110 replies to this topic

[PacManPlus]

Hi:

While working on Jr. Pac, I made some modifications to the original Ms. Pac-Man which made it more 'arcade-like' (I also fixed some bugs).

Bugs Fixed:
1. In the later boards, Blinky would stop moving fast as you get closer to the end of the board (they had #$18 instead of #18 for an index)
2. If you ate the energizer as the last (or close to the last) dot on the board, the 'reversal' of the monsters on the *next* rack would be put off until the 'blue time' depleted (even though the monsters aren't blue). They forgot to initialize the bluetime variable upon starting a new rack.
3. The value of the energizers are 50 points instead of 40.
4. The speed & the fruit (after level 128) will now act as expected. The blue time length, however, will continue to be random for every board (I kind of liked this; if you're good enough to make it to level 128 and beyond, you deserve some type of reward).

Things changed:
1) All maze dots are present (the original 7800 version has a shorter maze by 1 row).
2) All 4 maze colors are now like the arcade.
3) Changed the Ms. Pac-Man & Monster graphics (along with the Cherry & Apple).
4) Implemented a smoother way of slowing the player down while eating dots.
5) High Score Cart now shows the Ms. Pac-Man logo instead of just text. It uses a different cart value than the original.
6) The number of lives are reduced to 3 instead of 5.

New things changed:
1) The color of the mazes after the second Jr. Intermission are different in the arcade (even though the maze layout repeats 3 and 4) - I have changed those accordingly to match them.
2) The intermissions stop after the third Jr.

Enjoy!

There will be limited carts available soon for this, but not by me. Someone very close to all of our hearts will be making these for me.
Bob

Attached Files

•  mspacman.A78   32.13K   223 downloads
•  mspacman.bin   32K   174 downloads

Edited by PacManPlus, Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:10 AM.

[mimo]

Nice work as always Bob, thanks for your continued hard work and dedication to our beloved "dead" console

[darthkur]

PacManPlus, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:52 AM, said:

There will be limited carts available soon for this, but not by me. Someone very close to all of our hearts will be making these for me.
Bob

This is very nice. Let me be the first to say I'd like to be on the list of those to get one of these limited carts.

[Shannon]

Cool beans!

[Mayhem]

Given the notion of mentioning interest in upcoming carts in threads now (witness the Jr Pacman scramble), then I'd be interested in a Ms Pacman cart

[TrekMD]

OK, I want to be added to this list of carts when made. :-) Thanks!

[Trebor]

If there is a pre/interest list for this cart...Then yes, please put me down as well Bob!

[Trebor]

Going along with tweaking this to make it as much like the Arcade as possible, can Ms. Pac-Man be fine tuned any further?

Here is Ms.Pac-Man Arcade...


Here is the current hack...


Is it possible to leave a dot/space for the "mole"?

And is it possible to bring the bow pieces more closer together? Right now it kind of reminds me of cat ears instead of a bow.

-Trebor

Edited by Trebor, Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:29 PM.

[gambler172]

Hi Bob
Great work.You are the ultimate Pac Man Superstar.And if you make carts,count me in for one.
greetings Walter

Edited by gambler172, Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:38 PM.

[Artlover]

Trebor, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:25 PM, said:

Right now it kind of reminds me of cat ears instead of a bow.

Namco = Japan = Cat ears = what's the problem.

[PacManPlus]

Trebor, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:25 PM, said:

Going along with tweaking this to make it as much like the Arcade as possible, can Ms. Pac-Man be fine tuned any further?

Here is Ms.Pac-Man Arcade...
ms_pac_man.PNG

Here is the current hack...
ms_pac_man7800.PNG

Is it possible to leave a dot/space for the "mole"?

And is it possible to bring the bow pieces more closer together? Right now it kind of reminds me of cat ears instead of a bow.

-Trebor

The problem is the size of the pixels. They are almost twice as wide as they are long. If I give her a Mole, it will look like another eye. If I increase the size of the eye, it will be too big (imagine her wide-eyed) I played with a few shapes and this was the best one I could come up with. There's not a whole lot you can do with an 8x12 sprite, especially when the arcade sprite size is 16x16, and has square pixels.

Thanks,
Bob

[Trebor]

PacManPlus, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:27 PM, said:

The problem is the size of the pixels. They are almost twice as wide as they are long. If I give her a Mole, it will look like another eye. If I increase the size of the eye, it will be too big (imagine her wide-eyed) I played with a few shapes and this was the best one I could come up with. There's not a whole lot you can do with an 8x12 sprite, especially when the arcade sprite size is 16x16, and has square pixels.

As always, thank you for the thorough explanation. It makes perfect sense. Looking forward to the cart release!

And again, another *HUGE* thank you for making this available to the community so it can be played via emulation. I am very grateful for it.

-Trebor

[Trebor]

Bob,

I noticed in the Intermissions, Ms. Pac-Man's bow, lipstick, and the heart** in the first Intermission is still the original pink color instead of red.

Just bringing it to your attention in case it was overlooked.

-Trebor

**EDIT: Correction - The heart matches the color of Pinky in the Arcade version.

Edited by Trebor, Mon Apr 27, 2009 6:59 PM.

[Bakasama]

PacManPlus, on Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:27 PM, said:

The problem is the size of the pixels. They are almost twice as wide as they are long. If I give her a Mole, it will look like another eye. If I increase the size of the eye, it will be too big (imagine her wide-eyed) I played with a few shapes and this was the best one I could come up with. There's not a whole lot you can do with an 8x12 sprite, especially when the arcade sprite size is 16x16, and has square pixels.

Thanks,
Bob

I might try my hand at making the Ms. Pac-Man a little more interesting. I'm not sure I can make look better.

EDIT: I just realized working on this would be a LOT easier if I had actually graphics to work off of. So can you post the graphics?

Edited by Bakasama, Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:55 PM.

[PacManPlus]

@Trebor: Colors fixed. I never even looked at the intermissions :-/
@bakasama: graphics posted below.






Thanks!
Bob

Attached Files

•  mspacman.A78   32.13K   133 downloads
•  mspacman.bin   32K   112 downloads

Edited by PacManPlus, Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:03 AM.

[Bakasama]

Here's my take on Ms. Pac-Man.

If you'll notice there's a bit of blue on this one. There's blue on arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man. So I added it back to this design to see what it might look like.

There's two versions of Ms. Pac-Man going up and down. I couldn't figure out which looked better so I did both versions. The upside down Ms. Pac-Man is part of the death animation.

[Artlover]

Bakasama, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:54 PM, said:

Here's my take on Ms. Pac-Man.

Where's the mole?

But seriously, since you re-did the eyes and made them bigger, the scale isn't an issue now, so where's the mole?

[PacManPlus]

Bakasama, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 2:54 PM, said:

Here's my take on Ms. Pac-Man.

If you'll notice there's a bit of blue on this one. There's blue on arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man. So I added it back to this design to see what it might look like.

There's two versions of Ms. Pac-Man going up and down. I couldn't figure out which looked better so I did both versions. The upside down Ms. Pac-Man is part of the death animation.

newmspacman.gif

We can't do the blue The third color is used for the side black bars that cover the sides of the maze so the 'side door' transition is smooth. We have no other pallets open

I modified my sprites already, and I think you will like the result
BTW, I won't be changing Jr. Pac with these sprites, as I am done (it's only for the animations anyway) and I already made a handful with OTP Chips.

What do you think?
Bob

Attached Files

•  mspacman.bin   32K   108 downloads
•  mspacman.A78   32.13K   132 downloads

Edited by PacManPlus, Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:20 PM.

[Trebor]

PacManPlus, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:43 PM, said:

What do you think?

Perfect - love it, Bob!

Last suggestion...

Title screen...Instead of Pink color matching Pinky, the color in the arcade is red matching Blinky.





-Trebor

[Bakasama]

PacManPlus, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:43 PM, said:

We can't do the blue The third color is used for the side black bars that cover the sides of the maze so the 'side door' transition is smooth. We have no other pallets open

I modified my sprites already, and I think you will like the result
BTW, I won't be changing Jr. Pac with these sprites, as I am done (it's only for the animations anyway) and I already made a handful with OTP Chips.

What do you think?
Bob

I see. The new animations for Ms. Pac-Man look nice. I see the poster who brought this point up likes it too. While working working on the art. I realize there may be yet another graphic hack that could be made but I'm not sure if there should be yet another hack.

[PacManPlus]

Trebor, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:20 PM, said:

PacManPlus, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:43 PM, said:

What do you think?

Perfect - love it, Bob!

Last suggestion...

Title screen...Instead of Pink color matching Pinky, the color in the arcade is red matching Blinky.





-Trebor

Hey Trebor:

Thanks!

Regarding the pink marquee dots:
Can't do that without DLI modifications (the pink is used in the title graphic and that would change to red as well which would not match).

Thanks,
Bob

Edited by PacManPlus, Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:26 PM.

[Trebor]

PacManPlus, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:26 PM, said:

Regarding the pink marquee dots:
Can't do that without DLI modifications (the pink is used in the title graphic and that would change to red as well which would not match).

Understood. Thanks for the explanation. I'm looking forward to the cart release!

-Trebor

[PacManPlus]

Thanks, Trebor

Bakasama, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:34 PM, said:

PacManPlus, on Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:43 PM, said:

We can't do the blue The third color is used for the side black bars that cover the sides of the maze so the 'side door' transition is smooth. We have no other pallets open

I modified my sprites already, and I think you will like the result
BTW, I won't be changing Jr. Pac with these sprites, as I am done (it's only for the animations anyway) and I already made a handful with OTP Chips.

What do you think?
Bob

I see. The new animations for Ms. Pac-Man look nice. I see the poster who brought this point up likes it too. While working working on the art. I realize there may be yet another graphic hack that could be made but I'm not sure if there should be yet another hack.

I meant to thank you as well, Bakasama
Just out of curiosity, what do you see changing?

Thanks,
Bob

[Bakasama]

PacManPlus, on Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:34 AM, said:

I meant to thank you as well, Bakasama
Just out of curiosity, what do you see changing?

Thanks,
Bob

I think this mock up explains what I'm trying to get at:


I was thinking with all the Ms. Pac-Man hacks for the 7800, nobody has thought about making this obscure bit of video game history a reality for the 7800.

[PacManPlus]

Gotcha. Maybe we can do that soon.

---------------------------

I had fixed a bug in Jr. Pac-Man that affected the HSC. This means it would also affect this hack.
Here is the fixed version.

Thanks!
Bob

Attached Files

•  mspacman.A78   32.13K   219 downloads
•  mspacman.bin   32K   162 downloads

Edited by PacManPlus, Fri May 1, 2009 9:00 PM.