Pac-man Update for Atari 8-bit

[tep392]

...

There is also a somewhat significant change I'm going to make for game play. I'm finding this version to be a bit too easy, even though the pac and ghost speeds and behavior are identical to the arcade. I think it's because the maze is smaller with less dots so it is easier to clear. There are a few things, like blue time, that I will be ajusting.

...

Are the ghosts and pac moving at the same speed in relation to the the maze, or just the same speed as the arcade?

 

If you clock how long it takes pac to travel from the left side to the right side, it should be the same as the arcade. This version has the same number of dots as the arcade horizontally.

[tep392]

Here's a photo of the official cart. I'm going to start a new topic in a few days with the final versions of the code and more photo's of the cart and game play. I'll be selling the cart for $25 plus shipping. PM me if interested so I can gauage how many carts to order.

 

Regards,

Perry

[w1k]

loool, thats cute

[+darryl1970]

I noticed a COUPLE small things.. I noticed that the fruit is random after the key, just like Ms Pac-Man.. However, Pac--Man stays on the key indefinitely. Another difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man is that Pac-Man never stops at a wall as a ball He always has his mouth open when he stops.. I noticed somebody commented on how he should face a different direction when stopped, if the joystick is pressed in that direction before Pac hits the wall. If that is being considered, I figured I would throw in the mouth state detail.. Awesome job overall.. I was thinking the other night of how this would have blown my socks off if it was the version that was packaged with my 5200. It thought that version was awesome at the time, and I thought Ms Pac-Man was great, but a little clunky.. This is great!

[tep392]

I noticed a COUPLE small things.. I noticed that the fruit is random after the key, just like Ms Pac-Man.. However, Pac--Man stays on the key indefinitely. Another difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man is that Pac-Man never stops at a wall as a ball He always has his mouth open when he stops.. I noticed somebody commented on how he should face a different direction when stopped, if the joystick is pressed in that direction before Pac hits the wall. If that is being considered, I figured I would throw in the mouth state detail.. Awesome job overall.. I was thinking the other night of how this would have blown my socks off if it was the version that was packaged with my 5200. It thought that version was awesome at the time, and I thought Ms Pac-Man was great, but a little clunky.. This is great!

 

Thanks for the compliment! The fruit thing will be fixed in the next version. Stuff like the mouth being open when stopped probably won't. It seems like a small change but could take a bit of coding to implement and I'm at a point where I'm focused on fixing bugs and want to avoid breaking anything by making changes like this. I will be tweaking the colors over the next couple days and then should be ready to post a final version.

[JamesD]

I noticed a COUPLE small things.. I noticed that the fruit is random after the key, just like Ms Pac-Man.. However, Pac--Man stays on the key indefinitely. Another difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man is that Pac-Man never stops at a wall as a ball He always has his mouth open when he stops.. I noticed somebody commented on how he should face a different direction when stopped, if the joystick is pressed in that direction before Pac hits the wall. If that is being considered, I figured I would throw in the mouth state detail.. Awesome job overall.. I was thinking the other night of how this would have blown my socks off if it was the version that was packaged with my 5200. It thought that version was awesome at the time, and I thought Ms Pac-Man was great, but a little clunky.. This is great!

If Pac-Man had been the game included with the 5200 it probably would have sold a lot better.

[mellis]

If Pac-Man had been the game included with the 5200 it probably would have sold a lot better.

 

Pac-Man did become the pack-in when they changed from 4-port to 2-port systems.

[NE146]

Yep.. it did. But it was way too late at that point. Super Breakout was really the most meh pack in they could have chosen. I remember definitely being underwhelmed, if not slightly depressed at how not "new" it felt. But at least Pacman was available as well so my mom bought me that too.

 

Still though, at the end of the day 5200 Pacman didn't feel right for a lot of reasons, and not just because of the stretched playfield. The dot eating sound was totally wrong (and as proven by versions of it's 8-bit counterpart on the 400/800, it COULD have the right sound), the collision detection was more unforgiving than the arcade version, and the ghosts black eyes just made it seem soulless.Ms. Pac definitely was an improvement.

[Shannon]

But the 5200 version had the intermissions! Unlike the crappy 8k cart that came out for the 8-bit counterpart 400/800...

[wesmond]

To echo what's already been said... this is a beauty! I'd never played it in the arcades, only Atari's cartridge version, which was a bit sluggish and quite dull - the sort of "duuu-uuuh" noise when you collected the fruit summed it up! This remake has a frantic adrenalin feel to it that I never associated with Pacman before! Fantastic job.

[NE146]

Yeah this is great. I guess considering it took modifying 2600 Ms. Pacman to get a great Pacman for the VCS, Likewise for the 8-bits

[tep392]

The dot eating sound was totally wrong (and as proven by versions of it's 8-bit counterpart on the 400/800, it COULD have the right sound),.

 

Do you know which versions had the improved dot eating sound? I have one of the old brown carts and it has the same poor sound as the 5200. I have played some of the xex's with the corrected sound but don't know their origin. What's funny about this particular sound effect is that the difference between the old and improved sound is a single byte of code.

[NE146]

The dot eating sound was totally wrong (and as proven by versions of it's 8-bit counterpart on the 400/800, it COULD have the right sound),.

 

Do you know which versions had the improved dot eating sound?

 

I don't know their origin either.. but here's where I was asking about it with attachments for both versions. Crazy though about the single byte though. Makes you wonder if it was an oversight during the production and at that point they just went "oh well".

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/19729-2-different-pacman-versions/page__view__findpost__p__210580

[firestorm]

 

 

First from left screenshot is Pac-Man v1 from Altirra PAL (standard setting), second Pac-Man v8 from Altirra PAL (standard setting). It looks almost the same on real PAL hardware. How do you like colours?

 

 

[Rybags]

#2 looks a bit bland - Pacman and pink ghost are desaturated and look practically same as the dots.

 

#1 has much better Pacman colour.

[+Stephen]

Another vote for #1

[kenjennings]

The colors are more saturated in the first picture.

Edited April 13, 2012 by kenjennings

[+darryl1970]

#2 looks a bit bland - Pacman and pink ghost are desaturated and look practically same as the dots.

 

#1 has much better Pacman colour.

 

Except the fruit is missing the shine!

[JamesD]

Number 1 or a pink Pacman? Is asking really required?

[jvas]

PacMan is yellow. No question.

[pseudografx]

Yellow on PAL Atari should definitely use color 236 or 238.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

Yep.. it did. But it was way too late at that point. Super Breakout was really the most meh pack in they could have chosen.

 

<text clipped for brevity>

 

Still though, at the end of the day 5200 Pacman didn't feel right for a lot of reasons, and not just because of the stretched playfield.

 

In 1982 choosing Super Breakout to pack in wasn't even "meh," was it? It was a four-year old game that was going to be conflated and dated with a six-year old game, the original Breakout. And sure the theme could still be fun amongst a bunch over other games, and people were still doing the theme years and years later with Megaball and so forth, and probably still are. But for popularity and attractiveness and mass sales and luring sales of a new system? That wasn't "meh," that was "you must be kidding me."

 

As for a stretched playfield of Pacman, well in itself that's fine with me and preferable even. Why waste a lot of screen space and blow a big fraction of the systems already-limited resolution by "pillar boxing." Stretch it sure, just keep the gameplay smooth and authentic as possible.

[Tin_Lunchbox]

Here's a photo of the official cart.

 

Whoa, that looks wonderful. If you're going to spend a huge amount of time on the code, may as well devote some care to the cartridge itself. Considered packaging?

 

What are the requirements for this baby? Is there 400/800 compatibility? Unexpanded (16K) 600XL?

[NE146]

Yep.. it did. But it was way too late at that point. Super Breakout was really the most meh pack in they could have chosen.

 

<text clipped for brevity>

 

Still though, at the end of the day 5200 Pacman didn't feel right for a lot of reasons, and not just because of the stretched playfield.

 

In 1982 choosing Super Breakout to pack in wasn't even "meh," was it? It was a four-year old game that was going to be conflated and dated with a six-year old game, the original Breakout. And sure the theme could still be fun amongst a bunch over other games, and people were still doing the theme years and years later with Megaball and so forth, and probably still are. But for popularity and attractiveness and mass sales and luring sales of a new system? That wasn't "meh," that was "you must be kidding me."

 

Point taken. I have to admit being totally bewildered as a kid by how lame the game that came with my 5200 was.

 

As for a stretched playfield of Pacman, well in itself that's fine with me and preferable even. Why waste a lot of screen space and blow a big fraction of the systems already-limited resolution by "pillar boxing." Stretch it sure, just keep the gameplay smooth and authentic as possible.

 

Yknow... at the end of the day I wouldn't have minded the stretched playfield either, but if you played a lot of arcade Pacman, the gameplay of the 5200 version differed in small subtle ways under the surface that sort of deflated the fun out of it. For example, the collision detection is less forgiving. In the arcade you could do close calls and turn left/right right under the ghosts skirts as they actually touched Pacman. But in the 5200 version they'd kill you if you just touched a corner of it. And of course the sound being way off (i.e. not SOUNDING like Pacman) made the experience feel odd as well.

 

But anyway I'm not knocking it too much. I had a heck of a time with it, and it certainly made my 5200 feel like a new game system in my home and distracted me from Super Breakout.

[tep392]

Here's a photo of the official cart.

Whoa, that looks wonderful. If you're going to spend a huge amount of time on the code, may as well devote some care to the cartridge itself. Considered packaging? What are the requirements for this baby? Is there 400/800 compatibility? Unexpanded (16K) 600XL?

 

It should work on any machine with 48k or more of RAM.