Comments on: Anti-Pacman

Anti-Pacman

sveskemus — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:52:53 -0800

Anti-Pacman.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:56:45 -0800

Is Pacman defined by his antiPacman?

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:59:15 -0800

Cute.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:01:13 -0800

Is it just me, or did the ghosts move faster than PacMan in the original? Because here if you have 1 ghost, it's nearly impossible to catch PacMan. Also, your ghosts have 0 AI, so don't rely on them to not walk directly into PacMan's mouth when you're not actively controlling them.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:02:12 -0800

Ow, that's hard.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:02:40 -0800

Harder than it should be. Nice idea though. Maybe an anti-GTA should be next, The Revenge of the Pedestrian...

By: demiurge

demiurge — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:04:45 -0800

Yeah, if it had AI for the ghosts, or even a waypoint system, RTS style, it would be more fun. The way it is now, you just hope the other ghosts do something other than wander off to the other side of the screen.

By: sveskemus

sveskemus — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:06:22 -0800

Is it just me, or did the ghosts move faster than PacMan in the original? Wikipedia sez: The ghosts are bound by the maze in the same way as Pac-Man, but generally move slightly faster than the player, but they slow down when turning corners and slow down significantly while passing through the tunnels on the sides of the maze. (Pac-Man can pass through these tunnels unhindered.) This is counteracted by the fact that Pac-Man slows down slightly while eating dots, so if a ghost is chasing Pac-Man while he is eating a long chain of dots, he will slowly, but surely be caught. The red ghost speeds up after a certain number of dots are eaten (this occurs earlier in higher levels). But I think the game would be too easy if your ghosts were faster than Pac-Man.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:07:28 -0800

They should use the whole keyboard so you could drive multiple ghosts simultaneously.

By: hydrophonic

hydrophonic — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:08:33 -0800

Anti Pac man

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:14:36 -0800

Yes, I too would like to conduct a symphony of ghosts rather than one lame gimpy one.

By: Terminal Verbosity

Terminal Verbosity — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:24:58 -0800

I know it's common to take a phrase out of context and declare it the name of one's next band/blog/sockpuppet, but "symphony of ghosts" is such a great band name, I'm almost compelled to learn an instrument so I can use it. Oh, this game? Way too hard.

By: dirtdirt

dirtdirt — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:30:01 -0800

The red ghost speeds up after a certain number of dots are eaten This state is called "Cruise Elroy", easily the greatest name for anything, ever. (term origin AskeMe'd and unanswered. Although later claimed to be answered in unanswered questions thread, but I don't buy the answer given.)

By: creasy boy

creasy boy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:37:18 -0800

Yeah, it's a good idea but the ghosts are just too counter-productively stupid for it to be fun.

By: rainman84

rainman84 — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:40:14 -0800

I did expect better teammate AI for blinky, pinky, inky, and clyde.

By: cashman

cashman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:47:28 -0800

Clyde sucked. I was Blinky, and I had that pac-punk in the throes of death. He was pacing in the top left corner, like an animal, waiting to be digitally slaughtered. He went right, I blocked his path, he went left, I scurried over and haunted his way out. I just knew as soon as my one remaining ghostly partner got his butt in gear, Paccles was history. But no, dumb Clyde was scooting through the maze like a forlorn teenager with her mom's credit card through a new shopping mall, sliding up and down the main aisles, going in and out of the mwa (magical wrap-around) and coming tantalizingly close to assistance, but all for naught. I turned it off when I realized that maybe clyde was a mole.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:53:26 -0800

When I was a kid I had elaborate daydreams about a two-player head-to-head version of pacman where one person controlled the ghosts. Yet another dream deferred that someone else picked up on.

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:01:22 -0800

See also: Pac Man Vs. for the Nintendo Gamecube and Nintendo DS. One player is Pac, 3 others are ghosts.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:12:52 -0800

This game is interesting and novel. The fact that the ghost AI is awful and you can only control one is the game. It's a little hard, yeah. But once you figure out how to corner Pac with two of your ghosts and slowly tighten the vice and use a third ghost to provide the final lancing, why, it's a pretty clever game.

By: dammitjim

dammitjim — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:16:03 -0800

The way it is now, you just hope the other ghosts do something other than wander off to the other side of the screen. No, you use the number keys (1 - 4) to switch between ghosts, and you corral him. I figured this out after i only had two left, and while it was challenging, I was able to corner that little bastard on the first try.

By: danb

danb — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:36:23 -0800

This state is called "Cruise Elroy" Yeah, that was my old AskMe question. I still have cruiseelroy.net registered. No idea what to do with it yet.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:43:29 -0800

Site fails miserably in Firefox3 beta. I can't even see the game. Stupid bad coding.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:44:29 -0800

I would highly encourage the development of AntiWizardOfWor.

By: dirtdirt

dirtdirt — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 10:50:37 -0800

"Site fails miserably in Firefox3 beta. I can't even see the game. Stupid bad coding." If you want to play the game try clicking the blank black box to activate it. FF 2.0, anyway. This comment is presented in good faith and is in no way intended to defend that coding or usability model.

By: L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:01:55 -0800

I saw the link text, and my first thought was of Pac-Man, running around an empty maze, vomiting dots and half-digested blue ghosts. What's worse is I was kind of disappointed when the actual game didn't match my vision.

By: miss lynnster

miss lynnster — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:24:49 -0800

I got PacMan cornered a bunch of times, but instead of being able to outsmart, overpower and eat him I ended up spending minutes of my life basically chasing him around a table. I realized it wasn't going to get any better, so that's when I got bored and walked away to make coffee.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:28:17 -0800

I agree with the symphony of ghosts idea. I would much rather lose trying to control the four at once, than lose because they keep wandering off when the only pellets left are RIGHT THERE. Stop it! We're trying to trap him! There's nothing interesting in that corner!

By: Authorized User

Authorized User — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:30:01 -0800

This is the first game of Anti-Games series. I hope the next game will be Anti-Pong.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:48:44 -0800

AntiSpaceInvaders I imagine having a certain dreary, fatalistic atmosphere to it. Anti-Breakout could be a sort of Sisyphean exercise in replacing lost bricks.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:59:05 -0800

Seconding "Pac-Man VS". It is a GREAT unsung party game.

By: PontifexPrimus

PontifexPrimus — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:59:25 -0800

Reminds me of Steel Defence Commander, which might be called AntiShootEmUp. And yeah, while the idea of AntiPacMan is cool it sucks if you have only one ghost left - it's basically a stale-mate from then on.

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:03:37 -0800

Dr-Baa typed "Seconding 'Pac-Man VS'. It is a GREAT unsung party game." I've never played it, but every time I'm at a video game store I look at it and debate buying a Game Boy Advance. Pac-Man Vs. really needs to be revived as a Wii download title with Nintendo DS integration.

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:04:41 -0800

By the way, Pac-Man is a jackhole.

By: whir

whir — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:27:28 -0800

Pac-Txt.

By: AndrewStephens

AndrewStephens — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:45:47 -0800

I have nothing to add except to say that the victory screen you see after completing a level may very well contain the greatest work of visual art the human race has yet produced.

By: pupdog

pupdog — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:34:35 -0800

When we get to Anti-Frogger, expect PETA to be very, very pissed...

By: JHarris

JHarris — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:36:38 -0800

Pac-Man Vs. is available on the DS now as part of the recent Namco games collection. danb: Since Shadow speeds up when most of the dots are eaten, and again when they're nearly all gone, and he's the most aggressive monster, I would suggest that cruiseelroy.net be used for a blog about people failing at things at the last second, when victory seemed assured. It'd be a Nelson-laugh kind of thing.... Other antigame ideas.... Anti-Asteroids: Could actually be interesting in that rocks continue in the direction you send them in when you take control, unlike those damn ghosts. Anti-Defender: Destroy the world by skimming the ground, shooting all the humanoids! Although some advanced players in fact do this with most of them. Anti-Tetris: Try to fill up the bin by stacking blocks without making complete lines. But the pieces are -slippery-, and slide around, frequently falling into settled layers. Anti-Zork: The idea is to see how many times you can get "I don't understand 'x'." messages without repeating yourself. Anti-Nethack: You're just a super-powerful wizard lurking about the depths of hell, meditating on your favorite spot, when this git breaks in and cuts off your head! It's payback time for you and your many identical twins.... Anti-Dig-Dug: Your job is to deposit soil in order to trap in the monsters. Where does the soil come from? Well see, Taizo* just ate at P. F. Changs.... *"Taizo Hori" is the name of the Dig-Dug guy. He's the father of the Mr. Driller guy.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:44:11 -0800

Asteroids Revenge is a sort of anti-Asteroids.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:02:51 -0800

Broken link, Nelson.

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:03:53 -0800

Google it and move on, WCityMike.

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:11:17 -0800

Asteroids Revenge Asteroids Revenge II and III

By: Funky Claude

Funky Claude — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:28:28 -0800

Wow what refreshing change from the years of normal pacmaning.

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:04:56 -0800

Asteroids Revenge III is seriously fun for a limited Flash game.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:56:24 -0800

Anti-[generic 80s game]: You control a bottomless pit and wait to devour unlucky players.

By: wastelands

wastelands — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:04:05 -0800

Thanks for the link, Gary. I'm hooked. :-(

By: mulligan

mulligan — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:06:01 -0800

Just a note, you can switch between the ghosts using the 1 2 3 and 4 keys on your keyboard

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:41:09 -0800

L. Fitzgerald Sjoberg: I saw the link text, and my first thought was of Pac-Man, running around an empty maze, vomiting dots and half-digested blue ghosts. What's worse is I was kind of disappointed when the actual game didn't match my vision. JHarris: Anti-Dig-Dug: Your job is to deposit soil in order to trap in the monsters. Where does the soil come from? Well see, Taizo* just ate at P. F. Changs.... So... you just want to see a game run in reverse? This sounds boring. But there's only one way to tell! *fires up MAME*

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 03:08:37 -0800

By: Lord Kinbote

Lord Kinbote — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:00:55 -0800

Once you're down to one ghost, it's impossible to catch Pac Man. He always makes the same avoidance moves, and his reflexes are faster than yours. You can chase him around a block all day and never catch him. Once I was down to one ghost and only one magic pill remaining, I simply squatted on the magic pill and waited. Pac Man wouldn't get too close to me, even though there were maybe a dozen dots between us. He simply paced back and forth, just our of reach, forever. I didn't exactly win the war, but I didn't lose either!