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?

 – 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.

 – 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.

 – 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.

 – 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.

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

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

 – 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!