Baby Pac-Man

[Dauber]

WANT. NEED. DAUBER FIRST. CAN'T SENTENCE.

[Jinks]

So I checked out baby pac arcade and this a real interesting game for sure.

So far your maze and everything looks like the arcade to me.

The title screen animation and thr pinball screen will be interesting to see and the sounds... This may be my favorite Pac man as thr only one I can play decent is super Pac man. I wonder if not owning a 4 way joystick is some of my problem the other would be I am too old and slow to react..

[Andromeda Stardust]

Awesome sauce! Can't wait for this game. Also when will 320 Pac/Ms Pac be available to buy?

[BassGuitari]

 

The colors look just like the 'alternate' CGA mode. I actually have a nostalgic fondness for it, but completely understand the dislike towards it:

 

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Ahh, CGA. That takes me back. I have a soft spot for it.

[TrekMD]

Just take my money! This has been something I've been very eager to see done on the 7800.

[gorfcadet]

My 2 gamer loves: Pin and Pac. Take my money. Bob, you are a wild man. Im down for a copy for sure. The 320 PACs as well if those get carted.

[Defender_2600]

Hi Bob, looks great !!

 

 

... I used dithering for two of the monsters, the player, and two of the fruit. ...

 

I was thinking that maybe you can use dithering only with the purple monster :

( *for some fruits it will be necessary to use two overlapping sprites)

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Defender_2600

[SlidellMan]

Just what will the 'pinball' segments look like?

[PacManPlus]

Thank guys...

 

Defender_2600, the only issue there is, with transparency mode on, I only have 2 palettes of 2 colors each available.

The third color only appears if 'paired' with a different color (i.e. not the background or itself), which is why I am able to get the 'dots' to show up. If you notice, I have a green color surrounding each of them.

 

So that being said, one palette is for the maze colors and the dots, so I can't rely on those colors being the same as the maze colors change with the different mazes.

The fruit is what causes the problem. Any fruit can technically be on any maze (you change the fruit with the pinball section), so I can't rely on the maze colors for the fruit. So my setup is like this:

*NOTE* - I can't use overlapping sprites for the fruit, as there would be too many sprites on a line if they all happened to line up.

 

Palette 0:

Red Green White -

Maze colors and dots / score. Red and Green will change with the maze colors.

 

Palette 4:

Red Green Blue -

Fruit / Monsters / Player. Most of the fruit will be ok, sans two of them (the peach and banana - I will have to dither those). That leaves two monsters that I can dither with the blue (to get Purple and Teal). I can get away with dithering with the third color because I'm always pairing it with another color. The player is the issue - I have to dither it with the red and green to get yet a fourth color. This is the closest I can come.

 

Otherwise, if it weren't for the fruit being on any maze, your setup would work perfectly. But It looks like I have to do it this way.

Thanks,

Bob

Edited April 29, 2018 by PacManPlus

[PacManPlus]

Hold on... actually, I may be able to do it that way (including the fruit), if I create a few tables and make some changes... Let me finish the 'tunnel' code which I'm currently working on, and I'll revisit this...

[PacManPlus]

... Not for nothing, but if I replace the Purple monster with Yellow, there is no need for dithering at all. Would anyone have an issue with there being a Yellow monster instead of Purple? It's not like they have separate AI like every other Pac-Man game in the series.

 

If I have switchable AI, I could make the monsters personalities (when 'classic' AI is selected):

Blinky (Red) - Red monster in Baby-Pac

Pinky (Pink) - Green monster in Baby-Pac

Inky (Teal) - Blue monster in Baby-Pac

Clyde (Gold) - Yellow monster in Baby-Pac

[TrekMD]

No issue with a yellow ghost, as far as I'm concerned.

[Trebor]

... Not for nothing, but if I replace the Purple monster with Yellow, there is no need for dithering at all. Would anyone have an issue with there being a Yellow monster instead of Purple? It's not like they have separate AI like every other Pac-Man game in the series.

 

No distinctive AI and likely no 'well-known' colors for the vast majority. It's unlike (Ms/Jr) Pac-Man where the monsters' colors are etched into the minds of players.

 

Arcade Baby Pac-Man being a rarer title and straying from the familiar color palette of its predecessors, leads to most not bating an eye towards an adjustment with monster colors under the 7800 from the Arcade original.

 

Many who play Baby Pac-Man, even if the port was to make a 1-to-1 match with the Arcade monsters, would think the colors are incorrect, due to the aforementioned.

[LidLikesIntellivision]

Very cool. I didn't know this game.

So we must earn the power cells.

[MrMaddog]

Thanks, guys...

 

Well, it looks like I had no choice but to do the dithering. I switched back to 320B (Transparency) mode, to get rid of the black boxes. I used dithering for two of the monsters, the player, and two of the fruit.

 

The dithered look for Baby Pac-Man would also look good for the pinball field IMHO, it'll look like it's Baby Pac-Man bouncing around in there while still resembling a silver pinball...

 

 

 

wjh3q.pngfrogger.png

The colors look just like the 'alternate' CGA mode. I actually have a nostalgic fondness for it, but completely understand the dislike towards it:

 

I actually prefer this to the default CGA mode, IBM ports of arcade games like Pac-Man look way better.

[Mayhem]

Oh this is groovy!

[Defender_2600]

Hold on... actually, I may be able to do it that way (including the fruit), if I create a few tables and make some changes... Let me finish the 'tunnel' code which I'm currently working on, and I'll revisit this...

 

 

Thanks for your reply, Bob!

 

For convenience, I added the fruits to my setup, maze 1 does not require overlapping sprites, instead with maze 2 and maze 3 you can use the 320D mode for overlapping sprites (red sprites + green sprites, see sample below).

 

The 320D mode has the advantage of being 1bpp and in our case it can be used (without combination restrictions) for momochromatic sprites * only * with color 2 (PO C2 and P4 C2) :

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

320D (WM=0,RM1=1,RM0=0) 1 bit per pixel, 3 colors + background & transparent from 2 palettes

 

P1 P0 D7531 D6420 P2=0 : palette 0 P2=1 : palette 4

 

0 0 0 0 BG + BG / transparent

0 0 1 0 C2 + BG

0 0 0 1 BG + C2

0 0 1 1 C2 + C2

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Lendorien]

Good Gravy. This will be an interesting project to watch. I've never seen Baby Pacman in person, but I've read about it.I'm really curious how the pinball aspect will play out. You have your work cut out for you!

 

So awesome to see you working on another game!

[MrBeefy]

Never heard of this one. Cant wait

[PacManPlus]

 

[gambler172]

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Hi Bob

looks great.....ready for an early bin?

[arcade124]

It's amazing that this game's finally going to get ported. Very much looking forward to it, played it in the arcade years ago but didn't realize you had to go into the tunnels at the bottom to access the pinball (thought you only gained access to it after completing a screen). I was annoyed by it and never played it there again, something which I soon regretted extremely after learning how it works. Will you be selling copies on the store here?

[arcade124]

.

Edited May 1, 2018 by arcade124

[arcade124]

Sorry for the double-post, my computer showed that I hadn't posted it the first time

[CrazyChris]

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Love the colors.