New (sorta) hack

[Nukey Shay]

BTW the game is unmodded-Supercharger friendly

 

Controls:

Reset will flip the game between normal and "plus" variations. Also resets the starting level to the first board. In the "plus" variation, the maze is colored green instead of blue...and may disappear when an energizer is eaten. The targets (which appear after 50 and 100 dots have been eaten) will also change the monsters blue...and vulnerable ones will be worth double points after a fruit obect is eaten. There is a slight possibility of one or two monsters remaining lethal tho...so watch out!

Select will cycle through the first 16 boards, so you can begin the game at a higher level. The target objects are slightly different in hue to better indicate seperate boards...and they are cherries, strawberry, 2 orange, 2 apple, 2 grape, 2 lime, 2 grapefruit, and 4 crabapple. When playing the game, clearing the 4th crabapple board will place you on the 5th (a "poison" crabapple)...the highest level attainable where no bluetime is given. This last board is not selectable by using the select switch...and will continue repeating until your lives run out.

Left B/A is used to select how aggressive the monsters will chase you. If B is selected, 3 of them will just move around randomly...with only the red monster actively seeking you. If A is selected, every monster will be looking for you alternately...ranging from nearly all of the time (red), to hardly any of the time (brown). This can also have an effect on how quickly they escape from the center box (still a bit buggy).

Right B/A will select how fast the player moves. B will allow you to easily outrun the monsters...not even slowing down as you consume the 150 dots. In A position, you can only move as fast as they do (except through the center tunnel)...and the dots will slow you down to 3/4 speed.

The score color will change depending on which of these modes are selected.

Color/B&W is used to select the auto-start feature. When B&W is selected, the game will only pause at the start of each life. When color is selected, the game will also pause between each board. A visual reminder is that the player character's "mouth" will be closed if the auto-start feature is on

 

Altering any switch during gameplay will reset the game.

 

3 lives are given to you when you begin...and 1 additional is awarded at 10k points.

 

Scoring is 10 pts. for each of the 150 dashes, 50 points for the energizers (1700 pts. per board). Vulnerable monsters are worth 200, 400, 800, and 1600 successively...these points double if a target was eaten first in the "plus" variation. Targets are worth 100, 300, 500, 700, 1000, 2000, 3000, and 5000 - depending on the type.

 

Because collisions are only checked once every 4 frames, there is a slight chance of passing right through a monster. This should only happen occasionally during head-on collisions.

 

Updated 5/11...test version w/intermissions posted at the end of the thread

unnamed.zip

Edited May 8, 2005 by Nukey Shay

[atwwong]

This is great! How about Pac Man XL, SE, or Deluxe? Sorry, so generic!

You could try Ghost Muncher (no, maybe not).

[Nukey Shay]

"Pac"-nothing and nothing-"man"...there's way too many of those things already.

 

How about "Overkill"?

[CPUWIZ]

"Pac"-nothing and nothing-"man"...there's way too many of those things already.

 

How about "Overkill"?

 

How about "Fear-Muncher" by "Fear-O-Vision"?

[Nukey Shay]

Copyright-evader

 

BTW I've fixed a small bug that reverted the level back to board #1. Thanks for the headsup guys

[atwwong]

Okay, how about Gobbler or Rom Hogger?

 

Or put the two together and call it Romer!

[Nukey Shay]

"Happy Wanderer"

 

BTW I corrected another bug that had the brown monster leaving the box before the blue monster. Also increases the blue monster's unpredictability (per arcade).

 

STILL @ zero bytes left And no, I'm not going to increase the romsize to 8k.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Nukey Man?

[StanJr]

"brown monster?" What is this?

[Dav]

Not too much left to complete in this game' date=' except a routine to keep monsters from travelling up the small passages above the center box.

 

Because collisions are only checked once every 4 frames, there is a slight chance of passing right through a monster. This should only happen occasionally during head-on collisions.

[/quote']

 

Very nice. On the arcade if you charge a monster there's aproximately a 1 in 8 chance of going through it so that is correct. It's due to the way positions are stored though, not for lack of checking.

 

The no traveling up applies to the lower area where pac starts out too. That's part of what creates the "safe" spot.

 

Dave

[lost child]

I think that Pacman kind of looks like a wheel of Cheddar. So with that in mind, I wrote up a cheesy (pun intended) manual for an alternate theme for the game:

 

Cheddar's Misadventure In The Haunted Pizza Parlor

 

Cheddar works for a pizza parlor when it is taken over by poltergeists. Pepperonies are strung from one end of the parlor to the other. Help Cheddar gather up the pepperonies while avoiding the poltergeists.

 

Of course, working a full shift, Cheddar packed along a lunchbox full of fruit and other goodies. The ghosts have raided this as well. If Cheddar is lucky, he will be able to reclaim some of his lunch along the way.

 

Cheddar has just one secret strength; when he eats a jalapeno he is taken with halitosis! Cheddar's breath will become deadly enough to frighten even the dead. Fortunately, in each of the four corners of the parlor is a Jalapeno. Show those beasties who is boss!

 

In game II the poltergeists will start playing with the electricity in the building. Can Cheddar survive?!

 

___

 

 

Other varieties of cheese that might make for a catchy title:

GOUDA! - Gouda by itself kinda sounds neat.

LIMBURGER - a cheese so stinky that only jalapenos could make it stinkier. Limburger's Shift

[Nukey Shay]

Very nice. On the arcade if you charge a monster there's aproximately a 1 in 8 chance of going through it so that is correct. It's due to the way positions are stored though' date=' not for lack of checking.[/quote']

Only in hacks AFAIK (that includes Ms.Pac, where it happens most often)

 

 

 

The no traveling up applies to the lower area where pac starts out too. That's part of what creates the "safe" spot.

Nope...completely different. The safe spot directly to the upper-right of the starting position was a glitch in the formula...making it impossible for the monsters to find the player when they are moving ANY direction. That was removed in updates to the arcade PacMan game roms. The area above the box was always safe from upward attacks (even in hacks that do not change the board layout)...unless the monsters had started upward when they are vulnerable.

 

 

@Stan

I'm limited on space, so many things had to be shared. This includes monster colors...so brown it is.

 

Another update...the monsters cannot travel up the channels when they are lethal I fell short by *one* byte, so the 5th crabapple color is now grey (the fruit color table now shares a byte with the digit bitmaps...fits in with the "poison" motif anyway). I nearly had a heart attack when I discovered that the working copy had become corrupted...and no backup!! Gotta kick myself for that...took all day to do over

[SS]

Right B/A will select how fast the player moves. B will allow you to easily outrun the monsters...not even slowing down as you consume the 150 dots. In A position' date=' you can only move as fast as they do (except through the center tunnel)...and the dots will slow you down to 3/4 speed.[/quote']

 

I'm not seeing Unnamed-Man's mouth move as he travels through the maze on the slow setting. Is this just a Z26 (or my computer) issue?

[Nukey Shay]

Corrected Thanks for the info!

[Nukey Shay]

I think that Pacman kind of looks like a wheel of Cheddar. So with that in mind' date=' I wrote up a cheesy (pun intended) manual for an alternate theme for the game:

 

[b']Cheddar's Misadventure In The Haunted Pizza Parlor[/b]

 

Cheddar works for a pizza parlor when it is taken over by poltergeists. Pepperonies are strung from one end of the parlor to the other. Help Cheddar gather up the pepperonies while avoiding the poltergeists.

 

Of course, working a full shift, Cheddar packed along a lunchbox full of fruit and other goodies. The ghosts have raided this as well. If Cheddar is lucky, he will be able to reclaim some of his lunch along the way.

 

Cheddar has just one secret strength; when he eats a jalapeno he is taken with halitosis! Cheddar's breath will become deadly enough to frighten even the dead. Fortunately, in each of the four corners of the parlor is a Jalapeno. Show those beasties who is boss!

 

In game II the poltergeists will start playing with the electricity in the building. Can Cheddar survive?!

 

___

 

 

Other varieties of cheese that might make for a catchy title:

GOUDA! - Gouda by itself kinda sounds neat.

LIMBURGER - a cheese so stinky that only jalapenos could make it stinkier. Limburger's Shift

 

LOL...sounds good. But I'd just shorten the name to Cheddar's Cheesed!

[SS]

Finished!! Just needs a name.

 

[Out_of_Gas]

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Nukey Shay]

Close...it should be Fuck, man!

[Out_of_Gas]

I can have ya a label if ya want!

ROFL!!!!!!!!

[Dav]

The collision detection bug is the same in all the pacs. The problem is the locations for collision detection are stored as tile positions not pixel locations. So if you step off of one tile in the same frame as a ghost comes onto the tile you just left you are never on the same tile. Some sample code below.

 

------------------------------------------ red ghost collision

1753  3aac4d    ld      a,(#4dac);red ghost mode;1=eyes 2=in box 0= out

1756  a7        and     a

1757  2009      jr      nz,#1762       ;skip if not dangerous

1759  2a314d    ld      hl,(#4d31);red ghost tile position

175c  a7        and     a

175d  ed52      sbc     hl,de	;de=pacman tile position

175f  ca6317    jp      z,#1763

1762  05        dec     b	;dec ghost counter

------------------------------------------ collision  routine-----------------------

1763  78        ld      a,b	; b= 0 none, or ghost number 1-4

1764  32a44d    ld      (#4da4),a; store number of ghost.

1767  32a54d    ld      (#4da5),a

176a  a7        and     a

176b  c8        ret     z  ; no colision, return

 

If you change byte $68 of prom 4a to 01 from 00 you will see all the limited movement areas as red. That code is completely different from pac to ms pac. Pac uses spare color pallets to flag the areas, ms pac uses the extra high bits in the color to store this and the slowdown areas.

 

 

 

Dave

[sku_u]

I can't get it to play in stella.

 

How about Hackman Minus for a name?

[Pixellated Ghost]

I can't get it to play in stella.

 

How about Hackman Minus for a name?

 

I tried it with the Stella 1.4 CVS for Linux and it worked fine.

 

Anyway, this game rocks! Really like the fast speed. The sounds are a little strange (not that I mind) other than for the siren, which is really well done. Collision detection is fair, no cheap deaths. Overall, good job on this one.

[Nukey Shay]

That's because I really bite it trying to code sound.

 

A few more issues that need to be addressed:

- In the arcade plus game, you are given less energizer time on the boards. I suppose this was intentional, otherwise you could really rack up some high scores with bluetime happening up to 6 times on each. I'll make the appropriate change once I track down a few bytes.

- The table used for release times was located too close to the end of the file (and hit address $FFF8...messing up an unmodded Supercharger). I'll move that as well.

- The "randomness" needs a lot of work...too often, the monsters bunch up

 

I guess it's not so complete :(

 

@Dave

Thanks for the info...but just by playing the game, going through a monster never seemed to occur on the original roms. Was there something else that must have improved collision detection on that game (or degradated it on the others)? On Ms. Pac, it happens all of the time...but I've yet to see it happen on the original Puckman game. (?)

 

And the "hiding" spots above the box are not...the monsters can still move downward onto you. The original hiding spot above the starting position is not present in the updated roms (play it in Mame yourself). Try hiding there and a monster will hit you from either the side or from below.

[Dav]

I haven't really noticed much difference in the bug in puc/pac vs ms pac. But I would think the speed could affect the odds some. BTW the pucman in mame is actually a bootleg, they don't have the correct roms for pucman.

 

You are right the safespot isn't very safe and the reduced movement areas are only part of the reason for the safe spot.

 

Here is the difference in the pacman harder roms, it's not much.

 

Comparing files pacman.6e and PACMANH.6E

00000843: 14 0F	;unused data;     

00000844: 1E 14

00000845: 46 37

00000846: 00 04	;level 1  ;for when ghosts start out of box

00000847: 1E 18

00000848: 3C 34

00000849: 00 02	;level 2

0000084A: 00 06

0000084B: 32 28

0000084D: 00 04	;level 3

0000084E: 00 08



00000FFF: 36 54	;checksum



Comparing files pacman.6h and PACMANH.6H

00000795: 29 00	;pink ghost ai, cuts leadtime targeting in half.

0000081F: 40 24	;orange ai, cuts distance to pac for stupid behavior



00000FFF: 4C 91	;checksum



Comparing files pacman.6j and PACMANH.6J

000007F8: 30 31  copywrite 1980 1981

00000D28: 30 31

00000D43: 30 31



 ;the checksum is unused on midway's 6j

 

I also have the pacplus power pellet timing table if you want it, but I've posted enough useless trivia for one day.

[Nukey Shay]

Yup...that would be good. In this game, the frame counter controls the energizer times. Every 32 frames, the energizer timer counts down by one (if it's holding a value)...and the most that variable can contain is $0F. By messing with the $1F value, I should be able to come up with time that is comparable to the arcade game