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Paku Paku for the C64

deathshadow

deathshadow

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Jan 4, 2011
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That's right, my first C64 game ever has been released, a "port" of my DOS Pacman ripoff to the Commodore 64.
http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPakuC64

Any bugs, please report them via the contact form on my site. Downloads are available of just the PRG in .RAR or .ZIP, a .D64 and my source files and data as .RAR. The game is released just like it's DOS version as cardware, so if you enjoy it please send a post card to the address indicated on the site... otherwise consider the codebase to be released to the public domain.

Was quite a project that kept me busy for a while. Took a lot of research since until recently I'd never owned a 6502 based machine apart from the VIC-20, and I barely had that for a few months. I had to take a crash course in C64 internals, how the CC65 compiler and CA65 assembler worked, create several of my own tools from scratch as the existing ones didn't quite provide what I needed, and most of all, actually learn 6502 machine language.

So, try it out, lemme know how it goes. It works good on my real NTSC C64 once I got my XA1541 cable up and working and tracked down a machine with an actual parallel port on it (thankfully I had a old P3 laptop in a drawer...). The game is PAL/NTSC aware, so it should throttle everything as appropriate for either platform. It also does a HARD reset on exit (the compiler optimizations didn't make a warm reset viable) so be really sure you want to exit, since on the real hardware it can take a LONG time to load a 47k PRG file.

-- edit --

UPDATE -- I've put up a page that uses JaC64 to run it in JAVA on the website:

http://www.deathshadow.com/pakuPakuLiveC64

That way folks who can't be bothered to install VICE can have a go. It's not the best emulator and there are some obvious bugs, but it works.

Also put my CSS3 skills to use to make a 'monitor' around the emulator -- WITHOUT using any images.
 
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Good for laughs is that when released for DOS I got mails saying "make it harder" and "speed it up more"...

... and within 12 hours of it's C64 release some lamer has already made a 'trainer' for it with some dumbass 'demo' tacked on the beginning.

I really don't get 'democoding' -- it's like some really talented programmers who can get right down into the hardware cannot actually release a real program... so they start making trainers and slap their demo's on the start to ride the coat-tails of real program releases.

The 'demoscene' really feels like it is almost entirely isolated to the Commodore community -- as if it's ingrained in the mentality of Commodore owners or something... I just don't get it.
 
deathshadow said:
It also does a HARD reset on exit (the compiler optimizations didn't make a warm reset viable) so be really sure you want to exit, since on the real hardware it can take a LONG time to load a 47k PRG file.
Click to expand...

47K? Great, now cram it down to 16K so it can fit on a ROM cartridge. :)
 
vwestlife said:
47K? Great, now cram it down to 16K so it can fit on a ROM cartridge. :)
Click to expand...
Given that the sprites are 896 bytes, the static data is 12k, and the code alone is 17k... uhm, no. There's a reason cartridge games were never very good back then or made massive sacrifices compared to the arcade counterparts. "real sacrifices" here involves using 3x3 instead of 8x8 tiles for the playmap and 6x12 instead of 16x16 ghost sprites.

I could easily get it down that small, but I'd have to get rid of using the real map and 3x3 tiles, and instead shoe-horn it into the same lame flat squat has nothing to do with the arcade game map that every other home computer pac man game back then used -- like Snapman or the official Atari version.

Remember, the original arcade ROM is 16k, but that's Z80 code which is much, much, much smaller, and is run on hardware designed JUST to run this type of game instead of something more designed for general computing. Now, if the '64 supported 240x360 graphics with per-plate 8x8 multicolor tiles -- then we'd be talking.
 
Of course, starting with the goal of making it as close to the arcade version as possible given the limitations of the hardware, Paku Paku is quite commendable in both the PC and C64 editions. :) But especially in Europe where most C64 games were distributed by tape, I don't think people would care to wait half an hour for a 47K program to load from tape, even if it was the best clone of Pac-Man they could ever have outside of the arcade. ;)
 
vwestlife said:
I don't think people would care to wait half an hour
Click to expand...

24 minutes 12 seconds. I actually made a working tape of it.

Really though it is meant for disk distribution. Original unmodified 1541 it comes in at around a minute -- haven't actually timed it.
 
Wow, this is really cool. I've only played the online version so far, but I can't wait to try it on a real C64. Most of your description of what you had to go through to code it is over my head, but I can certainly appreciate the challenge. The existing ports are just hideous, so this is a welcome addition. Thanks for doing it!
 
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