PacManPlus Posted June 6, 2018 Author Share Posted June 6, 2018 (edited) Well, I'm not crazy about the pinball table... Now it looks too small to me. But it's got a 'Midnight Magic' kind of look to it. I'll have to go with this... Maybe it will grow on me. I didn't have enough tiles to even do the little Blinky and Baby at the top fully. What I may try and do is do those, and the Mr. and Ms. Pac at the bottom, in sprites - being that the only sprites that are used are the flippers and the ball(s). Please note that the pinball portion does nothing but put the table on the screen. Also, not all of the colors are correct yet. BabyPac.A78 BabyPac.BIN Edited June 6, 2018 by PacManPlus 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gambler172 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 Hi my friend will check it out at weekend..... greetings Walter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted June 6, 2018 Share Posted June 6, 2018 Well, I'm not crazy about the pinball table... Now it looks too small to me. But it's got a 'Midnight Magic' kind of look to it. I'll have to go with this... Maybe it will grow on me. I didn't have enough tiles to even do the little Blinky and Baby at the top fully. What I may try and do is do those, and the Mr. and Ms. Pac at the bottom, in sprites - being that the only sprites that are used are the flippers and the ball(s). Please note that the pinball portion does nothing but put the table on the screen. Also, not all of the colors are correct yet. Awesome take BTW I do also a dream game list on what games I like to see on the 7800 and wonder if I can PM send them to you what I drew and mockup screens:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Well, I'm not crazy about the pinball table... Now it looks too small to me... Bob, the table looks good, even if modest in size. Perhaps worth considering is when an individual is playing the pinball portion of an actual Baby Pac-Man machine, there is no score or options/achievements explained in text to look over and review in the pinball playfield itself. The score and other details would be on the video screen above. From what is currently implemented... ...maybe the bottom portion (From "FRUIT LEVEL" down) can be removed and seen during a transition screen before the pinball starts and after it finishes; possibly the same for the score as well. Both could be moved to a transition screen, leaving just the pinball field in view while playing the pinball portion. Then, after that information is removed, if possible, proportionally add to the height and width of the pinball playfield. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 I know it’s not directly related to the gameplay itself, but I’m digging that title screen and the animated Yoyo 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender_2600 Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 (edited) ... another idea : Edited June 7, 2018 by Defender_2600 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted June 7, 2018 Author Share Posted June 7, 2018 Nice idea... Thank you for that, Marco. Although I do need the score to stay at the top (and the information lines at the bottom), because it still uses the tile set from the video portion for the numbers / letters. I need every tile I can get for the pinball section, and I can't mix the two. @Trebor - I understand what you are saying, however the screen actually does show the information that I am showing at the bottom of the screen during the pinball portion: What I'm thinking of doing, is going back to 160A mode, but doubling everything in height... and scrolling the screen like I did with Pac-Man 320. The scrolling will obviously follow the ball. Not sure yet. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Is a bank switched cart out of the question? That would allow you to bank in your sprite and character fonts. You could move you maze data into a bank freeing up code space in the non-banked portion of ROM. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra Kai Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Help me remember here, but did the pinball portion of the game actually score points? I only remember it as a mechanism for power pellets and activating other features on the maze portion. I'm wondering if the score is necessary on the pinball screen. Edit: nevermind I can clearly see some rollovers with 1000 and 500 points printed on the table. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 Hey Bob sorry it took me a few days to get back with you about the Pacsculator. You were correct.. When parking the ball once you earned a pellet Pac man does NOT go up the pacsculator, he only uses it once you go back into the pinball escape tunnel. The pacsculator does face the direction of the tunnel you escaped. (e.g. if you use the left pinball escape tunnel the esculator faces left, the opposite is true if you go down the right tunnel) I did not really notice until I opened the playfield and cheated to see the animation, that the pacsculator changes colors every time, white (default), red, purple, cyan, and I am sure all of the colors in that pallet and even tiny multicolored vertical striped in a staggered pattern, etc) Regardless if you uses this or not thank you again for your attention you are putting on making this a great game! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 7, 2018 Share Posted June 7, 2018 @Trebor - I understand what you are saying, however the screen actually does show the information that I am showing at the bottom of the screen during the pinball portion... We're on the same page: ...The score and other details would be on the video screen above... Regardless... ...What I'm thinking of doing, is going back to 160A mode, but doubling everything in height... and scrolling the screen like I did with Pac-Man 320. The scrolling will obviously follow the ball. Not sure yet... ...it looks like you have a great alternative to consider. If the scrolling can be pulled off that would be really sweet! Still, you already have a decent pinball field and layout to fall back on. What matters most is ultimately *you* have to be happy with it. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Uh-oh... Hope a scrolling playfield isn't absolutely necessary. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Scrolling or not, when this comes out, I'm buying it. There was a Baby Pacman at the Texas Pinball Fest I attended in 2014. Unfortunately, it did not fair well during transit, and was out of service. I love pinball. I love pacman. Best of both worlds? One of very few rare instances where pinball and video arcade coalesce? Yes please... Food for thought: Pinbot and High Speed (NES) both have a very good physics engine based upon real tables. 7800 and nes are both 6502 based cpu running at 1.79Mhz. Perhaps you should study the source code related to the ball physics? Finally, I am aware that the ghosts in Baby Pacman are relentless. It's like having four Blinkies. Perhaps you should reuse the AI engines of Pacman and Ms Pacman instead? It would be more balanced gameplay, since the primary objective of console games is having fun and not "munching quarters"... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Finally, I am aware that the ghosts in Baby Pacman are relentless. It's like having four Blinkies. Perhaps you should reuse the AI engines of Pacman and Ms Pacman instead? It would be more balanced gameplay, since the primary objective of console games is having fun and not "munching quarters"... More than covered a couple of WIPs back: 1. Starting Lives = 2, 3, 4, or 5 2. Remember Engerizers = Yes or No 3. Monster AI = Arcade or Classic Plus the options of a 1 or 2 player game, and choose whether to play the Full Game, the Video portion, or the Pinball portion only. Setting 5 Lives, Remember Energizers to Yes, and Monster AI to Classic, would make it a very enjoyable and much easier game for the beginner. The veterans can dive right in with the original Arcade settings of: 2 (3) Lives, Remember Energizers to No, and Monster AI locked on Arcade. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sramirez2008 Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 This is going to be so good..so good! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 (edited) @Atariboy2600 - I'd love to see what you come up with... Thank you. Bob Okay so far I drew these two pencil drawings version of the label in under a hour its not the fiinal call that's up to you bit I drew the two one from the arcade art style and the other the classic 80s cartoon show art. Edited June 8, 2018 by Atariboy2600 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+frankodragon Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 At least the second one doesn't have Inky with his hand in his sheet like when I made up this cartoon a while ago. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Excellent drawings! Miss Baby Pac-Man... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted June 8, 2018 Author Share Posted June 8, 2018 (edited) @AtariBoy2600 - I like the first one - God, you do such superb work... I'm always in awe of what you and Nathan Strum create. Is a bank switched cart out of the question? That would allow you to bank in your sprite and character fonts. You could move you maze data into a bank freeing up code space in the non-banked portion of ROM. I don't mean to sound stupid, but I guess I don't know how that would help in this case... I need all tiles within the same character set... I have about 20K free for the pinball portion... Wait... do you mean switching char sets via an interrupt in the DLI? I'm already doing that twice (to switch from the character set with the normal font to the pinball one and back). I hope I don't run out of Maria and/or CPU time... I think I'm going to try my hand at the 12-line zone idea that Marco posted earlier. I'm a little nervous about the 216 line screen (less time for logic) but I'll give it a try. My goal is to have this done by Free Play Florida and PRGE... As long as I have a job soon, I'd like to attend both. Also, I want to get back to ReZolve... ALSO - I need to give a shout out to CPUWIZ and his MCP cart... That thing is awesome. I left a laptop in the room with the 7800, and I test that way. I think I need a 7800 in my office with me... EDIT - Although I am going to try Marco's suggestion, I am not putting the score,etc. along the side. I've decided that the '1 2 3 4' lights tell the player which energizer they have earned, and that should help there. I will try and put the current fruit symbol (as a sprite) in the area just above the left saucer (immediately above-right of the 'F' in FRUITS). I will also try and put the current tunnel speed (again, as a sprite) just above the right saucer (immediately above-left of the 'T' in TUNNEL). That only leaves the score. Worst-case scenario I'll leave that out during pinball play if I can't find anywhere to stuff it. Edited June 8, 2018 by PacManPlus 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 8, 2018 Share Posted June 8, 2018 Bob, I suggested bank switching because I thought you were running out of ROM space. If it's just a matter off adding a DLI so you can use a 2nd character set for the playfield, you will probably be ok. It looks like your only using a 128 wide playfield, so your freeing up a lot of CPU time for game logic and some tiny DLI's. Changing to 12 line zones can help reduce CPU time spent managing DL's. I'm using 16 line zones in D2K so my 16 line sprites will never occupy more than 2 zones. It free's up a few cycles and I'm going to need everything I can get. One of my other tricks is to use sprites to generate the entire screen. The DK screens are mostly black space, and in character map mode, Maria uses just as much time to draw blank characters as it does on visible characters. It's a pet peeve of mine that the CPU get's halted to draw blank space. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted June 9, 2018 Share Posted June 9, 2018 Just wanted to say as a huge PMP/7800 fan it is great to have you making games again for the 7800. I feel like 2013 when I read your interested in continuing Rezolve and hammering this game out as well. I hope this all works out great for you! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted June 9, 2018 Author Share Posted June 9, 2018 Thanks, guys! Good news and bad news... Here's the good news (please note that the colors have not been worked on yet): The bad news: I'm changing the character base for each zone (I'm using three sets of characters for the pinball section). When it switches between sets, I'm getting 2-scanlines of garbage, as you can see here. I don't know why; the DLI is pretty tight as you can see below. Any suggestions? ; DLI FOR PINBALL MODE -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> ; KERNAL - MAINTAIN THE ON-SCREEN DISPLAY DLI_PB ; REGISTERS STACKED IN NORMAL DLI LDA DLIFLG BMI DLITOP_PB CMP #LASTPBZONE - 2 BMI DLIMID_PB JMP DLIBOT_PB DLITOP_PB LDA #GRAPH160ON ;TURN OFF TRANSPARENCY MODE FOR SCORE LINE AND MODES STA CTRL ; OTHER THAN GAME PLAY DLIMID_PB INC DLIFLG ;DO THE FINAL BOTTOM DLI NEXT LDX DLIFLG LDA PBCHRBASE,X STA CHRBASE ;INSTALL THE CHARACTERS FOR EACH ZONE JMP DLIOUT_PB DLIBOT_PB LDA #$FF STA DLIFLG ;RESET DLI FLAG TO GO BACK TO THE TOP INC RTLOCAL+1 ;INCREMENT CLOCK BNE DLICONT_PB INC RTLOCAL DLICONT_PB JSR RAND ;UPDATE RANDOM NUMBER JSR TUNER ;DO TUNES JSR LOADER ;LOAD UP NEXT FRAME DLIOUT_PB PLA ;UNSTACK AND LEAVE TAY PLA ;THIS IS WHERE MOST DLI'S LEAVE TAX PLA RTI PBCHRBASE .BYTE >(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES1),>(PBTILES2) .BYTE >(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES2),>(PBTILES3),>(PBTILES3) .BYTE >(PBTILES3),>(PBTILES3) Thanks, guys - Blob 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 9, 2018 Share Posted June 9, 2018 Also, I want to get back to ReZolve... Yes!!!! Cannot wait!!! :-) No slipping this one past me! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 9, 2018 Share Posted June 9, 2018 Bob, Create a var called something like next_chrbase. You should keep it loaded with the character set base address needed at the NEXT dli. The first thing you do when you enter the dli is to transfer this value to chrbase. Then update it with the address needed at the next dli. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender_2600 Posted June 9, 2018 Share Posted June 9, 2018 (edited) Wow, fantastic! Bob, you're amazingly fast! I hope you can solve the problem of those 2-scanlines. Meanwhile, I have prepared a graphical update for you, it is really cleaner and accurate (mock-up below). About the score, if you still have Maria / CPU time, maybe you could try to increase the vertical resolution of others 8 lines (for example, 7800 Water Ski and Tank Command both have the total height at 224 lines). Again, thanks so much Bob! Edited June 9, 2018 by Defender_2600 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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