Pac-man Update for Atari 8-bit

[tep392]

Just a new idea now that I ran the Monitor:

PF2 it's (9,2) and used as the walls colour.

 

When the ghosts turn into dark luminance they still use P0,P1,P2,P3 but they get (9,2) same colour as the walls.

Why not have the luminance (... ,2) but the correspondant ghost dark luminance.

For example, you have the one as (3,6) it would be (3,2) and another one, lets say (1,6) would be (1,2) and so on.

This is the same the coder did but with the correspondant/appropriate darker luminance.

I'm sorry Jose, but I'm struggling to understand your english. Are you suggesting that I change the luminance of the monsters to 2 when they are not in scatter (blue) mode? Who is "the coder"?

 

O.k. as you don't seem to understand I try again.

'Coder': the man that does the coding.

Walls are PF2 and their colour it's 8,2.

 

Each ghost it's a Player (P0->P3) and has it's own colour (Pink, red, yellow and Blue):

When you have the possibility to eat the ghosts then eachone is still using a Player (P0->P3) and they turn to darker.

It's here that their darker it's the same as the Walls PF2:

You would put the dark ghosts luminance in 2 or 4 or whatever you want but in the dark luminance of their colour (Pink ghost would be Dark pink, red into dark red and so on to the other two).

You're changing colour/luminance of the Players so why have them the same colour and luminance as the walls.

 

Now if you see other versions:

ARCADE: ghosts turn into a darker Blue but not the same luminance as the Walls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswzriFIf_k

MS PAC-MAN Atari 5200: ghosts turn into dark Blue but different from Walls colours:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRX1xjjhQkg

 

They are dark Blue but never the same as the Walls colours.

The ghosts be their colour in a darker luminance was an idea that I had in my gfxs conversion for the A8 version of Pac-Mania.

 

(P.s.- The 'coder' of the original version choose exactly the same Dark Blue that it's in the Walls when Atari has so many dark luminances and colours)

 

 

I know what a 'coder' is. We usually call them programmers. What I was asking is WHO you were talking about. Seems it was the original Atari programmers.

 

What I don't understand is the point of your suggestion. It gets lost because you over explain. Just say "I think the ghosts would look better with a luminance of 6", if that's what you are suggesting. Or, summarize your point at the end so it's clear to the reader. This is just a suggestion, and please don't take it as criticizm of you. I undertand that english is not your native language. I make plenty of mistake in grammer and spelling, so I'm not really one to talk either.

 

Cheers,

Perry

Edited December 15, 2011 by tep392

[José Pereira]

My suggestion:

GHOSTS (normal -> when they turn into darker):

4,12 -> 4,2

7,12 -> 7,2

3,6 -> 3,2

1,12 -> 1,2

PAC-MAN:

14,12

SCREEN GFXS:

Lines: 8,4

Pills: 0,14

[tep392]

Thanks Jose. Your suggestion is clear. But when do they get darker? There are two color modes during game play.

 

1) normal - red,pink,cyan,gold

2) scared (energizer eaten) - blue

 

If they are getting darker during gameplay, then there might be a bug that I'm not aware of.

[Goochman]

tep - in Jose's earlier msg he was indicating that on the arcade version the Ghosts dont turn the same blue as the maze walls. In the 8bit version the ghost blue is the same as the wall blue. He was suggesting a darker blue to be more like the arcade.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Goochman

[bfollett]

Thanks Jose. Your suggestion is clear. But when do they get darker? There are two color modes during game play.

 

1) normal - red,pink,cyan,gold

2) scared (energizer eaten) - blue

 

If they are getting darker during gameplay, then there might be a bug that I'm not aware of.

 

I think Jose is suggesting you don't turn the ghosts blue when you eat a power pellet, instead you turn each one to a darker shade of it's original color. I think most would find this to be too much of a departure from the original game, but who knows.

 

Bob

[José Pereira]

Thanks Jose. Your suggestion is clear. But when do they get darker? There are two color modes during game play.

 

1) normal - red,pink,cyan,gold

2) scared (energizer eaten) - blue

 

If they are getting darker during gameplay, then there might be a bug that I'm not aware of.

 

Something I thought for Pac-Mania:

Your point 2), instead of turning Blue they will tun into their darkest luminance:

Red turn into Dark Red

and so on...

[tep392]

Thanks Jose. Your suggestion is clear. But when do they get darker? There are two color modes during game play.

 

1) normal - red,pink,cyan,gold

2) scared (energizer eaten) - blue

 

If they are getting darker during gameplay, then there might be a bug that I'm not aware of.

 

Something I thought for Pac-Mania:

Your point 2), instead of turning Blue they will tun into their darkest luminance:

Red turn into Dark Red

and so on...

 

I get it now! Thanks for the suggestion, but I'll leave them blue to keep in the spirit of this conversion.

 

I will adjust the blue maze and monster luminances to be more like the arcade though. I'm going to sit down later with the color chart on my CRT and the game running in MAME to pick the best colors. I'm running in NTSC so I'll need to adjust for PAL later. Is there a formula for NTSC <-> PAL colors?

[NRV]

Uff.. it seems I have done a lot of those lately.

 

If your original colors are for NTSC, then it goes something like this:

(colors in hexadecimal format)

 

NTSC --> PAL

 

$0x --> $0x (same)

 

$1x --> $Ex

$2x --> $1x

$3x --> $2x

$4x --> $3x

$5x --> $4x

$6x --> $5x

$7x --> $6x

$8x --> $7x

$9x --> $8x

 

$Ax --> $Ax (same)

$Bx --> $Bx (same)

$Cx --> $Cx (same)

$Dx --> $Dx (same)

$Ex --> $Ex (same)

$Fx --> $Fx (same)

 

The last group (from $A to $F) being the same could be debatable, but it works for me in the overall look/feeling.

 

Also I'm talking about colors in Altirra, that uses these two palettes as default:

 

NTSC:

PAL:

[+MrFish]

ARCADE: ghosts turn into a darker Blue but not the same luminance as the Walls:

 

I will adjust the blue maze and monster luminances to be more like the arcade though.

 

I just looked into this several days ago myself wondering if they were different colors/luminances or not. In fact the walls and monsters are the same.

What you're seeing on youtube is probably part optical illusion, since the monsters have more consecutive blue pixels and the walls

are only a single blue pixel with lots of black surrounding them, and part color distortion from youtube's low quality.

 

 

In spite of that fact, I don't see anything wrong with altering the luminances or colors slightly for one or the other in order to add some contrast.

[Marius]

It's funny how different people see things different.

 

Mr. Fish is right with his capture: it's the same blue.

 

But when I look at it, I see the ghosts as LIGHTER blue than the walls, in stead of what some people say here that the ghosts are darker blue than the walls.

 

On the Atari the walls do contain more pixels (fatter) so that difference between ghosts and walls is less or not seen on the atari.

 

Anyway: It does not matter to me, as long as the ghosts turn ANY shade of BLUE after an energy pill is eaten

[+MrFish]

But when I look at it, I see the ghosts as LIGHTER blue than the walls, in stead of what some people say here that the ghosts are darker blue than the walls.

 

I don't think Jose or anyone else saw the ghosts as darker. If you're referring to Jose's statement, he actually just said

that the ghosts "turn darker". I think he meant darker than their former colors (before Pac eats the pill).

[tep392]

Hello again. Here's my latest update. I've added the high score, updated fruit sprites/colors and fixed the reported bugs. Thanks to MrFish for his work on the fruit sprites and text font! As usual let me know if you find any bugs. My next update will be the addition of the attract mode screen with animations.

pacmanv5.xex

[+MrFish]

Hello again. Here's my latest update. I've added the high score, updated fruit sprites/colors and fixed the reported bugs. Thanks to MrFish for his work on the fruit sprites and text font! As usual let me know if you find any bugs. My next update will be the addition of the attract mode screen with animations.

 

Nice job on the latest version.

 

One comment about Pac-Man's movement that I intended to make before is that his sprite moves from one side of a maze corridor to other when changing directions between up and down. This causes Pac-Man to jump from side to side when changing directions quickly. This is no fault of yours, as it was necessary for Ms. Pac-Man, since she has a bow on her head which makes her sprite one pixel wider than Pac-Man. When she moves up or down the bow changes which side of the corridor it's on, so consequently her body has to move from one side to the other in order to compensate.

 

Here are some screenshots to illustrate:

 

Pac-Man:

 

 

Ms. Pac-Man:

 

 

In Atari Pac-Man he is kept on the left side of the corridor in order for his path to stay consistent.

 

Atari Pac-Man:

 

 

It doesn't seem so drastic in the screenshots, but if you observe it during gameplay by changing directions several times consecutively, you'll see what I mean.

 

This is an interesting thing, since I had always thought that Ms. Pac-Man's movements were a little jerky, but I never knew why until now. I guess it stands out a little more with Pac-Man since his sprite is not the full width of a corridor.

[TwiliteZoner]

Hello again. Here's my latest update. I've added the high score, updated fruit sprites/colors and fixed the reported bugs. Thanks to MrFish for his work on the fruit sprites and text font! As usual let me know if you find any bugs. My next update will be the addition of the attract mode screen with animations.

 

Thanks. I'm really enjoying this.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

Nice job so far. It's good to see a version in this style, after all the years of Atari Pac-Man (which I love btw).

 

Here's a suggestion you might consider for making the ghosts and Pac-Man look a little more rounded:

 

[images clipped]

 

It just involves shaving 2 pixels off each character.

 

I'm not sure which pixels MrFish clipped but the pacman and ghosts look better to me after his changes, definitely.

[mimo]

Late to the party, but this is excelent, many many thanks.

 

Just a quick question, I am using a PAL 600XL and PAL CRT tv. The pils appear white, is this correct, or is there something wrong with my set up?

[+MrFish]

In Atari Pac-Man he is kept on the left side of the corridor in order for his path to stay consistent.

 

I just had a quick look at the arcade version. Pac-Man is kept on the left side of the corridor there also.

[bfollett]

I noticed earlier in this thread someone created graphics that made the pupils of the ghosts black instead of the same color as the ghost itself. If that can be done, I think it looks better. Actually aren't the eyes blue in the arcade game. Maybe you could use the wall color in the eyes instead of black. Not sure which would look better, but I think either would look better than the current look.

 

Thanks,

 

Bob

[tep392]

Late to the party, but this is excelent, many many thanks.

 

Just a quick question, I am using a PAL 600XL and PAL CRT tv. The pils appear white, is this correct, or is there something wrong with my set up?

 

Your right. I think they are more of a flesh tone in the arcade game. I'll adjust that on the next version.

[+therealbountybob]

looking good

you left space as jump level instead of pause

and you need to get that ghost more orangey

(played on 130XE PAL/CRT)

[firestorm]

Colours were better for Pal before (Pac-Man v1-v4), now is disaster... please keep the old colours for Pal

Interesting bug when you press space on real hardware (Atari 800 Pal) you advancing to next board, so after two times you have intermission an so on.

Edited December 31, 2011 by firestorm

[tep392]

looking good

you left space as jump level instead of pause

and you need to get that ghost more orangey

(played on 130XE PAL/CRT)

 

Thanks. I guess it's time to take the cheat out. I'm struggling a bit with Clydes color. Looks orange in Atari800win but green on my CRT. I've adjusted the trim pot on my 800XL using the SALT cart but still looks greenish. Not sure how to get a correct orange color when I'm not confident in accuracy of the emulator or my CRT. I have no way to verify PAL in hardware so I'm going to need some help from the PAL users to get a good orange.

[firestorm]

Tep392 you can adjust colour pot on Atari 800xl using Dig Dug first version as a reference. Adjust to make 4 stripes of playground in different colours and top one neutral(not reddish). Its hard to talk about colours...

[tep392]

How about we try this. Could a PAL user run colors.exe found here http://www.atariage....ost__p__2422356 and tell me which squares best match the ghost, maze, and fruit colors. I'm using the attached arcade image for reference. I need the luminance# (0-15 from left to right) and hue (0-15 from top to bottom) for each color. These are the definitions I'm currently using.

 

;NTSC COLORS

NYELLOW = $2e ;Pac

NWHITE = $0e ;letters

NBLUE = $82 ;walls

NGREEN = $b8 ;strawberry, orange stem

NRED = $42 ;Blinky

NBROWN = $fa ;cherry, apple stem, bear

NCYAN = $98 ;Inky

NPINK = $5a ;Pinky

NORANGE = $2A ;FRUIT, ORANGE

NCHERRY = $34 ;CHERRY,APPLE,STRAWBERY

NMSTEM = $96 ;blue for MELLON,GALAXIAN,BELL,KEY

NBELL = $EC ;YELLOW FOR GALAXIAN, BELL

NGOLD = $F8 ;Clyde

NDOTS = $3E ;dots

 

;PAL COLORS

PYELLOW = $1e ;pac

PWHITE = $0e ;letters

PBLUE = $72 ;walls

PGREEN = $b8 ;strawberry, orange stem

PRED = $32 ;Blinky

PBROWN = $fa ;cherry, apple stem, bear

PCYAN = $88 ;Inky

PPINK = $4a ;Pinky

PORANGE = $1A ;FRUIT ORANGE

PCHERRY = $24 ;CHERRY,APPLE,STRAWBERY

PMSTEM = $86 ;BLUE FOR MELLON,GALAXIAN,BELL,KEY

PBELL = $EC ;YELLOW FOR GALAXIAN, BELL

PGOLD = $F8 ;Clyde

PDOTS = $2E ;dots

 

The only problem with doing this is that computer and monitor calibrations could be off.

[firestorm]

I will try to help after New Year, Happy New Year!