FireTiger Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 Absorbs new information... *puts a sponge on a stack of books then applies sponge to head* .... didn't work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 OK...so let's see how the television does using "real" colors. I didn't change the actual program (besides the loading of the playfield/background color...which was being grabbed from a ram location)...and I also moved the sound frequency table at the end (so that this rom will be loadable on a Supercharger). Do Tod's colors show up better than this? pacman_colors.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 What's someone believing the ghosts in Pac Man are all one color and you going out of your way to show that after a detailed explaination he still doesn't believe you..... have to do with politics? If he doesn't believe it... So what? He'll die believing in a one color Atari 2600 Pac Man ghost and the world will continue to go on just like it never happened. In any case.... I'm going with the, just likes to post contradicting posts about things the person doesn't care about and doesnt know anything about over the internet just to have something to do , theory. No politics there.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 What's someone believing the ghosts in Pac Man are all one color and you going out of your way to show that after a detailed explaination he still doesn't believe you..... have to do with politics? If you are really interested we should move this over to the politics forum. (Hints: Iraq, WMDs...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 If you are really interested we should move this over to the politics forum. Nope, Not interested in the least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 (Hints: Iraq' date=' WMDs...)[/color'] Bad example. The different colors in Pac-Man exist (even though some people can't see them). The same can't be said of other things Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 Bad example. The different colors in Pac-Man exist (even though some people can't see them). The same can't be said of other things Right, proving the non-existance of something not existing is quite difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 If it actually shows different colors in the code, how can you argue or question it? Strange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireTiger Posted July 27, 2004 Share Posted July 27, 2004 Pac-colors, that's actually nice looking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 OK...so let's see how the television does using "real" colors. I didn't change the actual program (besides the loading of the playfield/background color...which was being grabbed from a ram location)...and I also moved the sound frequency table at the end (so that this rom will be loadable on a Supercharger). Do Tod's colors show up better than this? Actually looks pretty sweet Nukey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeMika Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 (Tod F's words are below - We work side-by-side and you should just get it from the horse's mouth) hey. this is tod frye. i wrote the thing. it was hard. but fun the other day someone asked me if the ghosts had different colors (yeah yeah - they flicker - i know - GET OVER IT) and i really could not recall. i was pretty sure they did, but i had forgotten. so thanks to those who figured it out. tho now that i think about it, maybe different colors for each ghost was a waste of ROM. must have taken at least (ummm pause while i count on my fingers) 12 bytes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireTiger Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 got twelve fingers?! Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Tod Frye's Pac-Man was inexcusably horrible. Forget about the flicker, this guy obviously didn't care at all about making a fun game or respecting the original in any way. Forget ET, 2600 Pac-Man is the most abysmal performance by a programmer in video game history. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FireTiger Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 The new color scheme dosen't make me cringe..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I've played many more games worse than Pac-Man in my 2600, I'd have to disagree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Look at how much Nukey added to the game just by using the right colors. Just by xaring about the original. I don't even have any complaints with the basic play mechanic. The way that the the game appeared to be trying to stray as far from the original as possible is what astonishes me. Pac-Man was the biggest video game release ever. Bigger than Halo, bigger than GTA. Only Donkey Kong Country even compares. With a property this important, Atari should have made sure to keep the fans happy. Releasing this mess was like saying "Ha ha. Fuck you stupid kids." Otherwise known as the Swordquest Effect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 ...not to mention that they'd been advertising the game for at least 6 months (maybe a year) before the game was even being worked on. That was enough reason to see to it that it was done right...especially since other games like Defender later appeared that had remained pretty faithful to the arcade games they were based on. All I did was change the colors. The game engine remains completely identical to what it was. No reason behind it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Anyone who hasn't given Nukey's little hack a try should download it for just one startup. With a simple color change the game immediately doubles it's appeal. With some small care taken to the spund you could have had a game which, while flawed, would have been respected and enjoyed. Hey MikeMika, if you are in contact with Tod Frye please ask him about his choices of color and sound. That's the question that's been plaguing Atari fans since 1982. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 The debate over Pac-man has been done over and over here I agree that as a kid I was disappointed in this release. Now that behind the scene stories have been released (i.e. Stella @ 20 Volume 2 and Once Upon Atari) my opinion has changed. Tod was given this title to work on. It was between him and Bob Polaro and Bob chose to do Defender (taken from Stella @ 20). Tod worked hard on this game and took the time to do a variable flicker kernel (same technique used in Ms. Pac-man). This would have been the first time this was attempted. To do this he told management he needed 8K. Well, Atari wanted to make millions off this game and told Tod it had to be in 4K (taken from Stella @20 and CGE keynote speeches). Given that I can see someone getting a bit angry with management and saying, "If you don't care then why should I?" It was pretty obvious that management didn't care if the game was mediocre so why should one "push" to make it better? Tod would have gotten the same check regardless. I guess what I'm saying here is we should all stop pointing the finger at Tod. The finger should be pointed at Atari management. They're the ones that didn't care about the quality of the product not Tod. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Player Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 I agree that as a kid I was disappointed in this release. Now that behind the scene stories have been released (i.e. Stella @ 20 Volume 2 and Once Upon Atari) my opinion has changed.. I really want to see Volume 2 of Stella @20. Someday will there be a DVD release? Tod worked hard on this game and took the time to do a variable flicker kernel (same technique used in Ms. Pac-man). This would have been the first time this was attempted. To do this he told management he needed 8K. Well, Atari wanted to make millions off this game and told Tod it had to be in 4K (taken from Stella @20 and CGE keynote speeches). Would it be possible to explain to a non-programmer, if the same technique was used in both games, why the ghosts in Ms. Pac-Man seems to flicker less or not at all? I guess what I'm saying here is we should all stop pointing the finger at Tod. The finger should be pointed at Atari management. They're the ones that didn't care about the quality of the product not Tod. It seems to be the case with the most reviled Atari games. E.T. would be another example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 One simple question: why screw up the sound and colors. Frye's PacMan was the first dot eater for the 2600 so it makes ense that it turned out cruder than later releases. I don't have any problem with the flicker, it's the sound and graphics choices that would have made the difference. Saying that "Atari doesn't care so why should I" is a bullshit excuse. If a programmer doesn't love what he does, he should find another line of work. I also don't believe that Atari refused to go 8K on PacMan when they approved it for so many other and less important titles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Would it be possible to explain to a non-programmer, if the same technique was used in both games, why the ghosts in Ms. Pac-Man seems to flicker less or not at all? I guess I wasn't too clear on this...sorry. Tod's first attempt was to do a variable flicker kernel like in Ms. Pac-man. This technique chops the screen into zones and only flickers the players when they're in the same zone (i.e. alternates players per frame). He states that he had the kernel working and went to management to ask for 8K so he could put it in the game. Management said no so instead of seeing the variable flicker we see the ghosts alternating per frame. Now could Tod have done variable flicker in 4K? It's been proven by Ebivision that it could have been done. I'd say yes he could have but after getting the disappointing no from management I have to assume Tod took on the attitude of, "Why should I bust my butt on this when management doesn't care?" Only Tod knows why he wanted the 8K. Maybe he wanted to do a real conversion with more bells and whistles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Saying that "Atari doesn't care so why should I" is a bullshit excuse. If a programmer doesn't love what he does, he should find another line of work. I'm only guessing this is what happened and could understand if it happened. Only Tod can give the true insight here. I also don't believe that Atari refused to go 8K on PacMan when they approved it for so many other and less important titles. It is hard to believe but this story comes from Tod (via Stella @ 20) and Rob Zdybel (via CGE2K2 keynote speech). Atari had planned to make millions off this title and they could reduce their cost by doing the cart in 4K BTW, I don't think there were any 8K games from Atari (except Asteroids and that's questionable) before Pac-man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alienblue Posted July 28, 2004 Author Share Posted July 28, 2004 Okay OKAY I believe, they were coded as different colors. I am an artist and see colors very well but as stated, its just near impossible to see on TV. The only question is, WHY did all the old books/ game mags say "the ghosts are all the same color" and atari never said "yes they are?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted July 28, 2004 Share Posted July 28, 2004 Atari wasn't saying ANYTHING to the press about Pac-Man. They knew what they had unleashed. It was one of the few games I ever saw Electronic Games trash. It's amazing how much bitterness is still left over from when we were kids and first bought home this piece of crap. I'm clearly angry about it beyond reason. For many of us it was the first time we ever realized that sometimes even companies you trust will rip you off. The biggest Atari question of all time: why screw up the colors in Pac-Man? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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