Pac-Line for the Intellivision

[+atari2600land]

It feels good to me now too.

I'm trying for a sound effect instead of a crunch sound. I played Pac-Man and ate a ghost and tried to do a little of what it does (play a very quick 4-note sound effect).

pacline9c.rom

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, atari2600land said:

It feels good to me now too.

I'm trying for a sound effect instead of a crunch sound. I played Pac-Man and ate a ghost and tried to do a little of what it does (play a very quick 4-note sound effect).

pacline9c.rom 9.56 kB · 2 downloads

 

Much better, and getting closer.  I think the sound needs to progress to a much higher note.  To me, the "crunch" sound is a very fast ramp of tones going up and down, whose base frequency goes up progressively.  If I were to graph it, it would look something like this:

In other words, there is a base tone that starts low, it is modulated up and down to give it a sharp and very fast "vibrato" effect (almost like one of those 8-bit arpeggios); and the base tone increases its pitch over time.  Think of the "waka-waka" effect, but if it were shorter, then repeated for a little bit as the base frequency goes up.

 

Hopefully this helps.

 

       -dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I tried this:

' #s starts at 888

    if eatghostsound>0 then    eatghostsound=eatghostsound+1 : SOUND 1,#s,10
    if eatghostsound%2=1 then #s=#s-266
    if eatghostsound%2=0 then #s=#s+166
    if eatghostsound>15 then eatghostsound=0 : SOUND 1,1,0

Thoughts?

 

pacline9d.rom

[+DZ-Jay]

11 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

I tried this:

' #s starts at 888

    if eatghostsound>0 then    eatghostsound=eatghostsound+1 : SOUND 1,#s,10
    if eatghostsound%2=1 then #s=#s-266
    if eatghostsound%2=0 then #s=#s+166
    if eatghostsound>15 then eatghostsound=0 : SOUND 1,1,0

Thoughts?

 

pacline9d.rom 9.56 kB · 0 downloads

 

It sounds good.  Not great.  It is a little muffled and hard to discern from the rest of the concurrent sounds.  Have you given it the maximum volume?  Also, it seems like it should end up at a higher pitch.

 

Do not misunderstand me, I like it and it is a good an adequate sound effect.  If you were to give up and keep it, it wouldn't be a bad thing.  However ... you are so close ...

 

I am sorry if I am not able to help more with this.  I haven't synthesized sound in decades (even Joe had to code the sound effect of my game), so I am sort of stupid at this.  I'd like to think I have a good ear to tell when it is good, but I wouldn't know how to get there.  If it were me, I would create a quick-and-dirty program just to experiment with various parameters to see quickly how they act, but it would still be by trial and error.

 

     -dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I'll work on it some more.

[+atari2600land]

This?

I also made a change: When the power dot is eaten, the ghost slows down like in Pac-Man.

pacline9d.rom

[+DZ-Jay]

3 hours ago, atari2600land said:

This?

I also made a change: When the power dot is eaten, the ghost slows down like in Pac-Man.

pacline9d.rom 9.06 kB · 2 downloads

 

Getting better!  I like it.  It is a little low.  Is it not at max volume?  It should be at max volume.

 

Also, in the original, the game freezes while the "crunch" sound effect plays when Pac-Man eats the ghost.

 

      -dZ.

[+atari2600land]

All the other sounds in the game are volume 10. I put the crunch sound at volume 15. It just sounds weird with this setup, what do you think?

I also changed it so the game freezes when the crunch sound is playing. This made the crunch sound change for some reason I don't know.

pacline10.rom

[mthompson]

I'm liking this game, but as @fdr4prez said, dying off screen (in the tunnel) seems cheap, especially since there's no visual indicator of a ghost either before or after I die. The other videos I've seen of Pac-Line don't seem to do this. Still, you're doing a nice job with this.

 

– Any plans to add Pac-Man's death animation instead of just disappearing?

– Any plans to add fruit?

[+atari2600land]

Made it so a new ghost cannot appear if Pac-Man is near a tunnel entrance.

- I'd like to add Pac-Man death, but I don't know where I can get the sound notes for it.

- There weren't any plans to add fruit, but it does seem like an interesting idea.

pacline11.rom

[mthompson]

25 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

Made it so a new ghost cannot appear if Pac-Man is near a tunnel entrance.

Thanks. That seems good.

[Sinjinhawke]

This is a pretty sweet little game and is coming along quite nicely.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, atari2600land said:

Made it so a new ghost cannot appear if Pac-Man is near a tunnel entrance.

- I'd like to add Pac-Man death, but I don't know where I can get the sound notes for it.

- There weren't any plans to add fruit, but it does seem like an interesting idea.

pacline11.rom 9.56 kB · 5 downloads

 

It sounds good!  Here is some feedback on this version:

• The title music should be louder, at least 14, but perhaps 15.
• The chomp sound is now louder than everything else.  I think everything is too quite.  Maybe you want to crank up the "waka-waka" sound from 10 to 12 and make the crunch 12 or 13?  I think you need to play with the balance of sounds a little bit.
• In the original, it is not just that Pac-Man pauses when he eats a ghost, it is the entire game -- the flying eyes of the dead ghost, the Pac-Man animation, the blinking of the power-pellets, etc.  Everything stops while the crunch sound plays out and and then continues as normal.

Looking good so far!

 

   -dZ.

[mthompson]

Here's one other idea that should be simple to implement:

 

How about adding the ability to use either the Disc or press any of the four side buttons to change direction? The online version of Paku Paku does this. Some players might prefer one over the other. https://abagames.github.io/crisp-game-lib-11-games/?pakupaku

[+fdr4prez]

29 minutes ago, mthompson said:

Here's one other idea that should be simple to implement:

 

How about adding the ability to use either the Disc or press any of the four side buttons to change direction? The online version of Paku Paku does this. Some players might prefer one over the other. https://abagames.github.io/crisp-game-lib-11-games/?pakupaku

at that point, you can just as easily press a keypad and save your thumbs! 

 

 

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, mthompson said:

Here's one other idea that should be simple to implement:

 

How about adding the ability to use either the Disc or press any of the four side buttons to change direction? The online version of Paku Paku does this. Some players might prefer one over the other. https://abagames.github.io/crisp-game-lib-11-games/?pakupaku

Players who prefer pressing little tiny side-buttons to that big large round disc?  Who are these people?  😄

I personally think that using the disc for movement is perfectly fine.

 

     -dZ.

[+DZ-Jay]

4 hours ago, atari2600land said:

Made it so a new ghost cannot appear if Pac-Man is near a tunnel entrance.

- I'd like to add Pac-Man death, but I don't know where I can get the sound notes for it.

- There weren't any plans to add fruit, but it does seem like an interesting idea.

pacline11.rom 9.56 kB · 9 downloads

Oh, I also forgot to mention, in Pac-Man, the energizer pills blink at 3 Hz, but are on for longer than off.  Here is what I have in my notes in my old code:

                ; ---------------------------------------------------------
                ; The Energizer pills blink at 3 Hz, but they are "on" for
                ; a slightly longer period than "off".  To get this effect,
                ; we toggle them on and off every 20 ticks, with the "off"
                ; timer out-of-phase by 12 cycles
                ;
                ; The result is that out of every 20 cycle period, the pills
                ; are on for 12 cycles and off by 8.
                ;
                ;       Start
                ;         |
                ;         v
                ;         ,___________________,                   ,______________//
                ;   ON:   |                   |                   |
                ;         |                   |___________________|
                ;
                ;         0          12      20          32      40          52
                ;         |-----------|-------|-----------|-------|-----------|--\\
                ;
                ;                     ,___________________,                   ,__//
                ;   OFF:              |                   |                   |
                ;         ____________|                   |___________________|
                ;
                ; ---------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

[mthompson]

58 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

I personally think that using the disc for movement is perfectly fine.

Even so, there’s little reason to leave the controller’s 16 buttons and keys useless. Options are good. 

Edited April 16 by mthompson
Punctuation

[+DZ-Jay]

10 hours ago, mthompson said:

Even so, there’s little reason to leave the controller’s 16 buttons and keys useless. Options are good. 

 

Well ... there is kind of one reason: they are not needed in a game with minimal input demands. 

 

Personally, I would focus on getting the game-play mechanics, difficulty balance, sound effects, and visuals right before adding extra controller handling.  But that's me.

 

     -dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I can't get the power dot to blink. I sat here for like 2 hours but I couldn't do it. I've done everything else though. I don't think it needs to blink because it's green and bigger.

 

pacline12.rom

[+DZ-Jay]

18 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

I can't get the power dot to blink. I sat here for like 2 hours but I couldn't do it. I've done everything else though. I don't think it needs to blink because it's green and bigger.

 

pacline12.rom 9.56 kB · 1 download

 

That's funny -- you couldn't get it to work, so "it doesn't need it."  It did not need any of the changes you have made in the past couple of days, yet you must admit it is quite better with them.

 

Anyway, it is up to you of course, but if you would like to try again, and need help in getting it to blink, just let me know.

 

    -dZ.

[+DZ-Jay]

27 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

I can't get the power dot to blink. I sat here for like 2 hours but I couldn't do it. I've done everything else though. I don't think it needs to blink because it's green and bigger.

 

pacline12.rom 9.56 kB · 1 download

 

One suggestion on this last version -- I see that you made it pause after eating the ghost.  If you really want to make it look like the game, you replace the ghost with the points right before pausing.  Here's a screenshot from MAME, Pac-Man eating a second ghost.

 

 

Obviously, this is optional, it looks good, although I would recommend at least disappearing the ghost before pausing.

 

Here is my score for today:

 

It is getting harder! LOL!

 

    -dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I got the power dot blinking!

[+DZ-Jay]

2 minutes ago, atari2600land said:

I got the power dot blinking!

LOL!  Awesome!! 👍🏻👍🏻

 

   dZ.

[+atari2600land]

I don't know how though, as I swear I did it like I did before. Oh well. Here is the power dot blinking. I also attempted to add the score before the ghost pause.

 

pacline12a.rom