+SpiceWare Posted January 17, 2007 Share Posted January 17, 2007 Impressive! Seems a tad on the slow side though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Very impressive! Especially in only 4k (if only back in the day... ). I agree though, Pac-Man himself seems just a touch on the slow side. (Moments pass...) He takes ~3.82 seconds to move across the bottom of the screen with no dots, ~5.11 seconds with dots (in Stella). In the arcade version, it's ~3.4 without dots, ~3.82 with dots (in MAME). I'm just using a stopwatch (not counting frames or anything), but the speed differential between having dots and no dots is considerably smaller in the arcade version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted January 18, 2007 Author Share Posted January 18, 2007 Very impressive! Especially in only 4k (if only back in the day... ). I agree though, Pac-Man himself seems just a touch on the slow side. (Moments pass...) He takes ~3.82 seconds to move across the bottom of the screen with no dots, ~5.11 seconds with dots (in Stella). In the arcade version, it's ~3.4 without dots, ~3.82 with dots (in MAME). I'm just using a stopwatch (not counting frames or anything), but the speed differential between having dots and no dots is considerably smaller in the arcade version. Is it just Pac-man you're concerned about? When he eats a dot he's delayed for 3 frames. IIRC I got that from opcode but I'm not sure. I can delay him for 2 frames and still keep the eating sound the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest moonshot22 Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Great Job! This could turn into the best pacman for the system! I agree with the comments about it being slow. Also, in regards to difficulty progression, I used select to start on the "key" screen and it is way off from the speed of the arcade version. It should be flying by then! Another suggestion I have is to change the color of the ghosts. The darker ghosts are very difficult to see sometimes. I know you mentioned expanding this to 8k and improving the flicker so perhaps this won't be an issue then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Snazzy! Would it be practical to change the eating sound to be more... umm... "bloopy"? Currently it sounds more like Jawbreaker than Pac-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atariboy2600 Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Hey is it me or Shadow (aka Blinky) The Red One is abit faster on this game even if you dont eat any dots he should not be out running Pacman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Shadow starts out slower, but by the end of the level should be faster than pacman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Helmet Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 Finally got around to playing this. Wow! Nice job indeed. The flicker is really no bother at all IMHO. About the only thing REALLY missing is the startup jingle. In the 8k version it would be nice to see startup music, intermissions, point values when fruit/monsters are eaten etc. Still, this is a near perfect port for 4k. Miles ahead of the original, and much better than Ebivision's version as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted January 20, 2007 Share Posted January 20, 2007 Is it just Pac-man you're concerned about? When he eats a dot he's delayed for 3 frames. IIRC I got that from opcode but I'm not sure. I can delay him for 2 frames and still keep the eating sound the same. I think it'd be worth trying. He just seems to be slowing down too much when eating. The ghosts seem fine, although I'm not good enough to get very far in the game, so I don't know how they are later on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 Is it just Pac-man you're concerned about? When he eats a dot he's delayed for 3 frames. IIRC I got that from opcode but I'm not sure. I can delay him for 2 frames and still keep the eating sound the same. I think it'd be worth trying. He just seems to be slowing down too much when eating. The ghosts seem fine, although I'm not good enough to get very far in the game, so I don't know how they are later on. I was okay with the speed except for the eating dot slow down Nathan pointed out. Here is a faster version. Is this one better? pacman4K.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 much nicer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mos6507 Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 It's great but one of the biggest criticisms of Pac-Man was the flicker. I think you really have to try to alleviate the flicker. Maybe not a 100% optimized routine, but something better than straight flicker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 Much better. One minor thing - when eating the fruit, Pac-Man comes to a stop momentarily. In the arcade version, he doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted January 25, 2007 Share Posted January 25, 2007 It's great but one of the biggest criticisms of Pac-Man was the flicker. I think you really have to try to alleviate the flicker. Maybe not a 100% optimized routine, but something better than straight flicker. I think the biggest problem with the original Pac-Man's flicker was the color of the background. By not having enough contrast, it made the ghosts much harder to see. Nukey's hack of Pac-Man shows how much better it would have looked on a black background. That said, I'd love to see an expanded version of Dennis' Pac-Man, complete with all the bells and whistles and intelligent flicker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted January 25, 2007 Author Share Posted January 25, 2007 much nicer Great! If no one finds any more bugs then I think I can put this to bed. I hope nothing else falls out. I'm down to 0 bytes now! It's great but one of the biggest criticisms of Pac-Man was the flicker. I think you really have to try to alleviate the flicker. Maybe not a 100% optimized routine, but something better than straight flicker. I had to make some compromises to get this to fit in 4K. One was I had to let go of the variable flicker. IMO I think the flicker is better than the original Pac-man. All objects flicker at 20Hz vs. the monsters flickering at 15Hz. Again, this is my opinion. I'm sure others would have sacrificed other areas of the game but I wan't willing to do that. It was the game play I was going for here. One minor thing - when eating the fruit, Pac-Man comes to a stop momentarily. In the arcade version, he doesn't. This was another cost cutting feature The sound for eating the fruit and the monsters are shared. Since they are shared Pac-man pauses when it's eaten just like when he eats a monster. It's great but one of the biggest criticisms of Pac-Man was the flicker. I think you really have to try to alleviate the flicker. Maybe not a 100% optimized routine, but something better than straight flicker. I think the biggest problem with the original Pac-Man's flicker was the color of the background. By not having enough contrast, it made the ghosts much harder to see. Nukey's hack of Pac-Man shows how much better it would have looked on a black background. That said, I'd love to see an expanded version of Dennis' Pac-Man, complete with all the bells and whistles and intelligent flicker. That should be easy to do now that the game play is in. The game play will stay relatively the same except for the cost cutting features like the pause when eating the fruit. I will have to reduce RAM usage a bit. I should have enough RAM as is but I can't remember how much I have free at the moment. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Breakpack Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 Dude,you are incredible!If you made a 2600 version of Pac-Man Collection,let me say I'd be the first to buy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 Latest version iz da bomb! It already buries my hack Love the home corner routine...the monster AI is excellent (nice balance of being hunted w/o being too oppressive). Between this 'brew and Ladybug, I may never leave the house again Thank you for not giving up on it!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted February 20, 2007 Author Share Posted February 20, 2007 Latest version iz da bomb! It already buries my hack Love the home corner routine...the monster AI is excellent (nice balance of being hunted w/o being too oppressive). Between this 'brew and Ladybug, I may never leave the house again Thank you for not giving up on it!! Thank you for your support. I had posted the ROM and source code to [stella]. Tony mentioned that he got some screen rolls on his Jr. model so I went back through the code to try to reduce game calculation time. So far so good he hasn't reported any problems with the new build. As a positive when I went back to look into reducing processing time I found 39 bytes! Now I'm looking for more I know they're there. They're just hiding from me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atwwong Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Tony mentioned that he got some screen rolls on his Jr. model so I went back through the code to try to reduce game calculation time. So far so good he hasn't reported any problems with the new build.I'd better stop staring at my new fish tank and get to "work"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 I'd better stop staring at my new fish tank and get to "work"... Don't stop now. I'm adding some more things into those free bytes I found. I'll send you a ROM when it's complete. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atwwong Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I'd better stop staring at my new fish tank and get to "work"... Don't stop now. I'm adding some more things into those free bytes I found. I'll send you a ROM when it's complete. Okay, but watching neon tetras is making me feel sleepy... BTW, another half an hour of testing still hasn't revealed any problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted February 21, 2007 Author Share Posted February 21, 2007 BTW, another half an hour of testing still hasn't revealed any problems. That's good to hear...BTW PM sent with the latest build. Hopefully this one passes so I can remove the pause while eating the fruit for Nathan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Hopefully this one passes so I can remove the pause while eating the fruit for Nathan I understood that, but reading it still sounds kind of strange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atwwong Posted February 22, 2007 Share Posted February 22, 2007 (edited) Hopefully this one passes so I can remove the pause while eating the fruit for Nathan I understood that, but reading it still sounds kind of strange. No pauses with the fruit actually improves the gameplay. Also no problems so far (Maybe I'm losing my touch, or maybe you did remove all the issues ) after an hour of testing. Everything looks good (I'll keep testing though, just in case)! Edited February 22, 2007 by atwwong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted March 14, 2007 Author Share Posted March 14, 2007 Pac-man4K is now done. I haven't seen any reports of screen rollings and I haven't seen any either while playing on my 2600 or 7800. Here is a zip file that contains the NTSC and PAL versions. I do ask that you don't make any carts out of this without contacting me first. Enjoy... Pacman4K_final.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.