Baby Pac-Man

[Jinks]

Ill be purchasing a cart for sure, as I have for all of Bobs games. Why you gotta fuck with Bob. People on this forum should already realize. Dont fuck with Bob. Bob is God around here, he is to be worshipped. Im bummed about what has transpired. Everyone better buy this cart.

I tried to tell them. Thanks for clarifying!

[Kurt_Woloch]

I'm sorry, I didn't know. I just came in during the development of Baby Pac-Man and didn't follow the development of the other games very closely, though I did play some of them (Bentley Bear, Yps (Bentley Bear hack) and Jr. Pac-Man).

 

Ill be purchasing a cart for sure, as I have for all of Bobs games. Why you gotta fuck with Bob. People on this forum should already realize. Dont fuck with Bob. Bob is God around here, he is to be worshipped. Im bummed about what has transpired. Everyone better buy this cart.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Wow, that went down like a heavy metal blimp in the end.

Lightening the mood a bit. I saw your post and instantly thought of this:

 

 

In August 1968 Page invited Robert Plant and John Bonham to join his band, the New Yardbirds, for a September tour in Scandinavia. In October 1968 they took the name Led Zeppelin, which stemmed from a humorous conversation among several musicians about their chances of going down like a lead balloon.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Dont fuck with Bob. Bob is God around here, he is to be worshipped.

I love Bob's games as much as anyone, but "deitizing" game developers is a bit much don't you think?

 

That said, this game is on my insta-buy wishlist.

[The Usotsuki]

Lightening the mood a bit. I saw your post and instantly thought of this:

Yeah. I almost wrote "went down like a lead zeppelin" (an expression I use quite frequently) but that sounded too obvious. ;p

[Andromeda Stardust]

Yeah. I almost wrote "went down like a lead zeppelin" (an expression I use quite frequently) but that sounded too obvious. ;p

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that historic conversation.

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK, I think it's time for a few songs again...

 

I think this one has been mentioned:

 

 

Then I somehow had to think of this thread (since Bob seems to speak Spanish as well) when I heard this one on the radio today:

 

 

Then, since the Yardbirds were mentioned, a Yardbirds cover which also somewhat depicts the mood here:

 

 

And finally the song I proposed as a title song for this game:

 

Edited January 20, 2019 by Kurt_Woloch

[PacManPlus]

Whoa, guys. I'm sorry this blew up into what it did. I just didn't want any unauthorized copies of my and Kurt's work out there.

 

Ok, a couple of things:

- I didn't mean to infer that Kurt had no say. I just assumed that, being a developer himself, he would err on the side of caution rather than somebody 'steal' his work and then sell it themselves.

- I guess I should have expected this kind of response, as I always did just post my binaries without any word... And then suddenly this. I get it. It just bothered me seeing some of my games out there on eBay.

- For everyone that supports me, thank you. I always say, you guys are amazing... I've actually never known people to be defensive of me. Before AA, I've always had to fight for myself, and usually never bothered as I believed I wasn't worth it.

- Greg2600 - nice follow up. Thank you, I appreciate it. I also apologize for responding -not-so-professional- in the other thread... and no, nobody from Namco *ever* got back to me.

- Kurt - again I have to say, thank you for taking this up. Without your input for all of the pinball movement, this game would have never seen the light of day. Also, nothing you have ever said or done caused me to get upset or abandon the game.

- Atari PAC-MAN Fan... it looks like you aren't using the latest version of the ROM... The copyright date still says 2018

- Nice Led Zeppelin reference. I remember that story, as Led Zeppelin is one of my favorite bands. Side note, at one time, at the height of my musicianship, I could play about 75% of their catalog on guitar. (My favorite to play was 'Over The Hills and Far Away')

 

All that being said, I've found three bugs that I have fixed:

- The side doors were slow again until the monsters were actually inside the tunnel. I have added one more 'slow tile' at the entrance so that should be ok.

- Once you maxed out the 'TUNNEL' and/or 'FRUITS', you couldn't advance the center arrows by completing the letters any more. This was fixed.

- In 'Pinball Only' mode, the drop downs didn't always stay down where the top ball was when it changed sides. This was fixed.

 

There are two minor (to me) issues that I am unable to fix:

- The one Defender_2600 pointed out, with the 'gap' in the ball when it's at a very low position on the screen. It's barely noticeable during game play, so I'm not *that* concerned about it. (Side note, this also happens in Super Circus Atari Age at times).

- For one scan line just under the score (again in pinball mode), every once in a while it gets 'corrupt' for one frame and then goes back to normal. Again, during game play it isn't noticeable too much, and doesn't affect anything.

I was, however, able to replace it with a 'blank' line, which to me is a little better.

 

I'm going to try a little bit more to work with these two issues before I post another binary.

Thanks, guys

Bob

Edited January 20, 2019 by PacManPlus

[+eebuckeye]

Thank you for everything Bob! Your work and commitment is awesome!

[TrekMD]

Good to see you back, Bob! I think I may have found a bug also. The problem is that I have not been able to reproduce it. I was playing the Video version only of the game, had eaten an energizer and was chasing the ghosts. Somehow, I entered the ghost pen and then found myself stuck in there. I could not get out. It was hilarious seeing the ghosts just move around the pen trying to reach Baby. I reset the game and tried to see if it would happen again but it did not. The ghosts were about to change when Baby entered the pen and there were no ghosts in the pen to regenerate.

[PacManPlus]

Ok - thank you for that... I wish I knew what you were doing when that happened, or ever where you were on the screen... That one will be hard to replicate...

[TrekMD]

Sure thing. I was right on top of the ghost pen, I had turned right and pulled the joystick down so Baby would go down at the next corner and, instead, he ended up in the pen. I've tried to do it again but I've not been successful replicating it.

[PacManPlus]

Ok thank you... which maze?

Edited January 20, 2019 by PacManPlus

[TrekMD]

Ok thank you... which maze?

 

Oh, sorry. First maze.

[PacManPlus]

Ok, thank you. I've been trying to replicate it myself, but also am unable to. One last question: was this on the real thing, or an emulator? I'm wondering if it's a 'dual direction' thing, i.e. left & right at the same time, or up & down... As you know on the 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man if you press left+right... and then press down also, you can go through walls.

Edited January 20, 2019 by PacManPlus

[TrekMD]

Ok, thank you. I've been trying to replicate it myself, but also am unable to. One last question: was this on the real thing, or an emulator? I'm wondering if it's a 'dual direction' thing, i.e. left & right at the same time, or up & down... As you know on the 2600 version of Ms. Pac-Man if you press left+right... and then press down also, you can go through walls.

 

Emulation, ProSystem. It's possible. I was going left, turned right and held the down direction to turn. Maybe doing all those quickly caused the bug.

[Kurt_Woloch]

OK... Thank you, Bob, very much for returning and picking the thread up once more.

 

As I said, I'm not as cautious. It's a different thing if I work for someone else though, then of course I try not to leak things out. And as I said, similar things happened to me myself with the Karaoke backing tracks I'm making, but it actually only bothers me if I've done them for someone who promised to pay me, and then I don't get paid but the tracks still leak out.

 

On the other hand, of most of the tracks I didn't actually SELL a single copy, so if I see them done out there by singers, I actually have more joy in this (that my tracks are being appreciated and used) than in a sale I could have had, but didn't have, because actually some of my tracks are better versions than the official versions of the same songs that are publicly for sale.

 

My actual reaction to this is that I've greatly scaled back the production of new tracks, but for those I've already done, I could care less about how they spread. And I've actually never seen someone obviously SELLING my tracks (at least not alone... it could be they're for sale as part of a big library which also contains pirated copies of professional manufacturers, but I didn't catch anyone selling them this way as well), I just see them pop up here and there in the libraries of Karaoke bars and KJ's. Sometimes when such a track comes up, I will tell the people that I did them. In the end I think it's better if people get to use my tracks than to only have those use them who paid for them.

 

If I do any protective measures, it's actually more to protect the customers who bought my tracks from unfair competition than to protect myself. But if no one actually bought a given track, there's no one to protect.

 

If it bothers you to see your games for sale on eBay, it's your given right to step in and do something about is, or tell Albert and he will do something since he legitimately sells those games, so he's hurt by that as well. Maybe those copycats only pull their binaries from ROM sites and don't actually know that some of the games they sell repros of are still legitimately for sale and the authors are still around. I think people who post here know better and wouldn't buy from those sellers, so even if they do make money selling those, you still have a supportive base here.

 

My actual problem was that I don't have an Atari 7800, and actually I'm trying out many games for systems I don't own by means of emulators. I'd need much space to have all those games and systems physically. It actually wouldn't bother me that much having to pay for them. Along those lines, I always liked the system in the arcade where you pay for each game you play, but you're not obligated to do anything beyond that (same thing for the shared e-scooters that are now popping up in many cities such as Vienna).

 

Thank you for saying that nothing I ever did caused you to abandon the game. I thought so because you quoted my long response in the posting where you quit. On the other hand, you quit twice before, so I somehow expected this to be only a "timeout" rather than being permanent. And I wouldn't have posted it this way if I had known it would hurt you that much.

 

I read that nobody from Namco ever got back to you... I guess they're fine with homebrews then. By the way, I read today that they now have rebranded their own arcade and restaurant operations as Pac-Man Entertainment... see here: http://www.pacmanentertainment.com/

 

You don't need to post another binary if you don't want to, I just think it would also be better if it's actually not yet considered "finished" because then we still can find flaws in it and you can try to improve them.

 

I think the flipper sounds could be improved a bit... I analyzed the sounds of the actual machine from the video, and I think they need to be done a bit differently... the actual "click" should be shorter. I would do it roughly as follows, so it sounds more like the arcade original...

 

First sound when you hit the button (and the flippers hit the first frame of "up" animation): medium pitch of noise, volume 5 for 1 frame, then turn back to volume 1.for 3 frames,

then slightly higher pitch and turn volume to 7 for 1 frame, then volume 2 or 3 for 1 frame... end of "flipper up" sound.

 

Then do a "flipper down" sound as the flipper gets released which is a bit lower in volume and lower in pitch than the start of the "up" sound... I'd say volume 6 for 1 frame, then volume 3 for 1 frame, then end of sound. That should sound a bit more like the arcade unit sounds, I think.

 

Also, the arcade unit has some kind of low-pitched drone sound when no other sound plays in pinball mode. Is this going to be left out?

 

Sorry if I hurt you again by this... if this is asking for too much, I'll accept it the way it is now.

 

As for the "gap" in the ball, could it be that there's an error in the display list for one of the last zones? Maybe because it has more scanlines than in maze mode?

 

Whoa, guys. I'm sorry this blew up into what it did. I just didn't want any unauthorized copies of my and Kurt's work out there.

 

- I didn't mean to infer that Kurt had no say. I just assumed that, being a developer himself, he would err on the side of caution rather than somebody 'steal' his work and then sell it themselves.

- I guess I should have expected this kind of response, as I always did just post my binaries without any word... And then suddenly this. I get it. It just bothered me seeing some of my games out there on eBay.

- Kurt - again I have to say, thank you for taking this up. Without your input for all of the pinball movement, this game would have never seen the light of day. Also, nothing you have ever said or done caused me to get upset or abandon the game.

 

- The one Defender_2600 pointed out, with the 'gap' in the ball when it's at a very low position on the screen. It's barely noticeable during game play, so I'm not *that* concerned about it. (Side note, this also happens in Super Circus Atari Age at times).

[PacManPlus]

Hi Kurt

 

Yes, this was just a 'time-out', and I appreciate you answering.

The drone in the background of the pinball mode of the arcade game I always hated; it annoyed me for some reason. It was more 'background' than the siren, and lower, so I've left it out here.

 

Thanks to RevEng, I have fixed the gap in the ball. It was due to me putting the last interrupt one zone higher than it should have been. This interrupt also updated the ball position on the screen, so you can see where that might be a problem.

So, all of the bugs that have been found so far have been addressed.

 

This just leaves the one TrekMD found, by going into the monster pen. I've been trying to reproduce that for over an hour now, but am unable to.

...

I'll also look at the flipper sound.

[TrekMD]

I have been trying to do it again but I've not been able to. I think, not 100% certain, the ghosts were about the change back from blue to their regular colors when it happened.

[PacManPlus]

Thank you...

 

There's also the possibility that, being ProSystem isn't cycle perfect, there could be something going on there as well. I use A7800 (it's awesome, BTW) only now. It's the closest you can get to perfect 7800 emulation.

Not trying to blame it on the emulator here, but it is a possibility.

 

Thanks,

Bob

[MrBeefy]

Well this sucks. If anything I wish Al could get rom purchasing up and running in the AA store.

 

I personally like having roms released so I can try and know whether I want to purchase or not on cart.

 

However, I don't blame him for being mad when others make/sell carts. The crappiest part of that is he gets no royalties.

 

On a different note which Bob game do I need to purchase next? (I already have (Astro Blaster, BBCQ, Frenzy, JrPM, PMC, Scamble, SpInv, CircusAA). If this had an immediate release this would be it. I'm thinking maybe Super PM because well...its made by PMP.

[Kurt_Woloch]

Funny you should mention Super PM... I think someone earlier mentioned Pac & Pal, and I think from the engine Pac & Pal would be similar to Super Pac-Man since it has roughly the same maze structure, there's only much less fruits to get because the game priciple is quite different.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Well this sucks. If anything I wish Al could get rom purchasing up and running in the AA store.

I personally like having roms released so I can try and know whether I want to purchase or not on cart.

However, I don't blame him for being mad when others make/sell carts. The crappiest part of that is he gets no royalties.

On a different note which Bob game do I need to purchase next? (I already have (Astro Blaster, BBCQ, Frenzy, JrPM, PMC, Scamble, SpInv, CircusAA). If this had an immediate release this would be it. I'm thinking maybe Super PM because well...its made by PMP.

I think a "ROM shop" for the AA store would be a step in the right direction and provide a no risk "try before you buy" option for purchasing physical carts. Obviously developers would have to opt in to this.

 

Purchase the ROM in the store and you can redownload it later if needed. Also you would get a discount coupon towards the retail price of the game cart for buying the ROM. Also past physical purchases of said game would be eligible for a free download.

[Albert]

I think a "ROM shop" for the AA store would be a step in the right direction and provide a no risk "try before you buy" option for purchasing physical carts. Obviously developers would have to opt in to this.

 

Purchase the ROM in the store and you can redownload it later if needed. Also you would get a discount coupon towards the retail price of the game cart for buying the ROM. Also past physical purchases of said game would be eligible for a free download.

 

I have plans to implement this once I get the store running on new software. First thing I need to do is get the forum upgraded, which I will be working on very soon.

 

..Al

[arcade124]

I have plans to implement this once I get the store running on new software. First thing I need to do is get the forum upgraded, which I will be working on very soon.

 

..Al

How will it be upgraded?