This one was hard work. Pacmania on 8 formats (Amiga, Megadrive, ST, SMS, C64, Speccy, CPC and MSX). Alot of juggling the machines around and finally got RGB capture working from the MSX.
The CPC has drawn the short straw here. Evidently the Speccy, CPC and MSX are sharing the same (Speccy) code. But the CPC version is quite slow and unlike the Speccy and MSX they haven't even bothered to colour Pacman yellow! All a bit lazy:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LdVhySA1jk)[/url][/font]
I had this as a full price game, although paid only £4.99 for it as the box had a "special promotional price" sticker on it. The sticker was on the *inside* of the box so I assume Grandslam were trying to boost sales and their chart position.
Get an archimedes and add another platform to the list for pacmania :)
Quote from: arnoldemu on 14:10, 04 January 16
Get an archimedes and add another platform to the list for pacmania :)
Bit pricey (they go for silly money) and hard to capture from. Still battling (and losing) trying to capture the CGA output from my PPC640.
Pacmania was a very lazy port, but happily, it was still enjoyable.
But the CPC could have had so much better i guess.
Quote from: remax on 22:31, 04 January 16
Pacmania was a very lazy port, but happily, it was still enjoyable.
But the CPC could have had so much better i guess.
There's another thread at the moment where people talk about games that need tweaking to make them better. Pacmania is one. All it needs is a splash of colour and some optimisation to speed it up.
Disappointing, dull conversion.
I remember looking at the loading screen, seeing that it was practically all one colour and knew that I was in for a disappointment, especially as I enjoyed it in the arcades.
Could have lived with the Colour issues , the thing that makes it unplayable to me, is the games slowness.Just not enjoyable .
I recently picked up the megadrive version. That is a delicious conversion. The wider screen is used to greatly enhance the game. And the Amiga version is better still you say? Time to start hunting for that one on eBay I guess!
All this vids have a flaw. They should have constantly indicated which system it is. Can't be so hard to put the name of the system in one corner. That would make everything better, especially less confusing when comparing such a big number of systems. :)
Quote from: TFM on 17:38, 07 January 16
All this vids have a flaw. They should have constantly indicated which system it is. Can't be so hard to put the name of the system in one corner. That would make everything better, especially less confusing when comparing such a big number of systems. :)
I will not put constant captions on-screen to indicate what system is used. Each system is indicated at the start when it appears. The ChinnyVision audience are not imbeciles and in nearly 80,000 views nobody has ever raised such an issue. As you'll see from the comments on each video, the audience are intelligent and pro-active in feeding back both on Twitter and in the comments. If it was a problem, someone would have said.
The videos are designed to be watched from beginning to end and the appropriate information is given the first time each system appears. In the summery the formats do skip around but if there is anything specific to a format the narrative will follow the picture.
So no, I won't clutter up the screen.
Your decision, but imho you should value critics and not get offended. And honestly you have to leave it to the audience in which way they watch a video. Hard working people may not have the time to waste half an hour in case they just want to peek on different platforms. But ok, do as you want. There are other youtube vids of particular systems, this way is more tedious, but still more quick. :)
actually the game can manage greater speed... when you get the speedup bonus, the speed is bearable...
Also it would totally gain to get rid of those damn rasters, would gain more cycles as well...
Concerning colours, the graphics are typically Speccy :1 bit per pixels, and extrea mask of 1 bit per pixels too...
Would need to convert/modify the display routines in order to pass graphics (sprites) into proper 2bit per pixels, then put sacrified ink as transparency.
may even need to go the 128k way too if RAM is too full.
Sad, was a great game even on speccy... but too much lazyness don't do it justice, great musics anyway.
Quote from: TFM on 19:47, 07 January 16
Your decision, but imho you should value critics and not get offended. And honestly you have to leave it to the audience in which way they watch a video. Hard working people may not have the time to waste half an hour in case they just want to peek on different platforms. But ok, do as you want. There are other youtube vids of particular systems, this way is more tedious, but still more quick. :)
I manage several Youtube channels as part of my job. ChinnyVision doesn't just have good audience retention, it has a *superb* audience retention.
The evidence is that people *do* watch and aren't just dipping in and out. I'm there to satisfy my growing audience and provide full reviews. There's plenty of other places for quick format comparisons. I'll choose my own route, it seems to be working thanks.
Then keep the great work going! :)
Quote from: MacDeath on 19:54, 07 January 16
actually the game can manage greater speed... when you get the speedup bonus, the speed is bearable...
Also it would totally gain to get rid of those damn rasters, would gain more cycles as well...
Concerning colours, the graphics are typically Speccy :1 bit per pixels, and extrea mask of 1 bit per pixels too...
Would need to convert/modify the display routines in order to pass graphics (sprites) into proper 2bit per pixels, then put sacrified ink as transparency.
may even need to go the 128k way too if RAM is too full.
Sad, was a great game even on speccy... but too much lazyness don't do it justice, great musics anyway.
Does't the speedup skip frames though?
Is there anyway the community could "fix" the game? The code is there. Its just the graphics are ugly and slow.
CPC Plus hardware scrolling and sprites perhaps? :D
Plus hardware scrolling doesn't work in windows.
if you are to include PLUS scrolls and sprites, then you actually fully re-do the game... :laugh:
Reminds me the PacMan emulator... with original ROM it is slow but some bootleg ROMs with upgraded speed manage a decent speed...
Really the code is not optimised for CPC in that it tries toooo tooo tooo hard to put tooo many useless rasters.... just to have freaking disgusting clash attributes in the HUD.... seriously ?
As for so many "monocolour" speccy ports, just to get rid of raster may gain lots of speed.
To redo tile/sprites routines wouldn't hurt as well...
ouch...
(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/6/6d/Pacmania_title.png)
(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/c/cf/Pac04.png)
even just that ?
(http://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/6/6f/Recolored_pacmania1.png)
That bottom one looks faster better. Quite like the MSX without the colour clash in fact.
Quote from: TFM on 19:47, 07 January 16
Your decision, but imho you should value critics and not get offended. And honestly you have to leave it to the audience in which way they watch a video. Hard working people may not have the time to waste half an hour in case they just want to peek on different platforms. But ok, do as you want. There are other youtube vids of particular systems, this way is more tedious, but still more quick. :)
I would say i'm with TFM on this one...
But as it's not a big deal, i respect your choice.
QuoteThat bottom one looks faster better. Quite like the MSX without the colour clash in fact.
the mockup I did ? just what the game could look like in plain mode1 on CPC... but it is just a mockup and graphics are in 1bit per pixel too (without clashes attributes of course, loke many speccy ports could do)
MSX is a pure speccy port crap like what europeans always did... and it seems to be even slowlier than CPC because MSX1 fails at smooth horizontal scrollings even harder than CPC and european devs failed at Hardsprites and use of the 8x1 attributes (instead of the speccy's 8x8)...
Quote from: CraigsBar on 15:20, 07 January 16
I recently picked up the megadrive version. That is a delicious conversion. The wider screen is used to greatly enhance the game. And the Amiga version is better still you say? Time to start hunting for that one on eBay I guess!
Yes the Amiga version *is* nicer looking than the megadrive one. I just grabbed it from emuparadise, but I like instant access lol.
I actually liked it on the CPC, despite its shortcomings.
Have you seen the STe version?