Space Invaders Collection, Pac-Man Collection status report
Hi!
Ok, Space Invaders Collection is now just a few days away from its planned release date. So maybe a few of you were wondering if it was really coming out. In fact SIC program was completed a while ago and I am now completing package design. Well, not me, but in fact Dale Crum from Ataricart. I surely will show it here soon, but in the meanwhile let me try to describe the package:
SIC is a CV cartridge featuring both Space Invaders and Space Invaders Part II/Deluxe arcade games. The games look and play about exactly like the original games. There is an option screen allowing you to change all original arcade settings, as well as choosing between US and Japanese versions and screen types (color schemes).
The cartridge will be manufactured from brand new PCBs (with gold platted contacts) and EPROMs. This first run will use recycled Coleco plastic cases, but starting this October I will switch to brand new custom cases with a nice Opcode logo created by Dave Giarrusso engraved in the back.
Label, manual and box will be offset printed in full color and high quality paper. No laser printers here guys, I am talking about professional offset printing.
Jess "ManekiNeko" Ragan, from the Gameroom Blitz and Digital Press fame, has written the 16 pages manual text, so no one needs to worry about my bad English...
Dale Crum from Ataricart is the graphic designer for all printed stuff, and I must say his work is nothing less than top-notch.
There are still a few extra surprises which I don't want to ruin...
So I can say SIC is the collaborative work between me, Dale and Jess for the most part. Of course several other friends have helped me too, and I would to like to give all of them a big "thank you" (zektor, arcade antics, NE146 and others). A very special thanks would go to Joe Santulli, who helped me funding this project and who was modest enough to not want his name on it.Thank you Joe! I will be in dept with you.
The final price is now set at $25 plus shipping (around $5 to the US) which I think fares well among others boxed titles.
Now things are well underway with SIC, I have got back to Pac-Man Collection and I have already done some extra progress.
Bellow is a screenshot took from the actual code running on MESS. Ever if it looks simple, generating a perfectly scaled down maze on the CV was a major challenge, as it required me to map all dots and maze elements using a lookup table. My next challenge would be slowing the game speed down properly (3/4). But I will work on it later, after completing all intro sequences. It's due to the fact I will need two game engines here, a for the actual game, which is scaled down 3/4 from the arcade, and another to the intermissions and opening, which use the same scale as the arcade game. It also includes two sets of sprites for every game character, a scaled down version and a normal sized version. Level counter (fruits) was inflated on purpose…
Eduardo Mello
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Originally Posted by Raccoon Lad
