Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

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beamrider
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by beamrider »

Just tested. Seems fine now. Good work.

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16KVIC20
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by 16KVIC20 »

What a great game, so close to the original.
The best PacMan for the VIC for sure.
Forbidden64
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by Forbidden64 »

I made a nice Tape cover for this (printable to exact size of tape sleeve on your home printer!) so you can get the full 80's effect of playing this game :D. It's actually a painstakingly modified 1983 game cover from an actual commercial release. I just thought I would share it for those of you who really enjoy the magic of loading from tape, and having a real physical copy of games:

[edit: I still need to add credits to the authors, as well as add the instructions in the original font and lettering which will be painstakingly slow, but I've eaten too many hours working on this, and need to get some work done today. So look forward to that perhaps tomorrow!]

[Second edit: All done!]
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PANICMAN!!!
PANICMAN!!!
Last edited by Forbidden64 on Sun Nov 05, 2017 4:42 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Forbidden64
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by Forbidden64 »

bills442 wrote:
buzbard wrote:Very nice! This makes the Atarisoft version look like a kindergartener made it. Awesome!

I noticed that it looks like you saved both versions from the beginning of the BASIC RAM areas ($0400 for 3k and $1200 for 8k). If you save starting at $0401 for 3k and $1201 for 8k then you won't need the ,1 at the end of the load command.
thanks!

Ok, ya, I was reading some stuff last night in the programming sections and starting to realize I didn't do the address right. Someone was discussing some zero that basic inserts for you at the beginning, etc. What you describe makes more sense to me. It's always better to type less! I will try to update the images.

One thing I was wondering was how I could make a cassette for the 8k version from this ( just for amusement ). I tried to load the 8K version into an 8K machine and manipulate the basic pointers in zero page such that I could save the image to cassette with a save,8 command, but I didn't have much luck. I tried setting locations 43 and 44 to $1200 and 45,46 to $1200 plus the image size. Maybe I needed to make that $1201 and it would have worked?

Edit: I meant the 8K into the 8k, fixed the above paragraph.
The first thing I did was convert the 3K version to tape...even before creating the cover art. I used HESMON for the VIC-20. You can make a soft reset of the CPU, and then type the command <S "panicman" 01 0800 02000> and it will save to tape. My save is rather funny, because I didn't know the start address, and knew that it was written in machine language, I grabbed all the non fill sections of memory to be safe from 0400h to 2000h. so when I load, it has the screen from the monitor in which I saved it lol...even the syntactical error in the first command.
bills442
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by bills442 »

I think the vic + 3k jmp instruction to the main loop was at $40e

Code: Select all

     82  040b					      endif
     83  040b		       00 00 00 	      HEX	00 00 00
     84  040e		       4c c7 0c 	      jmp	main
     85  0411				  -	      else		;not basic startup
     86  0411				  -	      jmp	main

     ....
I can't remember what I put up on google drive, I'm assuming it was the version that was supposed to load from the basic prompt. I think I messed up the boot sequence with an extra byte.

Neat Cover!! I need to make some cassettes I have a ton around here and it would be fun to load from cassette.

I have a version around that is twice as fast ( I fixed the bit blitter ), so instead of 30fps it would run 60 on ntsc. I never got around to uploading it because it messed up all the relative ghost to pacman to difficulty speeds and I needed to fix those up. It would probably help the PAL a lot since I don't think 25fps is fast enough.
Forbidden64
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by Forbidden64 »

The BASIC load is easy...just type RUN. That is fine for me! I finished the cover today, I hope you like the end results! I second what everyone else has said by the way...this is the best port of Pac-Man on the vic-20 by a long shot! As an NTSC user, I can say it works great! Only thing on my wish list would be a pause key. Nothing worse than being in the zone, and all you can think about is the bathroom.
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Spectrum
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by Spectrum »

Just saw it on YouTube and just downloaded.
I will try it tonight on my real Vic!

It looks wonderful! The sound is amazingly similar to Jelly Monsters. You did an amazing job!
bills442
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by bills442 »

Thanks guys. I'm actually working on the code a bit now, so maybe I'll get a new version out and include pause and intermissions which I wanted. Apparently Jeff ( the music guy ) saw the cover and ordered a cassette drive off ebay because he wants a cassette now, lol. Nice job.
Forbidden64
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by Forbidden64 »

bills442 wrote:Thanks guys. I'm actually working on the code a bit now, so maybe I'll get a new version out and include pause and intermissions which I wanted.
YES!!! Seriously, that will be the zenith of pac-man for me at least! Panicman, a cassette drive, a tape, joy stick, an old fashioned knobbly TV, and a vic-20 with cig breaks between levels + beer=my idea of heaven. Seriously, I could die happy.
bills442 wrote: Apparently Jeff ( the music guy ) saw the cover and ordered a cassette drive off ebay because he wants a cassette now, lol. Nice job.
That alone makes it more than worth it! I hope you enjoy your physical copy Jeff! Thanks you two for making this game! I have both cartridge versions of this game, and likely I won't be using either of them ever again lol.

Something I haven't observed since the '80s is the 'NOW!' caption. I really think this adds to the feel of the tape cover. You really don't see this language employed in modern advertising and thus dates it to the '80s, which I find interesting. For this reason, i thought it would be fun to employ it into the cover art.

If, and when the pause feature is added, I will, of course, update the cover art with these instructions...press F7 for pause etc. or whatever you decide.
bills442
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by bills442 »

I've been reworking the speeds to be as accurate to the arcade as possible now that I have the capability to run a full 60fps ( ntsc ). One thing I've been having questions about is the "Cruise Elroy" feature of blinky.

Using the awesome Pacman Dossier as reference once again:
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/ ... hp?print=1

we find the following tables for ghosts speeds, and Blinky's "extra hard modes":
level | normal | power | tunnel

Code: Select all

Arcade settings for ghost speed

level | normal | power | tunnel
-----------------------------------
1       75%      50%     40%
2-4     85%      55%     45%
5-20    95%      60%     50%
21+     95%       -      50%
        
Elroy Speeds for Blinky
ghost | tunnel | dots1| spd1|dots2|spd2        
---------------------------------------
75%   | 40%    |  20  | 80% | 10  | 85%
85%   | 45%    |  30  | 90% | 15  | 95%
85%   | 45%    |  40  | 90% | 20  | 95%

This means, for example, that the ghosts are at 75%, 85%, 85% for levels 1,2 and three.
Blinky is supposed to increase his speed twice each level based on the number of dots remaining. In addition, the nature of when he turns into his harder self called "Elroy" changes each level. I'm making a guess here, that his Elroy behavior would change every level for levels 1,2 and 3. After level 5 all the ghosts are moving as fast as even Blinky would when he is in Elroy mode. There's no table entry given for him being any faster than 95% in Elroy mode, but the Dossier claims when he is in Elroy mode 2 he is alwasy faster than pacman. Should I make his speed be 100% for Elroy modes starting at Level 4?

I suppose I could boot up MAME and play the arcade pacman and see if I can figure out his Elroy mode 2 speed. I'm leaning towards making him 100% speed for either Elroy mode 1 or 2 starting at Level 4.
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sandutter
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Re: Panicman for 3k and 8k vic

Post by sandutter »

I love this game. Great job you two! And Forbidden64 also for that great cover.
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