New version of PacMan (PuckMan) for the BBC Micro

[tricky]

Fruit now overwrites previous fruit, so no "mess".
You can probably still see how many you have collected until it is full of keys!
121 bytes left.

fruit_looped.png (7.83 KiB) Viewed 1078 times

PS I was using infinite lives

[tricky]

Hopefully improved ghost clearing so that it doesn't clear the two pixels of maze on inside corners.
I hope this doesn't introduce any ghost clearing bugs elsewhere!
New routine was about the same size as the old one (but less efficient) and I had a small tidy up. 154 byte free!

[leenew]

Just popped in to say *AMAZING*
Cheers Tricky!

Lee.

[tricky]

Thanks, it is much easier than BITD with emulators and their debuggers.
I wasn't sure that I would finish it after getting so bogged down with Moon Patrol after getting so far.

It'll soon be time to look at what's next (I hope).

[sPhilMainwaring]

Hi Tricky ... none of these versions work for me under BeebEm ... it doesn't seem to matter what machine type I select

In all cases 3 of the ghosts stick together and walk off through the central holding area wall leaving the red one to wander through other walls leaving a trail of itself behind right from game start

I've tried selecting undocumented opcodes, full undocumented, etc.

Any suggestions?

[tricky]

Assuming that you are on Windows, you probably don't have the most recent beebem version where the bug that causes that was fixed.
I think that all the other main emulators: b-em, b2, beebjit Windows versions work, as does the latest beebem and jsbeeb in the browser - I don't run other OSs.

PS I only use official 6502 instructions, no undocumented and no 65c02.

[Arcadian]

Played up to level 24, using save states (the bottom two keys in the right stack were collected on this level).

No high score corruption, no missing maze pixels, no sign of the freezing ghosts issue I reported previously and the bonus items neatly overwrite previous items in the stacks.

Well done!

Did you see that the HSC Xmas competition will be Pacman, starting Monday? Do you reckon you could get the half dots and incomplete powerpill issues fixed by then? As obviously it would be fab if the competitors could be playtesting the 'release candidate'! .

[tricky]

Release Candidate! I thought I had finished
Power pills yes, they should be OK to fix, but the half dots will be quite a bit of work.
Even if they don't make it on time, they won't affect game play, so could be during the competition without affecting scoring.

[sPhilMainwaring]

Thanks Tricky works great in B-Em

[Arcadian]

I've carried on playing ... just come across the first possible 'issue' ... Blinky (Red) and Inky (Blue) closing in on me in the tunnel, I darted back towards the right and somehow I was able to pass through Inky and come out unscathed through the left tunnel (heading right).

(This screenshot was effectively taken just before it would have occured).

Edit: I can now repeat this, pretty much at will, but you need to get the timing exactly right..

[tricky]

Fixed the energisers getting dots drawn on them, hopefully without side effects!
134 bytes free.

[tricky]

Fixed timing of reversing, so that patters will be consistent.
Extended the attract mode.
Stopped the gap in the middle of "GAME OVER" at end of attract.

Please let me know if I have introduced any new bugs.
This is the Release Candidate.

[Arcadian]

Forgot to post this yesterday, using the 10th December build I was able to pass 1 million, without any crashes or anything strange happening (obviously making extensive use of save states!). So the game does seem to be pretty robust/solid now!

I wonder what would happen if you went past 9,999,999 pts?

[cmorley]

I wonder what would happen if you went past 9,999,999 pts?

3,333,360 points is supposed to be the maximum score in PacMan assuming Tricky has faithfully replicated the level 256 map corruption bug

edit: for those interested I stumbled upon this youtube which explains the PacMan "killscreen" rather well.

[tricky]

Since I don't have the memory to store the maze or it's gfx and map, sorry, no kill screen, or anything else that might corrupt the screen

[ash73]

That's unlikely to trouble me!

A little points bonus at the end of each level might be an idea?

[leenew]

Who's doing the loading/splash screen?
#notvolunteering

Lee.

[tricky]

My own versions have mode 7 ones that I make that aren't great. The Trickysoft ones have the Acornsoft like ones. I may have room to load a 1/4 size mode 1 version of the one in the thread. It would be loaded after a delay so as not to delay running the game of you wanted to go straight in.

[ash73]

Small bug... these appear after a few games using BeebEm, might be due to me alt-tabbing to do some work between games...

[tricky]

Ash73, thanks for spotting this, it might be possible, I'll check the code.

[dominicbeesley]

I tried it out yesterday. Its looking really good!

[tricky]

I think this might be possible and have but not now fix.
I'll hold off while the HighScore/testing is going on to keep everyone on the same version.

[leenew]

Hi Tricky,
At the moment, all of your games on bbcmicro.co.uk come under "Retro Software". http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/index.php?rt_ ... =on&sort=b
I am sure this isn't correct!
Which ones would you like me to change to "Trickysoft"?

Thanks,

Lee.

[tricky]

They are OK as they are as I think Dave would like to keep the downloads as Retro Software and the physical ones as Trickysoft.

What do you think about Breakout, Canyon Bomber and Asteroids, too risky to put them up?
Probably not worth putting them up without the ROMS - they wouldn't be playable.

[Arcadian]

The Complete BBC Micro Games site has the facility to associate multiple 'publishers' with a title, so why not add them both, Lee? (Technically Trickysoft is a Retro Software 'label' now ... ! )

[leenew]

I will add Trickysoft to them...
What do you think of adding Breakout, Canyon Bomber and Asteroids to bbcmicro.co.uk Dave?

Lee.

PS - added Trickysoft" to the 11 Tricky games...

[Arcadian]

Worst you could get asked to do is take them down, so why not?

In reality, the actual game roms are already plastered all over the internet anyway ...

[leenew]

PM sent to Tricky...

[tricky]

It hasn't arrived!

[leenew]

Weird,
Well basically, are you able to send me those 3 games with the ROMS included?

Lee