Pac-Man Secrets

[doctorclu]

I was checking out this thread introduced to me by a friend on Facebook...

 

http://blog.games.yahoo.com/blog/443-five-things-you-never-knew-about-pac-man

 

Neat article about the origin and secrets of Pac-Man.

 

Into the article it says

"

Each ghost had specific orders

 

When you play the game, it might seem as if the four ghosts are actively chasing you. That's not exactly true. Iwatani intentionally avoided programming them with that purpose, since that would have resulted in Pac-Man zipping around the screen with four ghosts always right behind him.

 

Instead, it's only Blinky, the red ghost, who doggedly pursues you throughout the game. Pinky, the pink ghost (naturally), simply wants to position itself at a point that's 32 pixels in front of Pac-Man's mouth. The blue ghost, Inky, is seeking to position itself at a similar fixed spot. And Clyde, the orange ghost, moves completely at random.

 

Because the player constantly has Pac-Man on the go, however, the ghosts are always changing direction and trying to achieve their goal, which adds to the challenge of the game."

 

 

 

 

I was wondering, did the programmers of the Atari version have the insight to make it do exactly that?

 

 

 

[Bryan]

There are two versions of the Atari AI. The original A8 cartridge is very simple and the ghosts don't really exhibit arcade-like behavior. The 5200 version is much closer and the ghosts have proper pursuit and retreat modes. I believe later disk versions of A8 Pac-Man have the improvements too. There's another thread on this somewhere in the forum.

Edited March 5, 2011 by Bryan

[snicklin]

Clyde won't be moving completely at random as the top players of Pac-Man know "routes" around the screen whereby they cannot get caught. If there was an element of randomness in there, they wouldn't be able to do this.

 

My bet is that Clyde appears to be moving randomly but isn't.

 

I find that you cannot use such routes (patterns) on the A8, or at least not in the versions that I've played. I guess the different resolutions between the arcade and A8 wouldn't make them possible due to timing differences.

[Nukey Shay]

In the original arcade game, none of the monsters moved "randomly". They all had specific "orders" (i.e. targeting positions) in an attempt to better corner the player. Monster behavior is fully explained here.

 

I don't know what formulas home versions of the game used, but it wasn't replicated 100% in any of them (except Opcode's Colecovision version which is spot-on, and Debro's 2600 version which differs in relation to distance between wall sections and sprite movement speed). Otherwise, arcade patterns and strategies would be 100% possible to replicate in those previous home versions. AppleII's Taxman was closer than the rest AFAIK, because the "patterns" I'm familiar with -almost- produce the same effect from start-to-finish.

[+Stephen]

In the original arcade game, none of the monsters moved "randomly". They all had specific "orders" (i.e. targeting positions) in an attempt to better corner the player. Monster behavior is fully explained here.

 

I don't know what formulas home versions of the game used, but it wasn't replicated 100% in any of them (except Opcode's Colecovision version which is spot-on, and Debro's 2600 version which differs in relation to distance between wall sections and sprite movement speed). Otherwise, arcade patterns and strategies would be 100% possible to replicate in those previous home versions. AppleII's Taxman was closer than the rest AFAIK, because the "patterns" I'm familiar with -almost- produce the same effect from start-to-finish.

That PacMan dossier was a great read. There was an insane amount of detail that went into such a "simple" game.

[+David_P]

From reading Landon Dyer's stories about working at Atari, the home computer division didn;t get access to source code or other background information on the games they ported. They got the right to use the name - and then had to learn the game they were porting by playing the arcade version and making it work the same (or close enough).

[snicklin]

I've just read some of the book "Mastering Pac-Man" from Ken Uston and he doesn't really mention ghost characteristics that much.

 

He refers to Clyde (Pokey) as a delight as he is slow and invariably does the wrong thing.

[bfollett]

I didn't hunt for it, but there is another thread somewhere on atariage that links to an external website that goes over just about anything you could ever want to know about pac-man including how each ghost is programmed to move. I think it might have been tied in with a thread about space invaders. I'm pretty sure the threads was from just a few weeks ago, but I don't remember which forum

 

 

Bob

[Charlie_]

One thing I really hate are pac-man versions that don't follow the arcade rules. Like the ghosts never going up the 2 chutes above their home box, or just straight up changing to the opposite direction when they shouldn't.

 

That said the 5200 version, and 5200 version translated to 8-bit are my favorite home system versions. I also like the prototype Atari Pac-man for the ColecoVision, its not bad