131 replies to this topic

[therealbountybob]

Welcome to season 8 everyone

If you're reading this and thinking about joining in please do so, it's fun and we have all abilities of player. If you need any help or have any questions please get in touch. Checkout the Beginners Guide for more details.

For round 1 and by a landslide vote it's the classic...
Ms.Pac-Man

Game closes Sunday 30th Jan 10am GMT

Links to download the game:

• XEX & ATR (v1) [edit:for a version with a pause see post #30] atarionline.pl
  
• ROM atarimania

Take the default level (red/green cherry), extra man at 10K, the full instructions are on atarimania; it's Pac-Man with a bow, there that should cover it

• atarimania rating 7.7
  
• HSC rating 8
  
• HSC record Shannon 74,900

Bonus Points

• Highest score on screen 1 in 1 life; 1pt each for the top three scores
  
• Beating HSC record 1pt

Scoring
For regular rounds 12pts for the winner down to 2pts each for 11th and 12th, then 1pt. If there are 18 or more players then positions 11&12 also receive 3pts and positions 13-15 receive 2pts, by any miracle if there are 24 players then postions 10-15 receive 3pts and 16-20 receive 2pts.

If you don't have the game...
...and are unable to download it, then you can play another game from your collection, preferably one new to the HSC. You will be awarded 2 points providing you make a few comments about the game (like a mini game review) and whether you think the game would make a good HSC game or not.

Game On

Good luck everyone
trbb

Bedtime reading: Ms.Pac-Man

[bluecat]

Thought I'd get in first

Go 1 : 7,250 3,240 for 1st screen
Go 2 : 9,150 4,540 for 1st screen
Go 3 : 16,490 5,840 for 1st screen

I'm improving!

[atariksi]

therealbountybob, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 6:20 AM, said:

[*]HSC record Shannon 74,900
[/list] Bonus Points

• Highest score on screen 1 (any number of lives) 1pt each for the top three scores
  
• Beating HSC record 1pt each

I guess I'll start off by beating the record and go up from there. Playing with the cartridge.

You made the bonus too easy for any number of lives. It should be maximum for one life. Here's screen shot for maximum with one life before the screen ends and after since the pause stops working at end of screen.

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[Marius1976]

Ehm...

Screen 1 ... is that with the Cherry or with the Bear?

Thanks
Marius

[Marius1976]

After screen one

Score 14340 points in screen #1


I was JUST IN TIME with my picture. You see here the start of screen #2 but the READY! is still on the screen so no dots are eaten yet in screen #2. I suppose this counts?

My carts are all stored away somewhere where I can't reach them easily. So I'm playing with FILE version, which does not have a pause-button. At least I could not find it.

[atariksi]

Marius1976, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:30 PM, said:

After screen one

Score 14340 points in screen #1
foto.JPG

I was JUST IN TIME with my picture. You see here the start of screen #2 but the READY! is still on the screen so no dots are eaten yet in screen #2. I suppose this counts?

My carts are all stored away somewhere where I can't reach them easily. So I'm playing with FILE version, which does not have a pause-button. At least I could not find it.

I wouldn't trust hacked versions as I remember in pac-man there was a really easy slow version of Pac-man. I guess the cartridges (or .ROM image files) are the same for PAL or NTSC. Colors also look a bit different on your screen shot. 14,340 is the maximum for screen 1 if you start at default settings (cherries).

82K so far after a couple of goes. Averaging about 75K. Not as easy as pac-man cartridge as the monster logic is superior.

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[Marius1976]

atariksi, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:57 PM, said:

I wouldn't trust hacked versions as I remember in pac-man there was a really easy slow version of Pac-man. I guess the cartridges (or .ROM image files) are the same for PAL or NTSC. Colors also look a bit different on your screen shot. 14,340 is the maximum for screen 1 if you start at default settings (cherries).

The only strange color is the Cherry/strawberrie. That is green. The rest is original. This is not a hacked version.

I own several Ms. Pacman carts, and there are two versions

1. with the green cherry/strawberry/apple

2. with the red cherry/strawberry/apple

I have always played Ms. Pacman. Actually it was the game that came with my Atari 800xl in 1984. On cart! It had 100% same colors as the one on my screenshots. I was surprised by your GREEN ghost. I have never seen a GREEN ghost in Ms. Pacman.

I'm rather sure there are differences between NTSC and PAL.

In the file version there is no PAUSE button. Don't know why. Scoring and gameplay is 100% equal.

Marius

[Divya16]

I think there is a greenish monster but probably on emulator it looks different.

Here's my first go at it.

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[Marius1976]

On pal the ghosts are blue, red, yellow (same color as ms. Pacman) and pink.

[therealbountybob]

Score for Travlar
2,460
8 dots short of level 2


No pause is a pain, looks like XEX and ATR have no pause. If anyone has a non ROM version with a pause please post a link!

OK first screen bonus 1 man then folks (to make it a challenge for these guys!)

p.s. Marius what bear?!

[Marius1976]

therealbountybob, on Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:25 AM, said:

p.s. Marius what bear?!

Before the Cherry screen, there is a novice/easy level. Keep pressing Option till you see the BANANA level. Then press option once more. There you go, one lovely BEAR

Marius

[Marius1976]

therealbountybob, on Sun Jan 16, 2011 4:25 AM, said:

No pause is a pain, looks like XEX and ATR have no pause. If anyone has a non ROM version with a pause please post a link!

I'm wondering... back in 1983... did atari also release a disk version of Ms. Pacman, or is the .XEX version just a 'dump' (With some re-vectoring) of the ROM file.

I could look into the code again (just like I did with PolePosition hehe) and try to add this feature.

To take pics we really need a pause option. I was just in time yesterday...

Marius

[Marius1976]

Ah ... I see it now.

The pause routine is not implented in the file version.

This is what I am going to do:

I kill the "Select and Option return to main menu" feature during play. I guess no one needs that?

And I build in: select = pause

Might take some time. I'm not sure If I will have luck, but I guess this has a chance.

Marius

p.s. I have only 8 spare bytes so don't expect to much bells and whistles. It is just a hack to play this game and be able to take a pic of your screen

[Marius1976]

Here it is...

It took some time...

Since i did not have enough space left for this, and I did not want to rewrite the complete program, it is a bit 'ugly' solution

1. press Select for pause during game
2. press Option to resume


As you can hear: during pause the "sound" keeps going. I do not have enough room for a prettier solution at this moment. Sorry for that. I could not find the original pause routine in the xex file.

By the way: as in original. As soon as you reached END of screen (so the blinking maze happens) the pause won't work. This is because the game is in another routine (not checking console keys) at that moment.

Have fun with it.

It is with the red cherry btw. Someone on this forum already fixed this for me (kr0tki as I remember well)

Well have fun with this solution!

Marius

[therealbountybob]

Great work Marius, I would award you a bonus point but think I'd never catch you then! Talking of which I feel the season slipping away already first go 21K, then 28,380. 1st screen 9,320

This is much tougher than pac-man but I like it. Nice having the different screen layouts. I guess they removed the pause to fit it into xK, the game looks a bit jerky compared to the original, guess that's down to the programmer.

If I'd known about the bear level then little Travis could have played on that, he did quite well especially as he was using the keyboard

[Marius1976]

If someone is interested...

I found a way to enable this pause routine also in the blinking maze part... (end of screen)

It is working on PAPER hehe now in real...

Greetz
M.

[Marius1976]

Ok it is a bit tricky ... but it works.

In the endscreen (blinking maze) you can press select now. But since I had to break on a 'critical' point, you sometimes have to hold Select just a bit longer. A quick short press might be not enough. So when you are in the blinking screen HOLD select and there is your pause

Option = continue.

Have fun!
Marius

p.s. Now I know how this all works... I might rewrite the whole routine once again, but now that it acts just like the original, so WITH the spacebar=pause, and that select and option are back in their original behavior, but I'm not sure if someone needed that feature...

[Marius1976]

I played again max. score.

I used my Pause feature in the end screen.

Picture with the Blinking off, and with the blinking on... really cool

This is the during-game Pause routine:


This is the during end-maze-screen Pause routine:


In the game itself I put one two places a JSR (to these routines ofcourse) and some NOP's to fill some problems.
I also changed a "clear memory" routine, because these routines were killed by the initialisation of the game. Since they are in Page 6, and the game does not write/read in Page 6, it was not needed to clear page 6 in the initialisation.

As you can see; I only use real equipment ... done in Mac/65. Hacked with DiskRX (SpartaDOS)

Greetz
M.

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[therealbountybob]

Interesting stuff Marius, one day I'll be there In the meantime I'll give Divya a challenge and leave you to slug it out with atariksi!
Made it to the apple level, 41,580

Big Tip for every1 - you can hold the diagonal and Ms.P. responds nicely

The game needs a couple more tweaks: If you leave the attract mode on and start it stays on whatever background colour! I played on dark green which was ok apart from couldn't see the wandering fruit (just the top bits over-lapping the walls). The other thing that would be nice is to make it start when you press fire!

[Marius1976]

Ok guys (girls)?

Here is the final (for now).

It works with SPACEBAR, and also in the end-screen of the maze.

Console keys select and option behave like original, but in the end-screen of maze they don't have a function.

Only thing left is to find a solution for that sound.

Have fun!
Marius

EDIT ... please download in this thread:
http://www.atariage....s-pacman-fixed/

[Marius1976]

I did not understand it completely...

You say attract mode does not reset after a restart? Well... now it will, since you only can restart after a keypress (space)



Marius

[therealbountybob]

Marius1976, on Sun Jan 16, 2011 1:20 PM, said:

I did not understand it completely...

You say attract mode does not reset after a restart? Well... now it will, since you only can restart after a keypress (space)



Marius

In my (very old) file version if you leave the title screen on it goes into attract mode and it stays on (pressing a key here may clear it) but not in game nor pressing start. I wonder if my version is much harder
Got to Pear screen: 52,510

I'm now going to play the ROM (red cherry) on the emulator (in PAL)! [no they're both hard!]

I heard the file version was released too early... that's why the fruit hasn't ripened [edit now Marius ripen that fruit I wonder if this version has any other differences hidden away:?:]

[Marius1976]

therealbountybob, on Sun Jan 16, 2011 3:05 PM, said:

I heard the file version was released too early... that's why the fruit hasn't ripened [edit now Marius ripen that fruit I wonder if this version has any other differences hidden away:?:]

That is not the issue. There are also carts with green cherry and green strawberry and green apple.

I got a few of these. I think this is caused by the fact that 'they' (atari) did not check what color the fruit would have on PAL machines. After they found out it was green, they updated that. That is my idea.

The file version I used is the same game as the rom file. Except the pause routine, that's mine.

Marius

Edit: @TBB: did you see my last uploaded version. That one does the SPACE=PAUSE! and all other features are like they should be!

[zylon]

1st screeen and game.

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[Marius1976]

I'm making some progress in the programming here. I created some more space. I'll take a look at the attract 'bug' and the start with fire thing.

I made that last thing already, but it also worked during play, and that is NOT what you want... pressing fire by accident, and then the game starts over.

So... I'll look at that soon.

Now it is time to sleep
bye!

Marius