Pixellated Ghost Posted April 9, 2003 Share Posted April 9, 2003 Attached is some work I've done on the binary for Pac Man for the 2600. I'm at a point where I'd like to mess with the maze but can't figure out just how it is stored. (I'm beginning to wonder if it's algorithmically generated.) Otherwise I've changed the sound of eating, made pac man look more like pac man, slightly edited the ghosts, and made the maze/background colors more like the arcade. I'm not necessarily going to try to make an "arcade perfect" maze of it, just remove some of the redundancy and make a few areas of it more interesting. pacman4.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 9, 2003 Share Posted April 9, 2003 Tricky... I never really looked into Pac Man (since the game is already pretty whack), but I think that the maze might be just a very small section mapped in memory. Cover the right side of the screen, now cover the lower 3/4 of the left. That small area is repeated downward and mirrored horizontally, right? Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATARI TROLL Posted April 9, 2003 Share Posted April 9, 2003 I dig the color scheme. Is this a finished hack? If not, keep at it. This kick ass. Everyone hacks on the mspacman trying to find a better pacman. Your working with turd of rom. Looks good! Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixellated Ghost Posted April 10, 2003 Author Share Posted April 10, 2003 No, can't really say it's finished... every now and then I mess with it and as I do something interesting to it I up the revision number of it. I guess the final step would be to see if I can change the maze. Been unsuccessful so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixellated Ghost Posted April 10, 2003 Author Share Posted April 10, 2003 Alright, as I figured, it turns out that it is algorithmically generated, as I went through the disassembly I have of it and discovered various subroutines that poll 3 byte locations and store them in the playfield registers. I'd assume that changing the maze layout would involve rewriting these sections to display the desired layout. Tried changing the values in one of these tables and 8 sections of the maze changed. So, you're right, Nukey Shay, it is mirrored down 4x and reflected. Even though the maze changed, the ghosts and the pac man all followed their original paths so there is probably another set of routines or a table that determines the valid paths at any given location. I admit that yes, it is a "turd" of a rom, but I guess if I study it I'll learn how NOT to write an Atari game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 I wonder if there is a way to add graphics and change a bit of code so that the monster's eyes follow the direction they are moving in. That has been a *big* gripe of mine since it first came out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 This is something that I've brought up before (which at least one person thought was a good idea...crazy, yes...but good). Hack Ms.PacMan to have the original Atari PacMan maze and sounds Problems solved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 Ah Yes, but even in Ms.Pac-Man the monster's eyes don't follow their direction; they just go back and forth... Maybe Jr. Pac-Man (where they finally got it right)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATARI TROLL Posted April 10, 2003 Share Posted April 10, 2003 I second the vote on trying to hack the mspacman maze Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 If Pac-Man Arcade could be hacked into Pac-Man Plus...thatd rock Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Well, I began it... http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33319 Hey Pixel / Nukey Shay maybe between the three of us, we can get the last few things changed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Me? I have trouble tying my tie...let alone decyphering an 8k cart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Regarding hacking the maze on the original 2600 version of Pac-Man... I seem to recall hearing about someone doing this, but because of the way the game is written, even if the maze is visually changed, the ghosts (and possibly Pac-Man too) still follow the old maze... so they move right through some of your new "walls." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted September 29, 2003 Share Posted September 29, 2003 Not necessarily...they would be following a seperate matrix of allowable moves (so simply hacking the graphics isn't enough). The problem with the original Pac is that neither allow much diversity from how they were made. It's just a small section repeated and reversed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Csonicgo Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 why don't we hack Jr. Pacman? imagine how good we could do with that rom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bjk7382 Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 Well if you do hack the regular pac-man, Todd Frye would be proud. (maybe not, because he said several times that he wanted to make it 8k instaid of 4, but managment wouldn't let him) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted November 28, 2003 Share Posted November 28, 2003 Well if you do hack the regular pac-man, Todd Frye would be proud. (maybe not, because he said several times that he wanted to make it 8k instaid of 4, but managment wouldn't let him) It would be kinda cool to have more accurate looking mazes with the now "classic" 2600 Pac-Man sound FX left in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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