Keatah Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 In my scanned copy of racing the beam, I found that it says on page 74, "Another problem with the visuals is even more subtle. In Iwatani’s original game, each ghost has a different color, name, and behavior. This gives each of the opponents at least some sort of personality. The arcade game prominently introduces the monsters by name—Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde—during attract mode, when the machine is luring players to insert quarters, and Blinky is further fictionalized in the interstitial scenes between levels. No such transfer of characterization was possible on the Atari VCS, in part because the monsters cannot be distinguished from one another." What?? I can clearly see the color differences in a rom from Hunter's collection, and this is the original rom from Atari, apparently. Not a homebrew, not a hack, not a re-write or anything. The colors are subtle, but they are definitely different. So what gives? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
accousticguitar Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 That's not the only error in the book. In more than one place it credits Larry Kaplan with programming Combat when it was Larry Wagner who finished it. Joe Decuir started it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 It's more like an oversight. The description above is correct if they hadn't put "color" in the first sentance. Anything that makes up their actual "personality" (or lack of) is identical between sprites, tho. So it's correct in that context. None have names, and all of them use the same targeting (tho on different frames...which makes them appear to react differently on occasion). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 None have names Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 None have names Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky. Are you sure? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 None have names Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky. Are you sure? I'm exactly 25% sure. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky. Are you sure? I'm exactly 25% sure. After reading this and some more analyzing of the Pac-Man code, we should find out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 (edited) All aboard the sarcasm train Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky." Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky." Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it." Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy." MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!" Cats : "Judges...a ruling." MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!" Edited March 24, 2011 by Nukey Shay 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 All aboard the sarcasm train Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky." Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky." Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it." Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy." MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!" Cats : "Judges...a ruling." MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!" Actually this is right. By using your PacMan8k code I found: All four ghosts directly (with a bit of randomness) hunt Pac-Man like the original Blinky does. So batari is 100% correct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 Make that 25% right (or 20% for the Defender alien). Holmes can't seek on frames it isn't looking. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Make that 25% right (or 20% for the Defender alien). Holmes can't seek on frames it isn't looking. Huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted March 25, 2011 Share Posted March 25, 2011 Because the game only deals with 1 "ghost" per frame - any decisions for it's movement are decided & performed on that frame. That's 1/4 of the time (25%). The arcade machine has no such limitation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feralstorm Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I nominate Linky, Stinky, Rinky, & Dinky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 All aboard the sarcasm train Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky." Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky." Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it." Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy." MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!" Cats : "Judges...a ruling." MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!" That's just begging to be turned into a comic strip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toiletunes Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 They're all kind of blinky if you look closely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syntaxerror999 Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 None have names Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky. More like Flashy, Flickery, Blippy, and Blinky 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibogost Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 That's not the only error in the book. In more than one place it credits Larry Kaplan with programming Combat when it was Larry Wagner who finished it. Joe Decuir started it. This got fixed in the second printing. It was indeed an error. So many Larrys! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ibogost Posted May 17, 2011 Share Posted May 17, 2011 In my scanned copy of racing the beam, I found that it says on page 74, "Another problem with the visuals is even more subtle. In Iwatani’s original game, each ghost has a different color, name, and behavior. This gives each of the opponents at least some sort of personality. The arcade game prominently introduces the monsters by name—Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde—during attract mode, when the machine is luring players to insert quarters, and Blinky is further fictionalized in the interstitial scenes between levels. No such transfer of characterization was possible on the Atari VCS, in part because the monsters cannot be distinguished from one another." What?? I can clearly see the color differences in a rom from Hunter's collection, and this is the original rom from Atari, apparently. Not a homebrew, not a hack, not a re-write or anything. The colors are subtle, but they are definitely different. So what gives? Yeah, ok, but we meant "color, name, and behavior" as a group. I see how it might be confusing, but I'm not sure I'd bother correcting it in a future run. Nick and I will think about it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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