NovaXpress Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 When I want that control feeling I play Civilization, not video doll house. I develop weapons and slaughter millions while I enjoy the screams and lamentations of their women. I need help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariDude Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 I have to relook at my "Once Upon Atari" DVD but if I remember correctly, Todd Frye mentioned that he made the 2600 version of Pac Man based on the concepts of the game without actually haven seen the real thing. I think he also mentioned in the video that he wanted to make the game 4K in order to avoid the images of the ghosts as they moved to stop blinking but someone at Atari said to get the game to fit within the 2k. I don't think that there was a conspiracy. Just a simple case of Atari mismanagement and greed winning out over getting the game done right. I just wonder how well PacMan for the Atari 2600 would have sold if they had the PacMan Arcade hack. This is one nicely done hack and more like the original. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 Erm...Pacman IS 4k Ms. is 8k, and Jr. is a hefty 16k (due to all of the redundancy in the game code). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 There are many men who play The Sims (although I can't fathom why) It's a control thing. Like an ant farm, but more interesting to watch. I thought I would like the Sims since I like Sim City-type games and RollerCoaster Tycoon-type games but when my sister bought it, I thought it sucked. I like to set something up and see how people react to it in other games, but the people don't do enough in the Sims, even after increasing their Independence or whatever it's called. It's like watching paint dry. They can eat, sleep, crap, watch TV and so on, but it's less interesting than the old "game" called Little Computer People by David Crane. You could actually interact with the guy like he was in a fish bowl or an ant farm or a Habitrail . Even the people in Actraiser were more interesting than the ones in the Sims. For an extra ego boost, they worshiped you and prayed to you too. Little Computer People by David Crane http://www.64apocalypse.com/images/best_ever/lcp.htm Actraiser http://www.nintendo-a-gogo.com/actraiser.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 The problem with LCP is that you can't do enough things apart from telling him to feed his pet or play poker. I do like getting him all green and ill though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 The problem with LCP is that you can't do enough things apart from telling him to feed his pet or play poker. I do like getting him all green and ill though I never was totally happy with it. I want an updated version. It would be great on our newer consoles and PCs. I also want someone to make a realistic fish tank, Habitrail (with realistic acting hamsters or other creatures similar to Sniffy), an ant farm, and Sea Monkeys as they were promised on the box. It sure is easy to get off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 I never was totally happy with it. I want an updated version. Hmmm... I've thought of doing a virtual pet with GameMaker... Hmmm... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 lol South Park's Sea Monkey ep. rocked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 Tod Frye just throws out a lot of excuses because all his life he's heard how shitty his game was. He's the Vanilla Ice of 2600 programmers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 lolSouth Park's Sea Monkey ep. rocked Simpsons did it. Simpsons did it. I'm sorry, your post will be deleted because it's not original. The Simpsons did it first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gavv Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 Asteroids was released first. I got Asteroids with my 2600 for Christmas in 1981 and had to wait a few months for Pac Man. It could be argued that PacMan was a much more important title for Atari than the 8K Asteroids. -Bry it was purely a cost matter, they wanted the extra profit margin on only using 4k roms instead of 8k gavv Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 So you are saying that they got greedy? I think that they just needed all the extra money to pay for keeping hype alive until their own inferior version could take better ones to court. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted January 19, 2004 Share Posted January 19, 2004 I'd still like to hear from an Atari marketing guy on the matter, we're only getting the story of a maligned programmer at this point. Asteroids was 8K before PacMan. What would be the next 8K game? Defender? Atari would not screw up PacMan on purpose while allowing two other huge releases to slide. Many hate Defender, but it was good in its day. I think that Frye chose to make a 4K game (maybe he didnt understand bankswitching or didnt want to bother) and chose to make it look the way he did. The story about him holding the program hostage until Atari paid him a bonus causes anything he says to be looked at with suspicion. I think that when he turned it over to marketing for release, they just didn't give a damn that it sucked. Just like they didn't give a damn that Asteroids was good. They had a product on the schedule, it had to be delivered. No conspiracy, just capitalism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Player Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 Defender is 4k. I wonder what Atari's second 8k game was? Also, I believe Asteroids was released only a few months before Pac-Man so they were both in development at the same time. Or at least Pac-Man was started before Asteroids was completed. It could explain why 8k was not a definite option for Pac-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 not strictly related to the topic but a couple other good "GOD" games are powermonger and populous. Much more fun than the sims, IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 Also, I believe Asteroids was released only a few months before Pac-Man so they were both in development at the same time. Or at least Pac-Man was started before Asteroids was completed. It could explain why 8k was not a definite option for Pac-Man. That's a very good theory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 20, 2004 Author Share Posted January 20, 2004 Also, I believe Asteroids was released only a few months before Pac-Man so they were both in development at the same time. Or at least Pac-Man was started before Asteroids was completed. It could explain why 8k was not a definite option for Pac-Man. That's a very good theory So, that would sort of do away with the idea that Tod designed both a 4K and a superior 8K game. I would think if Atari was holding both versions at release time (and they had an 8K game already out), they'd go for the better one on the hottest game around. I'd love to see that version and see what "superior" meant. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 Would the development equipment have differed between the two types of games...e.g. regular binaries and bankswitched (8k) ones? That might support that theory...i.e. the equipment was new and at only one workstation. And even if he wanted to test an 8k binary, he wouldn't be able to because the final stages of Asteroids was being developed there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 20, 2004 Author Share Posted January 20, 2004 I'm pretty sure Atari would have had banked ROM emulators available since it's not a very hard circuit to build. Somehow he claims to have developed it, so he had a way. Of course, the easier way is to fit a 2600 with a 6502, and allow a larger address space during development. edit: Is there a disassembly of Atari Pac-Man out there? -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 I'm impressed that Defender could get squeezed into 4K. So the next 8K game would be either Berzerk, Star Raiders, or Raiders of the Lost Ark or all 3. So then Asteroids was the only 8K game for at least 7 months. Weird. I suppose the programmer insisted that it was necessary. Could a lesser Asteroids have concievably been done with 4K? So I guess Atari just used the least amount of memory possible, which goes for every company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 20, 2004 Author Share Posted January 20, 2004 I'm impressed that Defender could get squeezed into 4K. Me too. It was wierd, but it wasn't that bad of a game. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 Spacewar is similar...but I think the game display kernal would have needed to have more redundancy (in other words, rom space) devoted to it to handle all the rocks. My guess would be no using the program code as it is written. I suppose that it could be using more efficient routines that are commonly known these days. Note: no facts are above. I haven't disassembled Asteroids or Spacewar to support the guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 20, 2004 Author Share Posted January 20, 2004 Now, if we could just take all this knowledge back to 1978... -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 As far as Pac-Man not even getting the colors right, there is precedent. Space Invaders changed all the graphics and colors. Maybe Atari liked to make games their own (that way even though they couldn't copyight the design, they could copyright the characters which they used)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted January 20, 2004 Share Posted January 20, 2004 OK...this piqued my interest. Let's assume that the source code can be tweaked and optimized. Anyone care to create a better Pacman hack of the game itself? Here's a rough disassembly...I'll post a better one if it doesn't consume too much time. You should be able to move rom around from $F000 to $FD3E (the data tables begin at $FD3F...which may contain undiscovered memory pointers). EDIT - scratch a few tables. Found the pointers to the Pacman, Ghost, and Digit graphics...there are still more to be found. EDIT - moved the start routine to the middle of the data area to swap with digit and copyright GFX (moved to the very front @ F000). The copyright logo can be removed outright, and the digit GFX can be packed together better by using "block" numbers. This frees up 57 bytes in the program area with no optimizing yet. Still cannot move around the majority of the tables, but the area from $F000 to $FD3F is still free to change around. pacman.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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