Would "Pixels" Lie to Us?

[wiseguyusa]

Were the machines really reprogrammed because of a "Zig Zag" glitch in Galaga, I read about the various bugs that the system had but didn't find anything about the one Adam Sandlers character mentioned.

 

What about the "5 man formation" in Space Invaders? what was that about?

[fiddlepaddle]

I didn't see Pixels, but in SI, if you shoot all the aliens except one complete "stack", and then shoot a missile just in front of that "5 man formation" and eliminate the top aliens first, you can see the bug... as they march across the screen (to the right), they leave a trail behind them.

 

This is because the programmer(s) didn't expect the bigger alien to be the last one standing. When there are only one or two aliens remaining, the aliens are shifted two pixels at a time instead of one so they "move faster" (than when more aliens remain). The problem occurs because the program only wipes out the pixels that would have been used up by the narrower alien.

 

I've deduced this from observation, not from looking at the code, so it might be slightly off.

[wiseguyusa]

Interesting, I didn't know about that until the film. What about the "zig zag bug" in Galaga? It is asserted that machines were updated to fix the glitch later so presumably there are both versions of the ROM available on the interwebs to be found.

Edited October 21, 2015 by wiseguyusa

[NE146]

I don't know if the "5 man formation" is referring to that effect.. when I was a kid in guam back in the 70's we used to call it "the Rainbow".

 

Yeah it was probably a bug, but obviously it got so well known that they made it award a points bonus if you did it in SI Part 2.

 

Regarding Galaga the only huge bug that I know of (and most do too) is the trick to make them stop shooting.. which takes about 20 minutes to kick off. I'm not sure though if I've ever heard of it as a "Zig Zag" bug though..

Edited October 21, 2015 by NE146

[wiseguyusa]

you'll have to see the movie! It's not that bad actually.