Pacman emulator for spectrum!!!!

[MacDeath]

Then it wasn't "diagonnal" but you could anticipate the new direction before PacMan comes in the middle of the crossroad, hence cutting the angle a bit and going a little bit faster than the ghosts.

it is called cornering...




there, a good link on the matter.

http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html

that's really a complete "dossier".

for the 224x288 version, you just need to rotate the monitor!

I was thinking about it too...

Let's do a CPC cocktail version then... with rotated display...^^

Calm down, fella!

Come on it was jsut aplain joke...

but why do you use photobucket while you could simply upload on this forum...


*Also, if I remember correctly, there is a PcMan for SymbOS.

[TotO]

Interesting... I don't know that.
In fact, it's a sort of bug, because the original game came with a 4-ways stick. 

With your palette:

[MacDeath]

   
• Platform — NAMCO 8-bit PCB
• CPU — Z80A at 3.072 MHz
• ROM — 16K in four, 4K chips
• RAM — Almost 2K
• Display — Raster
• Orientation — Vertical
• Resolution — 224x288
• Colors — 16
• Attributes — Six 16x16 hardware sprites

Update on the specs of the machine...


So, there are 6 Hardsprites, which is like 4 ghosts, PacMan and the scores bonuses...
Fruits, maze and pills are in noram display (tiles) I guess.


The good point is that the game is weighting 16k only, this explain why it can be emulated on a ZX Speccy (and probably on a CPC/PLUS.


On a CPC this may let you 32K in the CPU RAM to play with... (well, there is also a 2K RAM for the score and memorise actual level number.) and a few other stuffs I guess.


As our CPU is running a big faster (3,33mhz ? 4mhz ?) this also let some spare NOPs to run the emulation routines I guess...


But the display is 60Hz on original arcade while it is 50hz on CPC, can this screw something up with timings or speed ??

With your palette:

Nice... looks a bit less monochromatic.

Perhaps you should "cheat" a bit with the eyes only eaten ghosts version and give them blue eyes... so the dot don't blend with the background's black.

And also yeah, upper HUD can be reduced into 1 character line only instead of 3 (y=8 pix instead of 24pix) in order to fit good old "ideal arcade port" 256x256 screensize resolution on CPC.


A fun thing is that this game is actually designed to have only 21 levels... and the rustic design from 1980 didn't saw the player pushing this to the limite...
Which they did...

Later games in the same kind of spirit, such as(Bubble Bobble... despite different gameplay, would then have more ROM to fill, but also a proper ending (or even morethan one) and shittons of original levels too...


PacMan is really a milestone in history of gaming.

the 4 way movement is another dimension compared to Space invader, it's like "going 2D instead of 1D" (in gameplay term)...
The numerous cheats and twiks and glitches can still be found in most modern "labyrinth" 3D games...


it is really the ancestor of more modern Wolfenstein 3D games... so even Halflife owns to this game.

look.
Wolfenstein 3D or Halflife or even infiltration or 3D RPG style.

You start with almost no weapons.
You have some objectives (get all the keys to go next level in Doom game per exemple, here you must collect all the pills).
You can collect weapons (Energizer pills are this) to kill opponenets/monsters.
Glitches and tricks in Pacman are unvolontary "secret doors" and hidden warpzones.

All in a "maze".


Also rustic AI for the enemies... (more like automatic patterns, but hey, even nowadays those so called AI are jsut automatic patterns, with some hasard sometimes...)



A funny modern stuff would be multiplayer PacMan, with players to play the ghosts against one PacMan.
Could this be done with Networked CPC/PLUS ?


(they did a modern Jet Set Willy online after all...)

Fantom players would perhaps get less freedom of movement than the pacplayer, but as they would play in team, this may be actually impossible for the pacman player to win too... would need some balancements.


But this would perhaps be better with a PacMania engine, where the Fanthom players would not jump (hence some escape possibilities for the PacPlayer) and a 4th CPU ghost would...



this would make a 4 player game, each player having to play Pacman in cycle and getting points/score collected or whatever...

[TotO]

Not sure it is better with, but updated.

EDIT: CPC+ mockup using Mode 1
- 4 colors "chars" for maze, pac-gums, scores, messages, lives and background.
- 15 colors sprites for pacman, ghosts and multiplexed lives and items.

[MacDeath]

so the 4 bitmap colours are White/light grey, blue, Black and yellow...
Then can you explain to me why you may need some Multiplexed Hardsprties to indicates Lives ?

Just a normal tile in yellow+black would suffice.

Also I would suggest to put different colours for Highscore and playerScore  Names and values...

Like white and yellow...

BTW the PLUS mockups looks really arcade perfect.

[TotO]

Yes you can, because GAME OVER message is red but no more Pacman live (yellow) are displayed!
Arcade scores are all in white and there is enough colors on screen. So it's just for a mockup arcade fidelity.

[mahlemiut]

Slightly humourous Pac-mania loading screen from the X68000...

[TotO]

Nope, the original didn't have red-gloves.

Amiga version is not the original and on others pictures done by Namco, Pac-Man got red or orange glove, but not skin color. (the Amiga version have a fill mistake)

Done by Google for the 30th birthday:
http://www.google.com/pacman/

[tastefulmrship]

Amiga version is not the original and on others pictures done by Namco, Pac-Man got red or orange glove, but not skin color. (the Amiga version have a fill mistake)

No, no, I meant the Amiga loading-screen .png was the source I was working from. I fed it into PSP7 and then spent a few weeks retouching and palette changing in ADVANCED ART STUDIO. The original is, as you've mentioned, whatever Namco decided for their advertisement artwork!
(I actually prefer PacMan with yellow gloves, it sets him apart from the Ghosts.)
 
If you want me to change them to RED, that shouldn't be too difficult, I might have to stipple some of the orange-->red which will take time.

EDIT: (click thumbnail for full image... a .jpg image!)



EDIT2: Green Ghost deosn't have red gloves, either! ^_^

[TotO]

Hehe. Look better now. Nice!

By watching Pac-Man longplay and arcade settings, I can see that:
- "fruits" and "items" are displayed on the same 7 (not 8 ) entries FILO. But we may cut it to 6!
- 6 lives is a maximum. (1/2/3/5 when starting and 1 bonus life at 10K/15K/20K/none, depending dip-switches)
- If 2 players games, you see both scores at the same time.

So, I have updated the last mock-up:

[MacDeath]

Yeah the "fruits" and bonus are stacked up to 8, new ones chasing out the older one.

So there even may be no need to give it a multiplexing.


8 sprites for the HUD stacked bonus.
4 sprites for the fantoms.
1 sprite For PuckMan.
1 sprite for the bonus that may appear in the playfield.


This even let us 2 spare sprites so even the score bonus when eating a ghost or fruit) can be achieved in Hardsprite.

let's just know if it is fast enough to get those 6 sprites updated often.But I suppose it is.

They don't change frames at 50Hz nor 60Hz and a large part of the screen simply don't move nor change a lot as there is no scrolling.

[tastefulmrship]

If you guys are REALLY going to get this conversion done, here's a possible loading-screen! ^_^
It's 384x272x4 (ie. MODE 1 overscan), it's NOT for CPC use at present!

(Click thumbnail to view .JPG image)



EDIT: And here it is on a .dsk! (attached)

[TotO]

Yeah the "fruits" and bonus are stacked up to 8, new ones chasing out the older one.

In fact, it's stacked up to 7. I'm wrong... To difficult to count up to 5 for me.
And for a CPC port, it will be nice to reduce the stack to 6 items, to save one more sprite and "looking" better.

If you guys are REALLY going to get this conversion done, here's a possible loading-screen! ^_^

Look nice. Thank you.

[Gryzor]

"Amstrad CPC conversion by CPCWiki 2012"? Someone's ahead of themselves

[tastefulmrship]

"Amstrad CPC conversion by CPCWiki 2012"? Someone's ahead of themselves

I guessed it wouldn't be completed this year.

[Gryzor]

Did I miss the post where someone said they'd do it?

[tastefulmrship]

Did I miss the post where someone said they'd do it?

Which is why I put 'IF' in the post with the screenie.
And also why the logo/pac-man look pretty ragged! Though the 'orange' colour took me ages to pixel... manually! R.S.I.

[Gryzor]

Then it'd be a terrible shame, if it went unused...

[MacDeath]

come on you coders !!!

[SyX]

Come on people!!!  I know that there are people working in it, but they prefer to work in secret to give us a surprise and not making vaporware

[MacDeath]

You ?


Well, we have Frogger on amstradPLUS, and it is also quite arcade perfect I guess...(not sure, but looks like)

And donkey knog could certainly be even better I guess too (but hey, it is not bad...)

Arkanoid too could really be even better on plus as the Hardsprites would really ease some stuff perhaps so not as erratic behaviours and slow downs perhaps (and even better graphics then...)


all those 1978-1982 arcade games can really be ported quite perfectly... on PLUS and those with Z80 (or even AY sound ? some had) may actually need quite a few job to be really ported/emulated well.

Seriously, this could even be a good excuse for a sweet Cartridge compilation with all thos classics, cloned of course, to avoid legal issues... but hey, japanese do'nt even know the amstrad PLUS do exist...

[Gryzor]

Seriously, this could even be a good excuse for a sweet Cartridge compilation with all thos classics, cloned of course, to avoid legal issues... but hey, japanese do'nt even know the amstrad PLUS do exist...

This would make a sweeeeet Xmas present (even for next Xmas)!

[Executioner]

The big problem I would have with doing this conversion is converting the sound from the original Pac-man to the AY, the chip is completely different. The graphics for it are not a problem on the Plus, but I'd tend to go for MODE 0 for a CPC standard version.

[mr_lou]

Executioner, you don't have the time either. You're busy implementing MODE 2 video-recordnig in WinApe, remember? 
(Yes, I'm still waiting).

[TotO]

The big problem I would have with doing this conversion is converting the sound from the original Pac-man to the AY, the chip is completely different. The graphics for it are not a problem on the Plus, but I'd tend to go for MODE 0 for a CPC standard version.

Like you can ear on the Spectrum version, there is no problem for sound.
Then, CPC Old or CPC Plus port have to be in Mode 1. Using Mode 0 will be no sens.
Finally, don't spend time for it, because I know that a people is already in contact with the autor for a CPC version.
(he ask me to use GFx, since I realeased mock-ups)

Sorry if it was a secret, but it's better to know... Than 10 guys doing the same work separately.