testing this to see if I can find any more bugs before I release it. When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Hopefully I've removed them today. I do want to claim some more bytes to add a pause between levels. I believe I can find them but it's going to take time (the fun part) So are you thinking of 2 versions of the game...say 4k and a deluxe 8k? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 (edited) I'm finishing up the 4K version now. I was hoping for a Christmas release but I ran into some bugs. I'm down to about 4 bytes of ROM (only 3 usable) right now. I'm testing this to see if I can find any more bugs before I release it. When I played it last night on my 7800 I noticed some screen rolls when transitioning from levels and on a RESET press. Hopefully I've removed them today. I do want to claim some more bytes to add a pause between levels. I believe I can find them but it's going to take time (the fun part) So are you thinking of 2 versions of the game...say 4k and a deluxe 8k? Yeah, A Pac-Man Collection Deluxe 8k???? Edited December 30, 2006 by Breakpack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted December 30, 2006 Author Share Posted December 30, 2006 Hi there, So are you thinking of 2 versions of the game...say 4k and a deluxe 8k? That was the original plan. Now I don't know. I really wanted to get a working game done in 4K because I love the challenge. I think I've got that now even though I had to make some sacrifices. An 8K or 16K game would give all the bells and whistles missing in the 4K version. Also it would be more room to do a variable flicker or intelligent flicker algorithm. I say I don't know because I've got other projects I need to start and/or finish. I've been working on transcribing COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Games now for ~6 years I'd like to finally finish it and get it to Kevin. The other side of the coin is I'd like to see the better flicker, title screen, intermissions, etc. I don't know. I guess I'll see about that next year. BTW, this is getting closer and closer to a RC...finally. I've sent my last build off to some play testers to see what they think. If everything goes well for this first pass you may see a RC ROM posted here by the end of the weekend. Then if everything goes well from that you'll see source code posted to [stella]. I like sharing my code in an attempt to help others learn. That's how I learned and I wouldn't be able to do what I do if not for [stella]. So every chance I get I like to post source code in an effort to give back. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted December 30, 2006 Share Posted December 30, 2006 I removed the variable flicker routine for the 4K version so all the objects flicker at 20Hz. It doesn't look too bad to me. I'll put the [working] variable flicker in a larger ROM size. I really want to get a working game in 4K. Call me crazy but I think it's fun. To me, that eliminates a lot of interest in the game. The original Atari Pac Man was notorius for 15Hz flicker; 20Hz flicker isn't all that much better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted December 31, 2006 Share Posted December 31, 2006 I've been working on transcribing COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Games now for ~6 years I'd like to finally finish it and get it to Kevin. Are you doing it by hand (just typing it in ), or scanning it with an OCR program? Using an OCR should help speed things up considerably, although you'd still need to proofread the text carefully to spot errors, or to clean it up in other ways (e.g., spacing or other formatting issues). Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 Hi there, So are you thinking of 2 versions of the game...say 4k and a deluxe 8k? That was the original plan. Now I don't know. I really wanted to get a working game done in 4K because I love the challenge. I think I've got that now even though I had to make some sacrifices. An 8K or 16K game would give all the bells and whistles missing in the 4K version. Also it would be more room to do a variable flicker or intelligent flicker algorithm. I have to say that I would live to see an "all bells and whistles" version simply because no one has done that from scratch with Pac-Man on the 2600. Hack-Em is great, but its a hack. Your version would be all original That said, I can understand why you would want to do it in 4k simply for the challenge. I'm buying a copy either way you go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted January 17, 2007 Author Share Posted January 17, 2007 (edited) To me, that eliminates a lot of interest in the game. The original Atari Pac Man was notorius for 15Hz flicker; 20Hz flicker isn't all that much better. 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. Here it is. I might have more luck squeezing blood from a turnip than squeezing some more ROM space out of this. I know of some areas that could give me some ROM but I don't think it's worth it. I got all the features I wanted in this now. I want to thank johnnywc and PacManPlus for testing my last builds. I think this is truly it for the 4K version. I hope you all enjoy it. PacManPlus supplied me with TIA sound data and he, Nathan Strum, and ZylonBane supplied some graphic changes to the game. PacManPlus changed the Pac-man sprites and Nathan Strum and ZylonBane supplied the monster graphics. This has been tested on the real thing and I haven't seen any gotcha. I haven't had this tested for PAL yet so if one of you PAL users get a chance I'd love to hear how it performs compared to the NTSC version. I do ask that you not make cartridges or sell this without contacting me first. I forgot to mention you can choose your starting level with the SELECT button. I've been working on transcribing COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Games now for ~6 years I'd like to finally finish it and get it to Kevin. Are you doing it by hand (just typing it in ), or scanning it with an OCR program? Using an OCR should help speed things up considerably, although you'd still need to proofread the text carefully to spot errors, or to clean it up in other ways (e.g., spacing or other formatting issues). I'm typing in the programs. Unfortunately not all of them have made it to the internet yet. If anyone wants to lend a hand I'm sure Kevin would appreciate it. I know I would pacman4K.zip Edited January 17, 2007 by DEBRO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted January 17, 2007 Share Posted January 17, 2007 Kool,I got a pretty good score....maybe? Made it to the Galaxian level Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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