269 replies to this topic

[SpiceWare]

Nice!

I did see a glitch where pacman started jumping around the screen.

[Breakpack]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!



I 'd like to place an order when complete!!!

[DEBRO]

SpiceWare, on Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:34 PM, said:

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

[Atariboy2600]

Wow this maybe the BEST Pac-Man port ever once your done with it, keep up the good work^_^

[Breakpack]

Heh,any wurd on an update?

[Atariboy2600]

Breakpack, on Tue Dec 12, 2006 6:19 PM, said:

Heh,any wurd on an update?

Same Here!

[Breakpack]

Imagine a Pac-Man Collection 2600 based on this game when it's finished....?

[DEBRO]

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

[Lord Helmet]

Glad to see you are still working on this. Can't wait to play it

[Loccy]

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!

[Lord Helmet]

Loccy, on Wed Dec 27, 2006 10:00 AM, said:

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

[Loccy]

Quote

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?

[DEBRO]

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)

[Loccy]

DEBRO, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:15 PM, said:

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!

[Breakpack]

Loccy, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:41 PM, said:

DEBRO, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:15 PM, said:

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

[Loccy]

Hey, I'm English - so sue me

[SeaGtGruff]

DEBRO, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:15 PM, said:

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

[Lord Helmet]

DEBRO, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:15 PM, said:

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?

[Breakpack]

Lord Helmet, on Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:46 PM, said:

DEBRO, on Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:15 PM, said:

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 by Breakpack, Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:48 PM.

[DEBRO]

Hi there,

Lord Helmet, on Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:46 PM, said:

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.

[supercat]

DEBRO, on Sat Dec 23, 2006 6:21 AM, said:

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.

[SeaGtGruff]

DEBRO, on Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:57 AM, said:

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

[Lord Helmet]

DEBRO, on Sat Dec 30, 2006 12:57 AM, said:

Hi there,

Lord Helmet, on Fri Dec 29, 2006 11:46 PM, said:

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!

[DEBRO]

supercat, on Sat Dec 30, 2006 6:23 PM, said:

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.

SeaGtGruff, on Sat Dec 30, 2006 9:25 PM, said:

DEBRO, on Sat Dec 30, 2006 1:57 AM, said:

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

Attached Files

•  pacman4K.zip   6.46K   184 downloads

Edited by DEBRO, Wed Jan 17, 2007 3:29 PM.

[Breakpack]

Kool,I got a pretty good score....maybe?
Made it to the Galaxian level