QUIKMAN 2008 for the unexpanded VIC 20

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Tue Nov 18, 2008 10:33 am

You da man, nbla000 ... thanks!! And I posted the corrected binaries.
So was I setting an improper value setting into Port A's DDR to begin with? I know I corrected the technique later, when I got a floppy disk drive, because the issue never reared its ugly head when loading the games from tape.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 2:02 pm

orion70 wrote:... At last, a Pac-Man clone with the full original maze!
I had fun comparing the maze with the original one, and to my surprise if we scale the screenshots to the same XY ratio, they're quite the same ...

Ok, after examining the maze data, I decided to make a slight adjustment to make this resemble the original more closely. After even more coding optimizations, I was able to squeeze in more A/V improvements. Binaries and source on my web site have been updated.
Enjoy!

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 12:34 pm

Had to squeeze even more optimizations to keep it unexpanded and allow for the following:

Final adjustments have been made for progressive level play, i.e., overall speed, powerpill timings, and cage release. And RED now moves slightly faster than the rest of the pack, but not faster than Quikman -- if he is not chewing on something, that is.

And added two color fixes: cage door is pink, and the fruit on display won't go white, should a monster travels across it.

Plays awesome using mess 0.128 with these options:

mess -video d3d -triplebuffer -view "Pixel Aspect (25:31)" vic20 -quik quikman.prg

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 3:02 pm

Best 3K pacman game for the vic ever made and probably one of the best in in total. It has the "feel" of arcade pacman in the movement. Very smooth.

It doesn't really need any improvement, but if you wished too add anything:

- ghost eyes to go back to the cage when eaten
- between level animations
- start music

Of course, these would probably take it out of the 3K range.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 3:48 pm

Is this ultra latest version on your site Rob?

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:13 pm

Mayhem wrote:Is this ultra latest version on your site Rob?

Yes, its binary, source, and listing are updated on the tribute page:
http://robert.hurst-ri.us/commodore/vic20.html#Software

Even put a copy of JarVIC for online playing. It works using Firefox / OpenJDK 1.6 on Linux or Windows IE / Sun Java 1.5 only -- other combinations failed for me.

TMR · Post by **TMR** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 6:26 am

Aww bugger... updated just after i sent the review off to Retro Gamer with screenshots from the old version! =-(

MacbthPSW · Post by **MacbthPSW** » Sun Nov 30, 2008 12:41 pm

TMR wrote:Aww bugger... updated just after i sent the review off to Retro Gamer with screenshots from the old version! =-(

Serves you right for being prompt for a change!

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 8:36 pm

ral-clan wrote:Best 3K pacman game for the vic ever made and probably one of the best in in total. It has the "feel" of arcade pacman in the movement. Very smooth.

I really appreciate the kind praises, thank you!

It doesn't really need any improvement, but if you wished too add anything:

- ghost eyes to go back to the cage when eaten
- between level animations
- start music

Of course, these would probably take it out of the 3K range.

Okay, so I had this itch to see if this new assembler source could be relocated and become a ROM game cartridge. After a bit tidying up and the new startup code, it works! So, I had an extra 512-bytes to put in some additional features.

The 4K ROM, source, and listing are now available on my web site:
http://robert.hurst-ri.us/commodore/vic20.html#Software

Enjoy!!

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Mon Dec 01, 2008 9:44 pm

I agree with ral-clan. This is one of the best Pac-Man implementations I've ever played on any platform and certainly one of the best 3K games on the VIC. I hope this latest version can be added to the MegaCart.

My only complaint is that it's really hard. I must practice!

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 4:17 am

Yeah that red ghost is a vicious, take no prisoners SOB!

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 4:38 am

Mayhem wrote:Yeah that red ghost is a vicious, take no prisoners SOB!

That's another feature to implement. Blinky should be slower or just as fast as you until the very end of the screen on lower levels. From the wikipedia entry:

Blinky, the red ghost, speeds up after a certain number of dots are eaten (this number gets lower in higher levels). The accelerated Blinky is unofficially called Cruise Elroy.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 8:42 am

Wow! That new ROM version looks great! Can't wait to play it!

Poor Nicola! This really deserves to be on the Mega-Cart, but every time he thinks the MC ROM is finalized, someone releases a new great game!

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:36 am

Not sure what picture he's used for his webpage but it looks the same as before Ral-Clan

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:16 pm

Oh, the web-page picture is stretched, and for a moment there I thought the update was a scrolling screen game. i.e. it used the full maze of the arcade pac-man but allowed you to scroll from the upper half of the screen to the lower half (to be able to play on a 4:3 ratio monitor).

Well, the ghost's eyes move and a few other things. Those are nice improvements.