PacManRecomp (Windows)

For Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit). There is no Mac or Linux version.

A native Windows version of Pac-Man for the NES (Namco, 1993), made by static recompilation: the game's original 6502 code is translated into C and compiled into a real Windows program, built with NESRecomp. It plays exactly like the cartridge, with a set of modern extras on top.

No game files are included. You need your own copy of the Pac-Man NES ROM: the Namco release, Pac-Man (USA) (Namco). The Tengen version is a different game program and won't work.

*Christmas mod not included

Download & play (no programming needed)

1. Download PacManRecomp-1.1.1-Windows.zip (about 5 MB) from Releases and unzip it.
2. Copy your own Pac-Man ROM (a .nes file, any name) into the new folder.
3. Double-click PacManRecomp.exe. The launcher finds the ROM by itself (or pick it there); press Play.

The first time you play, the game sets itself up from your ROM: a small window shows it working for a few seconds, then it deletes the tools it used. After that it starts straight away. You can move the game's folder anywhere. The launcher and the game window size themselves to your screen.

Why the game sets itself up from your ROM

A recompiled game works by translating the cartridge's program into C and compiling it. The result contains Pac-Man's own game code, which belongs to Bandai Namco and can't be shared. So the download holds only this project's own program, with no game code in it, plus two small free tools: the recompiler and TinyCC, a tiny C compiler. On your PC they translate your ROM and compile it into game.dll, next to the exe. That file is made from your ROM, so like the ROM, it's yours: don't share it.

"Other recomps give you a ready-made .exe. Why not this one?" Many projects do ship a finished .exe and ask you for your ROM. But the ROM usually only supplies graphics and data: the game's code is already inside that .exe, translated. Sharing it means sharing the publisher's code, and those projects accept that risk. This project doesn't: the game code is only ever made on your own PC, from a ROM you own, which is the safest way we know to do it. The cost is a few seconds of setup the first time (and after each update).

(This is our understanding, not legal advice.)

Features

The game, untouched

• Recompiled, not emulated. The cartridge's own program runs as native code, so the gameplay, ghost behavior, timing, sound and the three intermissions are the real thing.
• Endless levels, exactly as the cartridge plays them: the game gets harder up to level 23, then every level plays the same, with no kill screen. The optional level counter keeps counting.
• 1 and 2 players, each with their own keyboard or gamepad.

Launcher

A front end that opens before the game, with every setting in one place: video, audio, controls, game options, cheats and mods, each with a short explanation when you hover over it. You can also skip it and go straight into the game.

• Optional updates: tick Check for updates on startup (or press Check for updates now) on the launcher's main page. Off by default: the game never goes online unless you ask. When a new version is out, it asks first, then downloads and installs it and restarts the game, keeping your settings, keys, high scores and mods, and deleting what it downloaded.

Video and audio

• Window size, fullscreen, integer scaling, smoothing filter, stretch to fill, hide the screen edges (overscan) and an inverse-colors mode.
• Volume, music and sound effects on/off separately, and an optional echo.

Controls

• Keyboard or gamepad for each player, with keys you can rebind.
• Controller rumble: a soft buzz while the ghosts are blue, a jolt when you eat one, a rumble as Pac-Man dies, and a tiny blip for each dot. In 2-player games only the player whose turn it is feels it.
• Menu style: the classic NES way (Select or Up/Down moves, Start picks, Left/Right change a value) or modern (D-pad to move, A to pick, B to go back).

In-game menus

• The title screen gets Options and Quit to Desktop: video, audio, controls, extras, cheats and mods, all without leaving the game.
• Pause menu (Esc): back to the main menu, to the launcher, or quit.

Extras

• Level number in the score column.
• High score table: the top 10 with initials, saved between sessions, entered arcade-style when you make the list (1 and 2 players).

Cheats

Infinite lives, start on any level from 1 to 255, Pac-Man speed (normal, 1.25x or 1.5x, ghosts unchanged) and invincibility. Games played with a cheat on don't go on the high score table.

Getting started

1. Get the game: the download above, or build it from source (below).
2. Start PacManRecomp.exe. The launcher opens; pick your ROM.
3. Press Play.

Expected ROM: Pac-Man (USA) (Namco), 24,592 bytes, CRC32 9E4E9CC2 (not counting the 16-byte iNES header).

Default keys

NES button	Player 1	Player 2
D-pad	Arrow keys	W A S D
A / B	Z / X	K / L
Select	\	Right Shift
Start	Enter	Right Ctrl

Esc opens the pause menu. The launcher's Controls page shows the current keys; change them in Settings, with Configure under each player.

Building

You need Windows with these installed and on your PATH: CMake 3.20+, Ninja and LLVM/clang (clang and clang++). Git Bash is handy for the commands below and for the tests. SDL2 comes with NESRecomp; nothing else to install.

Clone the three repositories side by side, with the two engine repos on the pacman-local branch:

git clone -b pacman-local https://github.com/Mr-Shizzy/nesrecomp
git clone -b pacman-local https://github.com/Mr-Shizzy/recomp-ui
git clone https://github.com/Mr-Shizzy/PacManRecomp

Copy your ROM into the PacManRecomp folder and name it pacman.nes. Then, from inside PacManRecomp:

# 1. Build the recompiler
cmake -S ../nesrecomp/recompiler -B ../nesrecomp/build/recompiler -G Ninja -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build ../nesrecomp/build/recompiler

# 2. Translate your ROM into C (writes generated/; never shared)
../nesrecomp/build/recompiler/NESRecomp.exe pacman.nes --game game.toml

# 3. Build the game
cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build

The game ends up in build\PacManRecomp.exe (with SDL2.dll next to it). This builds the game code into the exe, for development.

The release is built differently: sh easybuild/make_package.sh <version> builds the exe with -DPACMAN_GAME_DLL=ON, from the committed sources only, so it holds no game code, and packs it with the recompiler and TinyCC. That exe makes game.dll from the player's ROM when it first starts (src/game_dll_host.c, src/gamedll/).

Modding

Change how the game looks and sounds: repaint Pac-Man, the ghosts, the fruit, the maze, the letters, the cutscenes and the title logo, at any resolution, and replace any sound effect or the music. Several mods can be installed at once; pick one in the launcher or in the game's MODS menu, which shows each mod's preview picture, name, author and description.

Made for beginners

Modding an NES game usually means working with its tile sheet: the graphics are stored as hundreds of tiny 8x8-pixel pieces in four colors, scattered across a sheet in whatever order the programmers needed. Pac-Man alone is made of several pieces, and some pieces are shared between different pictures or reused flipped. Emulator HD packs make it harder still: every piece has to be listed in a text file with its tile number, palette and conditions.

Here none of that is your problem:

• One picture per thing, with a plain name. Every graphic is its own PNG, whole and assembled: pacman/closed.png, ghosts/blinky/up_1.png, fruit/cherry.png, font/A.png, maze.png. Open it, paint it, save it.
• One click to start. In the launcher, Mods > Dump textures & sounds saves every picture of the game, 4x bigger and in its real colors, into a new mod folder, along with a recording of every sound so you can hear which one is which. It picks the new mod and opens its folder.
• Paint in any program, at any size. Paint, Krita, GIMP, Aseprite, Photoshop... Keep the picture's shape and the game scales it. Paint outside the original outline too (a hat, a cape) and it shows.
• Mirrored pictures are spelled out. The game draws Pac-Man going left and right from one picture, flipped. Those files are named left+right_1.png, so you know a hat painted there shows both ways. Want a different look for one side? Add right_1.png and it's used instead.
• Shared and blank pieces are handled for you. Where the cartridge reuses a piece in several pictures, the game works out which picture is on screen, so each of your files only ever changes itself.
• The HD pack is built for you. When you pick a mod, the game turns your folder of pictures into a full HD pack automatically. You never write a config file. (Existing Mesen HD packs work too.)
• Sounds by name. Drop death.wav or siren.wav into the mod's sounds folder to replace that sound, and add music.wav for background music during play. The game's timing never changes.
• Optional extras for when you want more: a different closed mouth for each direction, separate right-facing pictures, a custom title logo, and a mod.txt with your mod's name, author and description.
• Share it as a folder. A mod is just a folder: zip it to share it, unzip it into mods to install one. Before sharing, delete the pictures and the sounds/originals folder you didn't change: they're the game's own, and anything missing simply stays original for whoever plays your mod.

The full guide, with every file name and size, is in docs/MODDING.md.

Tests

Headless input-script tests live in tests/ (build the game first); see tests/README.md.

Credits

• NESRecomp and recomp-ui by Matthew Stanley (mstan): the recompiler, runtime and launcher this is built on.
• TinyCC by Fabrice Bellard and contributors (LGPL): compiles the game on the player's PC. The release includes its source.
• Pac-Man © Bandai Namco Entertainment. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Bandai Namco. No ROM, graphics or sound from the game is included.
• Developed with AI coding assistance; designed and play-tested by Mr-Shizzy.

License

The code in this repository is MIT licensed (see LICENSE). NESRecomp is under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0, so builds of this game may not be used commercially. recomp-ui is MIT licensed. TinyCC is LGPL 2.1. The release's licenses folder has every license.