Nukey Shay Posted May 25, 2004 Author Share Posted May 25, 2004 Thumbs up Nukey! *Smacks ATARI TROLL with a rubber mallet Homie don't play that This version plays great....like the lighter ghosts. I did notice when chasing the ghosts, after the third eaten one the game reset itself. This happened a day ago. I just thought it was a miskey'd move on the keyboard. Am I the only one who has experienced this??If it was a day ago, it must have been the previous version.What was happening in the previous version was that when a monster or fruit was eaten, the pointer to the sound data was ORA'ed instead of LDA'ed. And the sound data table was located right at the end of the bank. So if 2 monsters were eaten on successive frames, the first would leave a value of $10...the frame finishes and bumps the value down 1 notch to $0F...then the next monster ORA's $10 again - which would leave a value of $1F in the sound counter. Since the sound table was less than 32 bytes long, the game would bankswitch when it tried to read the next frequency to be played - either resetting/crashing the game or causing a major flicker (depending on what value the registers held). The missing color shift for the Go object was due to the tables being shifted around...I just corrected that problem. I also just corrected the color shift that happens on successive 5th key boards - and the game will allow you to begin at that level in the upcoming release The word "complete" in the title is not a mistake - the game is complete...no real additions have been made to the game ever since the intermissions were in place. I've just been trying to get it to handle all the additions correctly without losing too much time (which was causing flickers - as well as total drop outs in the previous version - I haven't noticed any of the latter in this one yet). Eliminating the score flash gave me enough cycle time to avoid them in the 1st bank...but I've still got to cut down the time used in the program area. Once that's finished, I can concentrate on polishing up the intermission routines (which have loads of free time). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted May 25, 2004 Author Share Posted May 25, 2004 A little closer... Timing during the program section has been increased by 128 cycles. Now it only seems to "bump" very seldom...I think the kernal itself might have an extra cycle someplace I corrected the speed increase for the red monster (when the long timer has it's high bit set)...but now it looks like the "2" symbol got lost someplace I also trimmed out the positioning table from bank2 (for intermissions). Instead, the game flips to bank 1 to grab the correct value and then swaps back. And now I've got 122 bytes free in bank1/204 bytes free in bank2. hackem_.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 29, 2004 Author Share Posted July 29, 2004 Current tweaks...the 2 symbol (in the "plus" logo) is still missing. hack_em.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted July 30, 2004 Share Posted July 30, 2004 Current tweaks... Via CC2, I played up through the first key. The screen "jumped" once (on the first board), I passed through a blue ghost once (3rd board?), and I didn't see any ghosts stuck in a horizontal "line" across the screen. I'll give it a few more run-throughs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 30, 2004 Author Share Posted July 30, 2004 Yeah...I don't believe those glitches are related to timing mishaps in the main program. I think I've got that problem fixed. Going through a monster (blue or not) will always be an issue, since the collisions aren't checked every frame...but checks two of them every other frame. I believe that a monster going through walls was related to the sound pointer being too high again (same as before - counter gets too high and the program bankswitches). The program was ORing a value of 3 to the pointer when the dots were eaten - I removed that. So the screen jump was most likely due to an incorrect cycle count in 1 of the 10 "sub" kernals. I still need to map all of those out one of these days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATARI TROLL Posted July 31, 2004 Share Posted July 31, 2004 ty for the update Nukey! no complaints here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted July 31, 2004 Share Posted July 31, 2004 ty for the update Nukey! no complaints here Oh, I'm not complaining! I love what Nukey's been able to accomplish. Just reporting back on what I've seen since I know that he's not done tweaking it yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted August 1, 2004 Share Posted August 1, 2004 Going through a monster (blue or not) will always be an issue, since the collisions aren't checked every frame...but checks two of them every other frame. Why? There should be enough time to check all collisions during one frame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 1, 2004 Author Share Posted August 1, 2004 Sure, if that was all I'd be doing I needed to eliminate some overhead, and that was just part of it. I don't know how to code "aborts" for jobs that take too long, so the game is running with "worst case scenario"-timing in mind on all frames. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 2, 2004 Author Share Posted August 2, 2004 I think I've got it figured out Well, sort of...I REALLY just undid some of the space-saving tricks I used! ! haven't seen a single glitch in over a dozen games...so I'm crossing my fingers. hack_em_.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 Damn The pink monster moved through a wall ONCE after about 50 plays...I still haven't seen a screen roll tho (anyone?). So I guess if I can't find that remaining bug, it's not such a big deal...seeing how it's so rare and the monster is corrected once completeing the maze anyway. Just added a playfield "nail" to the second intermission. It's kind of wide, but the monster gets tripped up on it correctly It'll be in the next binary posted later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 LOL I just had a thought... I could make that playfield dot thinner (like the dots), and have the player sprite "cough" it up before the monster gets ripped on it What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 Wow, I just saw this for the first time, downloaded it and gave it a shot in Stella. Incredible! Is this going to be released on cart by AtariAge at some point? I don't have a CuttleCart but this game REALLY needs to be played on the 2600... I could never have imagined a Pac-Man this good on the 2600! Nice work, Nukey! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Room 34 Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 Oh, BTW, since I'm too lazy to scroll through 6 pages of posts... is this actually a HACK of something or did you build this from scratch? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 Yeah...it's a hack of a 4k game beginning with the letter "P" that was made by "E". That's all I'm at liberty to say BTW that nail is now a dot...and the player craps it out in the second intermission hack_em_.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 Be sure to read the very first post...that details the console controls (the first post also contains the original 4k version that has less features). Also, check out the Hangly Man thread...which provides an open area every other maze and additional tunnels similar to the arcade version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATARI TROLL Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 All praise the hack em shiek! I have never seen the second intermission....dude that rocks! How many total intermissions did you put in this version?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 All praise the hack em shiek! I have never seen the second intermission.... Man, and I thought that I sucked at Pac-Man! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 ! haven't seen a single glitch in over a dozen games...so I'm crossing my fingers. I'm sorry to report that I did see a few. Is anyone running the game on a Cuttle Cart I? Maybe this is a 7800 issue since I know that the 7800 can be very sensitive to timing issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 All praise the hack em shiek! I have never seen the second intermission....dude that rocks! How many total intermissions did you put in this version?? There's 4 (the 3rd one repeats a second time). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 ! haven't seen a single glitch in over a dozen games...so I'm crossing my fingers. I'm sorry to report that I did see a few. Is anyone running the game on a Cuttle Cart I? Maybe this is a 7800 issue since I know that the 7800 can be very sensitive to timing issues. Thanks for the info. Z26 shows a steady 262 scanlines, so I don't know what else to try Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATARI TROLL Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 out of the 4 different verisons of pacman that I own, I am the worst at Nukeys....I usually average a 35-50,000 game and am finally achieving that on Nukey's now. I did get to see the second intermission finally. I decided to play Hangley man and hackem till about 4:00am this morning to accomplish such. Lots of coffee helps too! Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 This is sure to be an annoying question. I’m already annoyed at myself for even asking it. Still ... I was just playing the black background hack of "Ms. Pac-Man" and found myself wondering if (once Nukey feels complete with it) "Hack 'Em" could be re-hacked into an even more accurate version of "Ms. Pac-Man"? Not suggesting that it even needs to be done or anything. Just curious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vb_master Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 Gah! Hard! After eating the power pill, some of the ghosts don't become blue, namely the pink and blue ghost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NE146 Posted August 8, 2004 Share Posted August 8, 2004 Gah! Hard! After eating the power pill, some of the ghosts don't become blue, namely the pink and blue ghost. I believe that was intentional... as that happens in Pacman Plus. Try the other variation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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