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What I Learned from Playing 200 Games of Pac-Man


Mr. Brow

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On 12/6/2019 at 2:09 PM, DamonicFury said:

 I'm using what is generally considered to be the easiest 9th key pattern called "Stacked" and it still requires absolute precision when executing a series of pretty rapid corners.  I'm at the point now that I can usually pull that off roughly 90 percent of the time, but when I mess it up even a tiny bit, the pattern goes to hell and it usually takes 2 lives to finish the board.  So even giving myself a full set of five Pac-Men, you can see how a 10 percent failure rate would cut short my game well short of the million point goal. 

Another comment about patterns.

I've been playing the Atgames Namco Bandai Arcade Blast version of Pac-Man.

Just got to the Killscreen - used one savestate at 2.9 million for later use.

 

The thing about the 9th key, and patterns is always have a back up. There are at least 3 places I mess

the pattern up. But I've learned that even those fail in predicatable ways, and you can actually practice

(using savestates) a way to consistently recover. In effect, another series of patterns.

 

Now, you should learn to recover, without having to resort to that also, but thats a much harder strategy.

 

This part I was able do the stacked pattern fine.

0 - 7 minutes, is score flipping at 1,000,000

 

In this part I messed up on the very first pattern, but recovered, and didn't have any problems after that.

8 min - 22 minutes, is score from 2.9 million - Killscreen, and then you see the splitscreen maze.

 

The next game played after, the graphics are corrupt for the fruit and extra men.

 

 

later

-1

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On 12/30/2019 at 1:32 AM, mr_me said:

Yes, this was my attitude in the early 1980s.  There were so many other games I'd rather spend my arcade quarters.  Pacman was the pop-music of video games.

 

-----------

Are there really patterns for Ms pacman, or are they grouping strategies to maximize points?

But just like pop music, pop video games are sometimes more sophisticated and clever than they initially seem.

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On 12/30/2019 at 2:32 AM, mr_me said:

Are there really patterns for Ms pacman, or are they grouping strategies to maximize points?

It's a combination of both. Once you group them, they move in a pattern, so you can maximize points because

you're getting all 4 on each energizer. 

 

here's don hayes doing it on the they meet, and chase boards:

 

 

 

 

 

later on, after board 21, they stop blinking, and you move slow. so again, you put them in one

place, and then do a pattern to clear the boards.

 

later

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  • 3 weeks later...

I really like Pacman as a casual game but it isn't something I'd really get into. I remember playing it when it first appeared in the arcade but it was very good at munching my coins so I tended to stay away from it as I was always on a credit budget.

 

It think the modern retakes on it like Pacman Vs and Pacman CE are superb games - among the best classic updates I can think of. It reveals how great the core game idea is really.

Edited by davyK
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2 hours ago, davyK said:

I really like Pacman as a casual game but it isn't something I'd really get into. I remember playing it when it first appeared in the arcade but it was very good at munching my coins so I tended to stay away from it as I was always on a credit budget.

 

It think the modern retakes on it like Pacman Vs and Pacman CE are superb games - among the best classic updates I can think of. It reveals how great the core game idea is really.

Well, sure pac-man took a lot of quarters at first. But all you had to do is watch one person do a pattern, and that was it.

There were books, magazines, etc with them, so it wasn't really an issue.

 

Even the pac-man fever album, came with a sheet with patterns on it.

 

As far as the modern versions go, they are all just pale comparisons, and usually a lot worse than the original, with too many

powerups, and dumbing down to be interesting.

 

Once you realize CE has time limits, the game has no challenge, because you just end up doing the same patterns as everyone

else. Also, the ghosts have terrible AI compared to the original.  The game also emphasizes camping out to eat ghosts, and eating

ghosts in a chain, which is not something that is needed. Lastly, the games throw tons of men at you, so there is no challenge in

lasting.

 

I do like the extra fruits, the split mazes, and the speed increases though, so it's not all bad.

 

later

-1

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Yknow what I tend to play these days is Pac-Man Plus. For decades I always thought of it as a phoned-in hack of the game for more quarters (which of course it was if we're being honest), but my opinion of the game has changed as of late and I'd rather play it now than regular vanilla Pac-Man. I like the added challenge, and the fruits causing the ghosts to become invisible with added points bonus is a nice feature. I'm not sure why I didn't think much of it before. :lol:

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5 hours ago, NE146 said:

Yknow what I tend to play these days is Pac-Man Plus. For decades I always thought of it as a phoned-in hack of the game for more quarters (which of course it was if we're being honest), but my opinion of the game has changed as of late and I'd rather play it now than regular vanilla Pac-Man. I like the added challenge, and the fruits causing the ghosts to become invisible with added points bonus is a nice feature. I'm not sure why I didn't think much of it before. :lol:

I never played pac-man plus much when it came out. yes, it was different, at first. and with the disappearing ghosts,

and seemingly 'random' elements, it was ok.

 

turns out, it's exactly like pac-man, you can pattern out all the levels, and killscreen it just like pac-man.

i've done it a few times last year, and on the plug and play, and arcade 1up. 

 

 

the fruits and bonuses are a slight change too, and once get to the bread loaf, and the final pancake levels (keys),

 

basically, its pancakes all the way (which makes you actually hungry).

 

later

-1

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On 2/9/2020 at 7:47 PM, negative1 said:

Well, sure pac-man took a lot of quarters at first. But all you had to do is watch one person do a pattern, and that was it.

There were books, magazines, etc with them, so it wasn't really an issue.

 

Even the pac-man fever album, came with a sheet with patterns on it.

 

As far as the modern versions go, they are all just pale comparisons, and usually a lot worse than the original, with too many

powerups, and dumbing down to be interesting.

 

Once you realize CE has time limits, the game has no challenge, because you just end up doing the same patterns as everyone

else. Also, the ghosts have terrible AI compared to the original.  The game also emphasizes camping out to eat ghosts, and eating

ghosts in a chain, which is not something that is needed. Lastly, the games throw tons of men at you, so there is no challenge in

lasting.

 

I do like the extra fruits, the split mazes, and the speed increases though, so it's not all bad.

 

later

 

-1

 

Heh......Think it's safe to say you are WAY into Pacman more than I am.  :)

 

I appreciate the genius of the design but it will always be a casual game for me. I think I might still have a book I got in the 80s that had several patterns - there was one that was designed to be a crowd pleaser as it looked dangerous....will have to see if I still have that book. 

 

I still play emulated Pacman and Ms. Pacman and I like Jr Pacman on the 2600. Pacman CE and the DX version are very entertaining games. Ultimately it is a game prone to pattern play and so any sequel will be too. I don't see that as a criticism of them though. Pacman Vs on Gamecube with 4 players is one of the best local MP games around.

Edited by davyK
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3 hours ago, davyK said:

 

Heh......Think it's safe to say you are WAY into Pacman more than I am.  :)

 

I appreciate the genius of the design but it will always be a casual game for me. I think I might still have a book I got in the 80s that had several patterns - there was one that was designed to be a crowd pleaser as it looked dangerous....will have to see if I still have that book. 

 

I still play emulated Pacman and Ms. Pacman and I like Jr Pacman on the 2600. Pacman CE and the DX version are very entertaining games. Ultimately it is a game prone to pattern play and so any sequel will be too. I don't see that as a criticism of them though. Pacman Vs on Gamecube with 4 players is one of the best local MP games around.

Actually, pretty much any home version, plug n play, non-emulated version, or handheld version of pac-man, clones, ms pac-man

are WAY harder than the arcade versions (barring controls).

 

This is because, those games have no patterns, are completly random, and the ghosts have no discernable behavior that you

can exploit to group. The scores on those are much lower, and game times are much shorter.

 

later

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Interesting. I also like the Megadrive version of Ms. Pacman. It is compromised because it has to scroll the maze slightly but in a way it makes the game feel different in an enjoyable way. That version also has new optional maze layouts and a 2 player simultaneous mode which is fun for casual play.

 

I used to play 2600 Ms. Pacman quite a bit and I've always found that version tough. Jr. Pacman is probably the toughest of the lot though.

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11 hours ago, negative1 said:

Actually, pretty much any home version, plug n play, non-emulated version, or handheld version of pac-man, clones, ms pac-man

are WAY harder than the arcade versions (barring controls).This is because, those games have no patterns, are completly random, and the ghosts have no discernable behavior that you

can exploit to group. 

2600 Ms. Pacman (crazily enough) does have a little of that behavior, which to me was amazing that they had actually done it.  

 

I mean I don't know how technically accurate this is, but it always did feel like the the red and pink ghosts had a little more speed and tended to be more aggressive in chasing you, and the brown ghost tending to wander around on his own. But then again there are sections in the game where you don't know wtf the ghosts are doing :lol: Regardless, it was WAY more than I expected to see on the VCS and was pretty happy when I found it was that way.

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My understanding is that Atari Pacman programmers were specifically instructed to program ghost patterns without randomness.  The reason being that ghosts with random elements would make it ms pacman rather than pacman. The guy that did intellivision pacman said he initially programmed some random ghost behaviour but was asked to take it out after it was reviewed.

Edited by mr_me
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59 minutes ago, mr_me said:

My understanding is that Atari Pacman programmers were specifically instructed to program ghost patterns without randomness.  The reason being that ghosts with random elements would make it ms pacman rather than pacman. The guy that did intellivision pacman said he initially programmed some random ghost behaviour but was asked to take it out after it was reviewed.

The ghosts might be semi-random in atari 2600, as you can still have patterns that avoid them,

the ghosts in ms pac-man aren't random. only 2 of them are for the first few seconds of each level.

after that they are the same as pac-man.

 

 

later

-1

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  • 1 year later...
On 12/4/2019 at 7:09 AM, mr_me said:

As a kid I had very limited funds to spend at an arcade.  Playing pacman seemed like a waste when there were games where I could fly around, shoot things, drive, climb and jump.

I had what might be considered unlimited funds, from time to time. And I still hated the game and avoided it. As like you say, there were more exciting and important games.

 

On 2/9/2020 at 1:47 PM, negative1 said:

Well, sure pac-man took a lot of quarters at first. But all you had to do is watch one person do a pattern, and that was it. There were books, magazines, etc with them, so it wasn't really an issue.

I was too stupid to remember anything beyond 5 seconds of a pattern. Let alone hundreds for hundreds of levels! Definitively not my thing!

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4 hours ago, Keatah said:

I had what might be considered unlimited funds, from time to time. And I still hated the game and avoided it. As like you say, there were more exciting and important games.

 

I was too stupid to remember anything beyond 5 seconds of a pattern. Let alone hundreds for hundreds of levels! Definitively not my thing!

you only needed to learn 2 patterns, and the 2nd one was 75% of the first. not that hard.

--

 

i'm working on my perfect pac-man patterns now, those are harder. will post some.

 

later

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  • 5 weeks later...
got to killscreen on pac man junior
 
 
Notes : wasn't playing seriously, so i messed up many times.
Easy mode lets you go through ghosts. I did play most of the 256 levels for real though.
You can't get off killscreen, because you can't die. So you have to reset.
Game stores high scores though.
 
later
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