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Ms. Pac-Man with Enhancements


MrFish

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Added some enhancements to Ms. Pac-Man.

Changes
- Added cabinet artwork title/splash screen, via Graph2Font and Integrator.
- Most fruit/food edited
- Blue ghost eyes edited (per Pac-Man Arcade)
- Ghost eyes returning to "pen" edited (per Pac-Man Arcade)
- Fruit/food and ghost points edited for: 700, 1000, 1600, 2000, and 5000 (per Pac-Man Arcade)

 

NOTES:

- The title/splash screen's colors have been adjusted for PAL video, but no color adjustments have been made beyond that.
- Tested working correctly with PicoDOS on real NTSC hardware, and with Altirra for PAL and NTSC.

- Works with SIDE I Loader on real hardware, but video glitches intermittently for a short period after button is pressed on title screen, before the game loads.

- I have not tested it on any real PAL hardware yet.

 

 

 

[Edit: Files taken down until I correct a slight problem with a few pixels for the 1600 points edit. Too late to fix tonight. I'll post them back up tomorrow after I've had a chance to make the repair.]

 

Edited by MrFish
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Haven't checked it out - but wouldn't it be possible to just have a universal binary for both systems?

 

I imagine, and preferably so. I didn't do a disassembly though. This was just done using a hex-editor, Graph2Font, and Integrator. So having separate binaries was the easiest way to get the title into NTSC and PAL colors.

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It would be nice if the game code could be tightened up a bit. this version always played a little on the clunky side compared to the 7800 version.

 

Nice Fixes though. I especially like the ghosts eyes. looks much better. =)

Edited by Kjmann
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It would be nice if the game code could be tightened up a bit. this version always played a little on the clunky side compared to the 7800 version.

 

Nice Fixes though. I especially like the ghosts eyes. looks much better. =)

 

Yeah, it could use a few other hacks to bring it up another notch. I think the main thing about it is that the game speed starts off too slow, if you're comparing it to the 7800 version and the arcade.

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Something wrong in higher level ? I was playing on Altirra emulator. Will test on the real hardware .

 

I've played games starting from the first level and ending in the highest level/maze (after "Act 3, Junior"), and beyond without any problems (In NTSC. I haven't the patience to do it in PAL mode). Can you elaborate on what you're experiencing?

 

Not sure if it's just Altarri's color palette but in both the NTSC and PAL versions the Orange fruit does not look particularly orange.

 

Could be your color settings in Altirra. It looks orange in Altirra for me in NTSC. As a comparison the outline for the cabinet artwork/splash screen should be orange too -- although it can be a little difficult to distinguish with all the pink that's mixed in around it. Also, the "Pear" and "Banana" levels mazes should be orange. I use the "Authentic NTSC" palette in Altirra, with the brightness and contrast settings turned up a little. I think this gives a pretty accurate palette, based on what I see on real hardware (800XL). As mentioned in the notes in the first post though, I've made no changes to the in-game colors. So whatever you're seeing there is coming from the original Atari Ms. Pac-Man game.

 

It also seems like the screen is offset a couple of pixels to the right?

 

What screen?

Edited by MrFish
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Something wrong in higher level ? I was playing on Altirra emulator. Will test on the real hardware .

 

OK, I've found a bug, which is probably the one you're talking about. The screen will start to flicker during game play at certain times. It only seems to do it after I let attract mode come up and then go back to the level selection screen before starting a new game. But I don't know for sure yet. I haven't tried it on real hardware either, just Altirra. One thing I do know is that it's not related to any of the changes I've made, because I've gone back to the original binary that Marius1976 posted after he did some color fix (I think) and added the ability to start a game from the selection screen using <Start> or <Fire>, rather than just <Start>. I'll have to see if I can go back to the original thread it was posted in and see exactly what he modified. Also, I'm not sure that the binary that he was working with didn't have this problem before he made his changes. I'd like to have the button hack in, but the main priority is starting with a bug free binary version. I thought his binary had been out there long enough for any bugs to have surfaced. Adding the title/splash screen and hacks into any version is fairly trivial for me at this point because I've got all the changes documented, and adding the Graph2Font executable just takes a few minutes using Integrator. Anyway... thanks for posting the information Caterpiggle.

 

I'll take down the binaries I've posted until the problem is resolved.

Edited by MrFish
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Sorry Mr Fish, ignore the shifted title screen comment, it only happens if you set Altirra's artifacting to PAL high which is what I always have it on...Switched it to normal and the line goes..

 

If you have Altirra you can see it yourself...

 

False alarm, my apologies...

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Sorry Mr Fish, ignore the shifted title screen comment, it only happens if you set Altirra's artifacting to PAL high which is what I always have it on...Switched it to normal and the line goes..

 

If you have Altirra you can see it yourself...

 

False alarm, my apologies...

 

Interesting. It happens also -- but to a much lesser extent -- when using NTSC High Artifacting. It should only be seen when extending the overscan. I did use the "false background" technique and widescreen mode (48 bytes) for this graphic. During the process of creating it, I found out that I could probably get away without using a false background though. Maybe maybe at some point I'll try redoing it using a normal screen screen width, etc. I'd like to check out some other widescreen graphic which use false background and see how they also look in this high-artifacting mode. I'm curious how it looks on a real PAL machine too; I haven't one myself to try it out on these days.

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BTW, why is there no dedicated "Hack" sub-forum for the 8-bits?

 

2600 - Check

5200 - Check

7800 - Check

8-bits - ???

 

AtariAge Hack Forums

 

It isn't like there aren't any hacks for the system. In fact when it comes to "trained" hacks, I'd say there are many. It'd be nice to see us get added to the list, and have a place to consolidate the work that's being done.

 

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I'd like to check out some other widescreen graphic which use false background and see how they also look in this high-artifacting mode.

 

Yeah, it seems to be true for anything using this technique. Obviously the example below doesn't look too pronounced because of the particular colors (not correct actually, as it's intended for NTSC) it's using in comparison to the Ms. Pac-Man title. I think I've actually seen a similar problem when I've used CRT's that show a larger portion of the overscan. I try not to use the graphic technique any more than is absolutely needed, as it necessarily limits the amount of DLI changes that can occur on a given line.

 

post-6369-0-56255900-1398644786_thumb.png

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