Comments on: Waka-waka-waka

Waka-waka-waka

JHarris — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:15:34 -0800

The Pac-Man Dossier is an extremely detailed description of the game logic of arcade Pac-Man. It explains why, once in a while, monsters will harmlessly pass through Pac-Man. It explains why they won't go up through the tunnels above the monster box. It explains why occasionally, after losing a life, monsters will refuse to leave the box. It explains when and why Blinky becomes Cruise Elroy, and why sometimes Pinky gets confused and loses track of Pac-Man. It even explains, as far as the player can continue to play, what to do on the kill screen. It is awesome. Previously....

By: roll truck roll

roll truck roll — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:36:37 -0800

1. Awesome. 2. Didn't Billy Mitchell offer a million dollars to anyone who could figure out how to play through the kill screen?

By: barnacles

barnacles — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:37:51 -0800

Whoa, this is awesome! And, roll truck roll, from the very end of the dossier:

For decades, Pac-Man enthusiasts worldwide have heard the whispers about a "secret trick" allowing a player to get past level 256 and continue playing without using the aforementioned rack test. Several players have boasted having acquired this holy grail of Pac-Man knowledge over the years, but no one has been able to make good on their claims by actually proving it. This topic became so hotly debated in the upper echelons of the arcade gaming community that Billy Mitchell—who was convinced it was impossible—offered a $100,000 cash prize to the first player to prove they could legitimately get past level 256, leaving the challenge open for a full year. The prize money went unclaimed. In spite of the evidence against there being a way to get past level 256, rumors still persist and can occasionally be found in classic gaming forums online, yet no one has been able to back up their words with indisputable proof. It's hard to imagine why anyone who could legitimately get past the level did not collect Mr. Mitchell's prize money to be sure. Still the occasional whispers can be heard. Perhaps it is simply natural for people to want to believe in the possibility as opposed to not—like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Then again, maybe there is some middle-aged Pac-Man junkie out there who is withholding secrets to a 30 year-old amusement device for his or her own unfathomable reasons. Stranger things have happened. You be the judge.

By: jake

jake — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:47:13 -0800

This is extremely cool. I love this for the same reason I love tool-assisted speedruns -- all the programming hacks and compromises and workarounds, laid bare. It's fun to see the reactions of oldschool developers when they find out that future nerds have spent hundreds of hours reverse-engineering stuff they haven't even thought about in decades. This interview with the composer of NES Contra is particularly amazing.

By: DU

DU — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:48:23 -0800

When I was a kid, some time in the early-to-mid 80s, I had a great idea for a video game. I was going to clean. up. It was going to be exactly like Pac-Man but with a different maze. Incredible, I know. I should have first warned you to sit down.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:51:51 -0800

Yes. This is indeed awesome.

By: danb

danb — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:01:16 -0800

I was wondering why all these people suddenly started Googling for Cruise Elroy.

By: tellurian

tellurian — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:02:45 -0800

Scarily impressive! As is this.

By: blenderfish

blenderfish — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:13:00 -0800

all the programming hacks and compromises and workarounds, laid bare. It's fun to see the reactions of oldschool developers when they find out that future nerds have spent hundreds of hours reverse-engineering stuff they haven't even thought about in decades. It was only recently, for example, that the "NARPASSWORD" cheat code for Metroid NES was discovered, through reverse engineering of the code. All I had in my day was JUSTIN BAILEY. Damn kids and their new fangled 6502 disassemblers.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:25:42 -0800

the madness of mission 6. A better adaptation than the forthcoming Watchmen flick, I'll, uh, warrant. Er, I mean speculate.

By: Joey Michaels

Joey Michaels — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 18:54:48 -0800

Where was this 28 years ago when I really needed it?

By: exogenous

exogenous — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00:30 -0800

Today metafilter provided a nice encapsulation of a computerized youth in three posts: first the Commodore 64 post, then Street Fighter, now this Pac-Man post.

By: humannaire

humannaire — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:09:02 -0800

The movie adaptation better kick ass!

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:09:06 -0800

Although Pac-Man was arguably more popular because of the cute graphics, the ghost AI was actually really impressive for such an early game. It's one of the few games that are extremely hard to replicate in fan-made clones, because inevitably the remakes never capture the details that make the original so complex. And I still refuse to acknowledge that the Atari 2600 version exists at all.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:32:13 -0800

Wakka. Wakka. Wakka.. Wakka. Wakka. DOOM

By: localroger

localroger — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:37:14 -0800

And here is the Z80 assembly code demonstrating why the ghosts fuck up. Seriously, seriously awesome.

By: arcanecrowbar

arcanecrowbar — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:25:00 -0800

Awesome webpage, pulled me right in even though some of the logic was over my head. and now the "Cruise Elroy" enigma will haunt me forever . . . pun not intended.

By: zap rowsdower

zap rowsdower — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:43:12 -0800

obligatory.

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:50:22 -0800

I'm really pissed that I only just heard about this t-shirt a couple of days ago.

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:39:10 -0800

middlecalsstool, it's been reprinted a couple of times. however, until they re-up, allow me to say gloatingly: I have one! I'm sure that the arts funding in the stim-pill bill will fund Madness of Mission Six tees for all.

By: Chan

Chan — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:44:16 -0800

And I thought the amount of time I spent playing and studying Counter-Strike was nerdy...now I feel better about myself. Awesome post.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:20:52 -0800

Is this something I'd have to have spent time in an arcade in the 1980's to understand? Awww, I'm just otoboke.

By: orme

orme — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:02:21 -0800

I refuse to read any of this. As far as I am concerned, Pac-Man and the ghosts are controlled by a life force which we can never hope to understand.

By: Scattercat

Scattercat — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:30:38 -0800

This sort of thing is fascinating to me. It is a world which is completely and forever out of my grasp. I am amazed at the care and attention to detail on all sides of this, and sometimes I regret my pathetic math skills and general impatience with lists and numbers.

By: zengargoyle

zengargoyle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:32:03 -0800

Strangely, I'm actually wearing a Pac-Man shirt at this very moment.

By: Kwine

Kwine — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:35:45 -0800

What a fantastic post. This is what the internet is for.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:41:07 -0800

Truly incredible find!

By: JHarris

JHarris — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:55:58 -0800

The major realization here, I think, is that while the ghosts and Pac-Man appear to be moving smoothly through the level, behind the scenes they actually jerk along in eight pixel units, tied to the hardware tile system. It's really amazing that this fact is so little-known, as a lot of Pac-Man's design decisions are based off of it. It's effectively a spriteless game! It greatly reduces the complexity of the design, but also means Pac-Man can move through monsters occasionally. If you've ever wondered why sometimes a monster will kill Pac-Man on the merest touch, yet other times must completely engulf him, here's your answer. Also, the bug in Pinky's chase algorithm that causes it to home in on Pac-Man incorrectly when he's facing up seems like it must have some clever applications.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:56:55 -0800

Really great reading! Thanks so much for the post, JHarris!

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:45:23 -0800

this is the best fpp ever.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:41:59 -0800

Anybody want to update the Wikipedia article for Pac-Man? It currently states: "However, while players generally agree that the behaviors of each ghost add depth and challenge to the game, no consensus has been reached on exactly how to describe those behaviors." This article seems to describe the ghosts' behaviours pretty exactly.

By: mysterpigg

mysterpigg — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:43:13 -0800

Funny, I just found the Dossier a couple weeks ago myself, while doing research on the ghost AI. I found it to be by far the most informative Pac-Man resource I have seen. One could make a great clone using just this text and nothing else.

By: ejc123

ejc123 — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 09:47:29 -0800

After years of telling my kids about the thrill of hours of pacman (and the sore arm) they finally decided to plug a PacMan cartridge into the Nintendo. They loved it. Unfortunately, age had taken a toll on me. In my prime, I could go 30 minutes on a quarter.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:41:21 -0800

ejc123, there are aspects of arcade Pac-Man, this article reveals, that are obscure enough that they likely aren't emulated properly. In fact, the directions that monsters go when they are vulnerable is pseudo-random and routed through random memory addresses, so it's impossible to recreate Pac-Man accurately without the memory map of the arcade game at hand, and if you've got than then you might as well emulate it anyway! I guess what I'm saying is: MAME rocks.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:42:26 -0800

(Er, lost my point again...) So, the game you're playing on the NES is not the same as the arcade game. Which could well explain your underperformance.

By: ObscureReferenceMan

ObscureReferenceMan — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:10:09 -0800

Very cool! And thank you for resurrecting (and putting to rest) a memory I had of playing, and having Pacman pass right through Blinky!!! No one believed me. Vindication is mine.