Nukey Shay Posted May 2, 2011 Author Share Posted May 2, 2011 In keeping with that thought, I eliminated stuff that was not normally seen in games from that time. No illegal opcodes were being used, but I also altered non-essential BIT instructions to be loads instead (and none are being used for 1 or 2-byte branching). Intermission bug squashed...and the energizer color glitch (when fruit is present) is partially fixed (solid color instead of the occasional two). I put onscreen indicators for difficulty switch reminders. Flashing during gameplay was sort of distracting...so they will only be visible when a text message is shown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted May 4, 2011 Author Share Posted May 4, 2011 I found that screen rolls were still possible if monsters were eaten in quick succession. So I shaved off a couple of scanlines and bumped the timers. Also, when no bluetime should exist for the board, monsters will no longer flicker blue for a frame. If you were using the opportunity to grab some free points on high levels...sorry When eaten, a monster will momentarily flash to a blank bitmap...helps make the point values a bit clearer. More ram free*...need a bit more romspace to implement a high score function, tho (or flickering the score to be greater than six figures). * the edge dots only use 2 bits in each ram location...so the other 6 bits can be repurposed since I'm using AND to trim them off before displaying the dots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted May 5, 2011 Author Share Posted May 5, 2011 High score function added. It'll be displayed in red (alternating with the current game's score in white) during the attract and demo screens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 If this was 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be a millionaire!! Amazing stuff! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 If this was 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be a millionaire!! Amazing stuff! If this were 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be making about 15 bucks an hour and told 8K was too much for Pac-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwane413 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 High score function added. It'll be displayed in red (alternating with the current game's score in white) during the attract and demo screens. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 If this were 1980 and Nukey worked at Atari, he'd be making about 15 bucks an hour and told 8K was too much for Pac-Man. Wow Todd Frye made millions off of the original Pac-Man and was only making $15 an hour? Amazingly frugal!! A game like this would have blown everyone's (not just AA members) socks off back in the day is the point I was trying to make! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted May 6, 2011 Author Share Posted May 6, 2011 (edited) I wouldn't have lasted a second...I'm not a programmer (i.e. not creating anything...but building on what is already there). Also, many such games at the time were designed and written without aid of the computer (sometimes, away from the computer entirely) - processor time was expensive and you could not assemble a source code in a split-second (but hours instead). Given that this hack is up to a few hundred tries already, that translates into a year or so of development time (not of creating the program, you understand...but just hacking the code to do something different). I would have starved to death. Edited May 6, 2011 by Nukey Shay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 (edited) Hate to mention this. I just got my Harmony Cartridge this week, loaded this rom and the screen is rolling. I cant tell if it's my TV (A Sony Bravia 26 inch flatscreen) or my 2600 Jr because other games and hacks have played fine. I may hook it up to an older TV (a 19' cheapo Symphonic) and see what happens. Edited November 8, 2011 by WildBillTX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 I had a bug in one of the last releases of my version of the hack that had the wrong number of scanlines, so maybe it stems from that. Do other games work on the Harmony? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 (edited) I had a bug in one of the last releases of my version of the hack that had the wrong number of scanlines, so maybe it stems from that. Do other games work on the Harmony? Last night I played what I believe is your original hack p26.bin and it played fine on the harmony cartridge. Also Nukey's Hack'Em 16K and Ms HackEm play fine too with no screen rolling. So far I'm very impressed with it. Edited November 8, 2011 by WildBillTX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 There's only 1 line of VSYNC. That's likely the cause of the rolling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 (edited) This is strange, the game doesn't roll and plays fine on my $99 Symphonic CRT TV, but does on my $400 Sony Flatscreen (KDL-26M4000), that's modern technology for ya. For some reason, the Sony doesn't like old video consoles through the video-audio inputs or cable. It always plays them too dark, and I've tried all kinds of different settings. Edited November 9, 2011 by WildBillTX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asaki Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 For some reason, the Sony doesn't like old video consoles through the video-audio inputs or cable. It always plays them too dark, and I've tried all kinds of different settings. My girlfriend's TV is the same way (some TV brand that starts with an A. Apex?). Didn't try them through coax (I'm sure the extreme picture degradation wouldn't be worth it), but anything through s-video or composite is uncomfortably dark, so I invested in some component cables and everything is groovy now. I don't play retro consoles on non-CRT sets though, so I guess that doesn't solve your problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 It's really strange, because the Sony works great with anything plugged into the HDMI inputs (cable box, blu-ray and X-box), an old VCR into the composite video inputs and my laptop hooked up to the VGA input. I may be buying a bigger flat screen soon, I'd like to find out what brands have some kind of "game mode" and work best with old consoles. I hope someone else is having the same video problems I am. I really like this hack. It should be the rom put in the Pac Man Arcade cartridge AtariAge sells. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lendorien Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I tried it out this evening. Now, I was playing on a Longhorn modded 7800, but I had no issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RevEng Posted November 13, 2011 Share Posted November 13, 2011 This is strange, the game doesn't roll and plays fine on my $99 Symphonic CRT TV, but does on my $400 Sony Flatscreen (KDL-26M4000), that's modern technology for ya. For some reason, the Sony doesn't like old video consoles through the video-audio inputs or cable. It always plays them too dark, and I've tried all kinds of different settings. I swapped in a traditional VSYNC, which bumped it to 264 lines. Does this version fare any better with that TV? pacmanarcadeenhanced.bin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildBillTX Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 That did the trick, the picture isn't rolling. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorTat-G Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 This is such an awesome game! This should have been the pac-man game atari released in '82. as a suggestion, how about making the maze walls just the outlines, like how the arcade's. Thanks for making Pac-Man better. -Cortat G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorTat-G Posted December 27, 2011 Share Posted December 27, 2011 (edited) If I may contribute my own little tweak In the Pursuit for a better 2600 Pac-Man -- I'm just starting to hack games, and this is the first one I've posted on AA. I've Changed the blue ghost sprites to more closely resemble those in the arcade version. CORTAT G Pac-Man Arcade Enhanced Blue ghost.bin Edited January 1, 2012 by Cortat G 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Csonicgo Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 hehhe, that little blue ghost on the right is adorable! I like that version a lot better! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Csonicgo Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 Sorry for bumpin this, but the start music is pretty bad. how much space is there around that music that can be tweaked a bit? I know a hack by El Destructo that pretty much had the music down. I don't know where to track that hack down, but with that addition, this hack would be pretty much perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindog Posted December 29, 2011 Share Posted December 29, 2011 The thing about "tweaking" the music is that the music code just does 8th notes in Ms. Pac-Man and in my original hack. El Destructo's version does 16th notes like the arcade version, but that means the sound data space is doubled. There were also other glitches in that hack. I'm sure it's doable... if there's enough space left in Nukey's hack for the extra data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I decided to get in on the fun and upload my sprite edit of this game. Pac-Man got the rounding treatment, (I actually used the same sprite from my edit of 7800 Pac-Man Collection). The ghosts have also been rounded a bit and I changed the look of their frills. Some may like it, some may not. Also, two of the ghosts colors got tweaked and the eaten eyes sprite was changed a bit. Pac-Man Arcade Enhanced.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Dang.. playing this does my heart good.. I almost can't believe it's the Atari VCS! Seriously.. it even has the intermissions with music(!). With all the 2600 goodness over the past decade+, It's almost cliche now to say "if we had this back in the day" but playing this really really does make you wonder about it. I can only think how blown away the entire continental U.S. would have been, had we gotten a cart that played this very game back in the day. I could really imagine myself just glued to the tv not wanting to go to sleep, and then dreaming of this game. Ah well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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