Which version of Ms. Pac-Man should be added to the collection?
Master System
 71%  [ 10 ]
Game Gear
 28%  [ 4 ]
Total Votes : 14


Pac-Man Museum CE is basically a collection of various Pac-Man console ports. It isn't just limited to the original game, either, so every Pac-Man game, from Ms. Pac-Man to Pac-Mania and beyond, might be included here as long as it has a port for a Z80-based system.

So far, the games included are:

Pac-Man (Game Gear),


Pac-Man (MSX),


Ms. Pac-Man (Master System),


and Super Pac-Man (Sord M5)


More games, like Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack, and potentially Pac-Land will be added soon, so stay tuned!

Original post:
Ever since I released Version 1.0 of Sonic 2 CE, I've wanted to see what other games I could try and port to the CE. I decided to settle with porting various Pac-Man console ports, since they've always been a guilty pleasure of mine.

I could've just tried to port a single one of them, but since there's already a Pac-Man CE, making a compilation akin to Pac-Man Museum+ makes the whole thing less redundant. Unlike with Sonic 2 CE, I'm not starting this thread with nothing to show for it. Here's footage from the first game to be added to the collection, Pac-Man for the Game Gear!

Thanks to the Game Gear being near identical to the Master System, palettes and resolution aside, I was able to reuse Sonic 2 CE's renderer wholesale, allowing me to complete the entire port in just four days!

Since there's only one game included as of today, calling it a museum is a stretch. I'll release a beta when I add you-know-who. Until then, see you guys later!
This renderer seems powerful. Now I wonder what games could be ported...
I changed my mind about holding out a release until I port Ms. Pac-Man. Here's Beta 0.1 of Pac-Man Museum CE!



The biggest additions since the first post are a real menu you can choose a game from and 1/2 size mode for Pac-Man GG, which lets you play Pac-Man at a whopping 160x144 resolution.

The next game I'm going to add is obviously Ms. Pac-Man, but the SMS and Game Gear versions of it are two completely different ports. Because of that, I'll put which version I should port first to a vote. The game's resolution won't be a concern for the Game Gear version, so keep that in mind.
Good evening, everyone! The poll results are in, and the winner is Ms. Pac-Man for the Master System!



While the game, on paper, sounds like another barebones port of Ms. Pac-Man, it has a ton of extra features that greatly improve replayability, like different sets of mazes and multiplayer. Porting it to the CE was an almost identical process to Pac-Man GG and Sonic 2 CE, but with the addition of indirection to avoid loading ROM banks in and out of RAM.

You can get Version 0.3 of Pac-Man Museum CE, which adds this version of Ms. Pac-Man, here.

But wait, there's more! While I was waiting for the poll results to come in, I had the time to port another version of Pac-Man. Introducing Pac-Man for the MSX!



Fun fact: This version of Pac-Man is actually the basis for the NES version of the game, which is probably the version of Pac-Man with the most re-releases, aside from the arcade version.

Since the Master System's VDP is a superset of the MSX's, I had to basically make a crippled version of the renderer used in all the other games to get the game working. Pac-Man MSX's addition to the collection is Version 0.2, but I decided to wait until I finished porting Ms. Pac-Man for it to be in a public build.
Hi, everyone. Version 0.4 of Pac-Man Museum CE is here, and as usual, it has a new game: Super Pac-Man for the Sord M5!



This version of the game is a bit odd. It, alongside every other Namco arcade port for the Sord M5, is titled differently from the original (Power Pac in this case), despite seemingly being a Namco-developed port. It might also be the oldest port in this collection so far, as the copyright in the title screen vaguely lists the year 1982.

Getting this game onto the CE was a pain, since the M5 is a super-obscure console with not that much documentation or non-MAME emulators. What docs I could find said the console was extremely similar to the Master System, so I ported the game to the SMS with hex-editing first so I could use a disassembler on it.

It was really tedious, but after a week I had a mostly complete version, albeit with broken sound. It only took one and a half days to port that conversion to the CE, so it was definitely worth it.

You can download Pac Man Museum CE v0.4 here.
Is the 84 color edition sound simply using the Link port? Or did TI add a speaker of some sort?
I must say, amazing work!
cbusch wrote:
Is the 84 color edition sound simply using the Link port? Or did TI add a speaker of some sort?


The CE port lacks sound of any kind. I was referring to how I ported the game to the Master System first, with the port being identical to the original aside from the music. I ported that version to the CE, dummying out sound in the process.

Thanks for the support! It really means a lot.
Version 0.5 of Pac-Man Museum CE is out, and as usual a brand-new game has been added: Pac-Man for the ColecoVision!



This version of the game never came out due to its superiority compared to the 5200 version, which Atari was really trying to push as the most accurate Pac-Man port. However, it's 100% official, and thus 100% qualified to be added to the collection.

Alongside this, the launcher (PacMan.8xp) has been completely overhauled. Take a look!



As you can see, a new title screen, along with logos with each game, have been implemented in the launcher. The little animation that plays on the title screen changes on certain days, such as this coming Thursday.

Finally, there's been bugfixes and framerate improvements across every game, with the most notice being Pac-Man GG, which has had its framerate increased to 50 FPS!



And that's everything that's been added in v0.5! Sorry for the wait!
Wow, awesome work as always! And that launcher is very slick, really fits the theme for everything (although it could be a bit better with a custom font and some arrows to show whether you can scroll forward/backwards in the list, and maybe it should automatically set the selection to the last game you played).

Looking forward to more updates!
epsilon5 wrote:
Wow, awesome work as always! And that launcher is very slick, really fits the theme for everything (although it could be a bit better with a custom font and some arrows to show whether you can scroll forward/backwards in the list, and maybe it should automatically set the selection to the last game you played).

Looking forward to more updates!


Thanks for the support!

I should definitely add arrows to improve the UX, and I've already made it so the last game is automatically selected. It doesn't persist after exiting the launcher, since using an appvar to store a single byte is a bit wasteful in my opinion. I've been thinking of adding the ability to save high scores, so I'll probably add that QOL fix when that happens.
  
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