A lot of interesting stuff on the internals of one of the greatest games of all time: Pac-Man. First, recreating Pac-Man in a day. Second, a very detailed look at the artificial intelligence of each of the game’s ghosts. As it turns out, each ghost had its own ‘character’ and approached Pac-Man in its own unique way. Third, the Pac-Man Dossier, the most detailed study of the game ever.
Interesting to read they wanted to make Pac-Man appealing for not only men, but also women because I always thought they made Ms. Pac-Man for the girls.
My Pac-Man tactic used to be to track all ghosts at once and semi-blindly move Pac-Mac to the most open area until only a few dots remained and then I picked the right moment to get them. This tactic was so good I always quit out of boredom than actually being eaten by the ghosts.
I forgotten the exact title, but on the Commodore 64 (and perhaps Amiga) there was a semi-3D Pac-Man followup that was quite fun.
Edit: I remember now: Pac-Mania
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Mania
Edited 2013-04-02 12:37 UTC
I used to play Pacmania on RISC OS machines… I remember it being okay, but not much else.
It wasn’t anything special, but it was more fun (IMO) than the original Pac-Man and certainly better looking.
Being able to jump over ghosts added a fun dimension to the gameplay.
Pac-mania was pretty fun, it was (just like the original) first an arcade game which not so surprisingly looked alot better than the c64/amiga versions, although I think the amiga version could have looked alot better had the developers not been lazy, here’s the original arcade game:
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=524&page=1#3023
My personal favourite pac-man would be the ‘arranged’ version which resides in the ‘Namco Classic Collection v.2’ arcade game. Really frantic action with jump/warp points and something like ‘pseudo’ depth in some of the mazes.
http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=531#1265
The original Pac Man by Namco Bandai is in playstore since few days ago. Official Tetris is there, too, Sonic The Hedgehog is coming, it feels like we’re in ’80s again.
Edited 2013-04-02 13:22 UTC
The Pac Man Dossier was invaluable when I was writing my recent Pac-man ripoff/clone for early DOS machines. It too is open, more so than most FLOSS-tards are comfortable with since I just copyrighted, then went public domain since, as I keep saying if you’re gonna give something away, **** sake just give it away!
DOS VERSION, circa 2011:
http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPaku
The download includes the full Turbo Pascal 7 and assembler source code. It’s a bit unique in that it uses the ‘undocumented’ 160×100 CGA mode (no anti-snow code for real CGA, but great on the Jr and Tandy 1k’s), attempts to properly support those modes on VGA (working flawless) and EGA (not so much)… and has support for a wide range of sound cards including PC Speaker, Adlib, Tandy/Jr, CMS and even some primitive MIDI/MT32 support.
I also back in November this past year did a port to the Commodore 64 in C and assembly.
http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPakuC64
Which leverages the doubled vertical resolution and sprite system to look a bit better than most such attempts on that platform. Certainly far closer to ‘the real thing’ than Atarisoft’s attempt — but that’s not exactly hard since their attempt was little more than “how fast can we port the atari 400/800 version”.
I also have some Java emulators up so the more timid out there can run them without playing in the emulators.
The DOS one works great:
http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPakuLive
The C64 one has some glitches due to emulation bugs.
http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPakuLiveC64
I have to say recreating it in a DAY sounds challenging — mine took a lot longer than that, but for the PC one I was ice-skating uphill with what can be done on a 4.77mhz 8088, particularly in the oddball 16 color graphics mode… and the C64 one was a crash course for me in 6502 machine language and the C64’s capabilities since I never really had any 6502 machines. Back in the day I was more of a TRS-80 guy so Z80 and 6809 were more my forte.
I also had to make changes to the game logic a good deal since perfectly replicating it is not entirely practical when working at 3/8ths the resolution.
Edited 2013-04-02 13:56 UTC
It’s a noble goal, but the simple fact is Public Domain is not a universal concept. What’s PD here in the US may not be elsewhere. That’s why it’s better to use a liberal license, such as BSD or Apache 2, since those are about as Public Domain as you can get while still being under license. You can also consider the Creative Commons 0 (zero) license, which is actually applicable to software.
I really think that if you need a ‘license’ when giving something away, you’re not giving it away; particularly since copyright should provide all the protection one should need in terms of credit being given where credit is due.
But then, I get along with the Church of Stallman re-re’s and their calling socialism “freedom” about as good as I get along with slavers and racists; which is to say I have a shoot on sight order in place.
… because if you need a ‘license’ that is larger than the forming document of most world governments to ‘protect’ something you are sharing “openly”, well… as I’ve said many times does the term snake oil ring a bell? The FSF’s commie rhetoric being so full of the seven cornerstones of propaganda Goebbels would wet his pants in envy. I often feel someone needs to explain to the FSF what ‘freedom’ is, because their nonsense isn’t it.
Edited 2013-04-02 18:15 UTC
Software licenses like GPL and BSD are not contracts, they’re just explaining what terms of copyright you waver (ie you’re saying people are free to copy and create derivative works, which would normally be illegal under most nations copyright law). What you’re thinking of is EULA’s, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish (as the saying goes)
So if the above was your sole reason for dismissing licenses, then realistically you should be a supporter as software licenses are there to state the terms of copyright law which you’re asking for protection from, and the terms of copyright law that you’re wavering.
No love for QAOP?
What does a Sinclair Spectrum Emulator have to do with anything? Mind you, the Z80 proc would be familiar territory, but being a Yank we never really saw any Sinclair models newer than the TS1K, which was just a Zed-Ex 81 with the RAM doubled, and usually sold for 30 bucks at the pharmacy.
Or did you mean something else? (that’s the only thing I’m familiar with “QAOP” meaning)
The key controls Q=Up, A=Down, O=Left and P=Right. It was common before WASD set in. It’s better than WASD because it’s comfortable and easy to have fingers on all of the keys.
Can’t say I’m familiar with or come across that… was it specific to a certain platform? Sounds similar to the TRS-80 arrow key placements, which were a pain since you needed both hands for arrow leaving no hands free for anything else. Certainly not seen that one on any PC, TRS-80 or Commodore software. (Lemme guess, Apple?)
Most C64 software I ever dealt with was IJKM, didn’t find out why until I wrote the ’64 verions — they’re all on the same CIA port. WASD actually took two port reads.. QAOP would be four separate ports on CIA1. Similarly you did see WASZ on some C64 programs — or even both WASZ and IJKM for multiplayer, as it too is on a single port read.
http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Keyboard#Keyboard_Map
It’s generally nicer when you only need to read one or two ports. Even more so when trying to mask the joystick so it doesn’t register as keypresses.
http://www.kyon.pl/img/15327,pacman,LG,logo,.html
(also, check out other tagged under pacman http://www.kyon.pl/tag/1/1660,pacman/ )