Protovision website in English  Protovision Webseite auf deutsch Header Protovision        

PROTOVISION current developed games


Pac It
Pac ItAnother comeback for an amazing classic. Pac-Man returns in this millennium. But this time, he isn't alone! Bring three friends, for Pac It can be played with four players simultaneously. We predict multiplayer fun of epic proportions.

But this isn't the only new feature: dozens of new ideas were integrated into the game. After collecting the necessary upgrades, Pac-man can push bricks out of the way to open up a tunnel; he can sprint away from a ghost; he can jump over some of the obstacles or send the ghosts back in their pen.

But beware of the "negative" upgrades floating around: for example one that paints the ghosts black and thus makes them harder to see. Left over lives are split up evenly among all players: every player should give their best or there might be repercussions later... But thanks to the dedicated single player mode, you can practice at home. Some bug fixes and clever ideas are still outstanding, but these are being worked on - slowly but steadily, Pac It is nearing completion. A big thank you to all contributors.


Development status:
In development


Credits:
Produced by: Protovision
Distribution: Protovision
Coder: Jakob Voos
Graphics: Stefan Gutsch, Johan Janssen, Sven Zander, Roman Chlebec, Oliver Lindau & Jakob Voos
Sound&SFX: Richard Bayliss & David Cwik, Lars Hutzelmann
Developed with: Virtual Ass 16

Download:Download
A preview is available! Please keep in mind that the preview doesn't reflect the latest development. Spread the preview as much as you can and like.



Gallery:

Pac It Intro Pac It World 1 Pac-It World 1 Pac It Preview Pac It World 3 Pac It Interlude

Status updates:

Pac It with 'Save Game' function!
(News written on 07.12.2013)

Once again we’ve come a bit closer to a release of Pac It.

In total, everything’s gotten a little more stable and I’m uber-totally-‚appy that the following tasks have been completed:

pac1• I updated the loader system and stabilized it

pac1• I shuffled the data around in the memory to optimize loading and now I am absolutely sure it will all fit on two disk sides!

pac1• the NMI system was updated

pac1• the pause game option was updated

pac1• the main code of the tutorial is now done

pac1• after each world there is now a screen counting the extra scores and giving bonus lives if applicable

pac1• the score system is now complete… and the high score entries… oh well, just have a look at them when you have the chance…

pac1• BUT THE COOLEST UPDATE: Pac It is now able to save the current game state! Before each level it is now possible to save the game and continue playing sometime later. But please beware: the game does not autosave if you run it on an emulator on a smartphone! No, really, it doesn’t.

get_ready



Scene News: New info: Pac It in Vandalism News #60
(News written on 17.11.2013)

In Vandalism’s issue #60, Jake (JTR) chats about his game project Pac It. If you like, check it out here: www.csdb.dk/release/?id=123942

http://www.protovision.games/press/press.php?language=en

!cid_898B23E2-AFDD-4C7A-AA25-00BF3B2536E6@fritz



Pac It: A continuous flow of small updates
(News written on 29.09.2013)

pacit_title

Aaaaalso in the last weeks and months there was good progress around Pac It!

I am proud especially of the turn disk screen or rather its size. The loader/depacker system stays in memory all the time and should therefore be small – but as Pac It will presumably need two disk sides, it also requires a screen to kindly ask the user to turn his disk. Common programmers might have the practical idea of using the ROM charset and just present a dull text, but no, I was too hardheaded on that one to do that! Now I have my own charset, one sprite, two tiny tables with flash colours and the text/code for the screen in only $02c0 bytes. That simply asks for bragging around. But the best thing is: it works and it is complete! And that makes the whole I/O system complete. Wonderful. Further updates: 

pac1 * After a rather long odyssee the intro music is finally final! Matching the screen to the intro and vice versa was a hell of a task. Done! 

pac1 * Neat little screens now present not only the passwords but also bits of the story of pac it in between the worlds. The story strikes you as being completely rational and well thought-through. Not strange and odd and all mixed up like you think. No no, not at all. Anyway the interlude sequences are also complete and ready to go! As expected there for dozens of insects that required taming, but now the sequences load and they depack and they run through and have nice musics and what else should you ever want in life?

OK. I’m currently working on the core of the game – mainly to get enough disk space out and to optimize loading times, but also to get to terms with all the slime left a little tiny bit undone before. For example I have worked on the score system today and tweaked around with when which player gets what score bonus and when does he receive an extra life for it. Or rather the team, because Pac It is a team game and the players share a common life pool.



Pac It: The work continues thievishly
(News written on 07.08.2013)

pacit_title

Ooops, was my last comment really that long ago?!

Well, but I wasn’t inactive during that time. Pac It now loads correctly from intro to game, saves high scores, shows a game over screen and goes right back to the menu. That sounds more easy than it is with my chaotic code. The intro had tortured me for days or rather weeks due to countless minor details, such as a flickering in case you pressed SPACE in the wrong moment…

Also the screen that allows you to enter your high score was devilish. To minimize loading, I keep the latest high score in memory. Of course, it was overwritten at some other place. Another unforseen problem had cost me days: the screen would always crash after about 5 minutes and I simply couldn’t find an error in my code! In the end it turned out to be a defect in the music! DMC had compiled the music wrongly and Richard Bayliss needed to supply a freshly compiled version for me – who would think of that as an error source!? Also, you notice such detail problems only at the very end when everything is ‚almost‘ ready to go, which is why the last 10% of the game take 90% to complete… 

Yesterday I also finalized the screen that presents passwords to the good player (and tells the story a little further). Of course I didn’t want just a simple screen but one where I would include some nice design ideas that would fit to the overall pac it design… at this point I have to thank Wotnau for all his help in bug hunting but also in providing individual routines that have halped me alot (e.g. high score sorting).

So, what’s still missing?

pac1 – The Pac It intro music needs an update and I’d love to try to solve a small problem in the PTV intro as well.

pac1 – Currently, Pac It only knows one of four worlds. The password screens, the sequences that introduce each world and of course the different level files need inclusion. You heard it: it kind of cries for small problems that take weeks to solve.

pac1 – Did I say level files? 80% of the levels still need to be designed. But I focus on the code for now and make dummy level files. They can be easily replaced later.

pac1 – Also the sequences between the worlds are not final. Some lack musics, others need to be adjusted a bit so that they fit into the current loading concept.

pac1 – The end sequence isn’t done yet, music’s also missing.

pac1 – It could become a challenge to fit the game on two disk sides – but that’s definitely the plan!

pac1 – And there is surely more that I currently can’t think of…

After all this is done, we still have work to do around the manual, cover and so on… whatever, it rolls on anyway. So stay tuned!

 



Two Weeks of Pac It
(News written on 07.07.2011)

Hooray.. JTR worked on Pac It for two entire weeks! It was not easy to spend the time, but it worked out!

The following was achieved:

  • All disks examined and backed up (oh boy, Pac It was spread over 100 discs and some data has even been lost. Finally there is an overview and backup copies on multiple hard drives. To JTR’s confusion, a few pieces of music are still missing…)
  • Bugs in the intro fixed: broken graphics corrected, loader fixed and fixed a very nasty monster bug. Insight: Better do not overwrite IRQ vectors with data…
  • Finally text appears in the intro. That was more difficult than it sounds, because he writes three lines of text into sprites, while masses of graphics are being scrolled in the background. He had to change some things in order to have enough space for the sprites and the new code.
  • Highscore system worked out and mostly installed (now there are 4 hiscores, depending on the number of players)
  • Highscore screen massively improved (new score system installed, checking and adding scores, scores get saved now – for which it is required to deactivate and then re-install the loader)
  • Titel menu massively improved (hiscores are now loaded, some bugs fixed, keyboard layout updated)
  • Interlude screen scores started (after each level, there’s a distribution of score)
  • Interlude Screen information started (used to view information in the tutorial, or later on passwords)
  • End sequence started (at least it is now known what can be told to Veto, how many steps of animation can be installed)
  • Data management (lots of data has been moved, space for global variables has been created, which will never be overwriten now etc.)
  • Reassembly of the Game Over screen. Unfortunately, the source code of the Game Over screen had been lost. However, it could be restored with JTR’s own reassembler in surprisingly good quality: Without changing even a bit, the code could be moved and commands included. Soon it will be checked here whether there is a high score and acordingly either load the high score screen or titel menu. JTR’s reassembler will also be released “soon”… It also detects hidden code and lo/hi byte of relative addresses…Well… Once again, a great piece of progress for Pac It. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near completion! But it is no longer about decades but only about years until it comes out… JTR does his best to at least get it out of the fridge!


Pac It News
(News written on 31.05.2010)

Pac It is alive! 🙂 After looong fruitless attempts it was now possible to put all parts of the Pac It Intro together. There were several space problems… In other words, a small breakthrough in the Pac It project has been achieved, and development finally continues.





Back to top


© Copyright 2001-2024 PROTOVISION