When an enemy is eaten, its eyes remain and return to the center box where it is regenerated in its normal color. The enemies turn deep blue, reverse direction and usually move more slowly. Near the corners of the maze are four larger, flashing dots known as power pellets that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the enemies. Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. If an enemy touches Pac-Man, a life is lost and the Pac-Man itself withers and dies. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. Between some stages one of three intermission animations plays. When all pac-dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage. You legend.Features: The player controls Pac-Man through a maze, eating pac-dots (also called pellets). Thanks again to Chad Birch, who has bestowed us with what feels like sacred knowledge to reach a new Pac-Man high score. It makes him deeply unpredictable, and hateful. This gives the Orange Ghost the appearance of a mad man, following the player before dashing off when he appears to get too close. If Pac-Man is more than eight tiles away, he'll head directly toward him, like the red chaser. If Pac-Man is within eight tiles of him, he'll head to his scatter area, in the bottom left area of the maze. Give it a go.ĭon't be fooled by the apparently random movements of this bandit: old Pokey actually has a very sophisticated targeting sequence. This mean's he's constantly in threat of ambushing you in a tight corner - however, it also means that if you're heading straight for him in a head-on game of chicken, the target tile for the Pink Ghost is actually behind him, so he can duck out of the way of Pac-Man at the last second. If Red isn't in sight, this guy will probably dance around the bottom left of the maze.Īn easier ghost to predict, this fleshy nemesis will always aim to reach a spot four tiles ahead of Pac-Man when he enters chase mode (when you get too close, basically). That means if the Red Ghost is closing in on you, this Bashful blue chap will start to aim at tiles immediately ahead of you and your pursuer, making your avenue of escape even trickier to find. This little cockwomble is incredibly tricky to predict, because the direction he's headed is based on two factors: the direction Pac-Man is going, and the direction that the Red Ghost is taking to chase him. Depending on what level you've reached, he can also get a five per cent speed boost at random points in the game. He's always on your tail, targeting the tile that you're currently occupying. The real bastard of the Pac-Man experience, after an initial scatter toward the top right-hand corner of the maze, Blinky will then pursue the player in a ceaseless 'chase'. This is how the ghosts of Pac-Man actually behave. In a brilliant article entitled Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior (admit it, you're already hooked), he outlines that not only do the ghosts follow a set pattern (an opening 'scatter' of predetermined length, followed by a 'chase'), but they actually have an intelligent set of personalities based on rules. Then we stumbled down the rabbit hole that is GameInternals - the work of gamer and programmer Chad Birch. Yet in all those years, we'd never stopped to think just why those ghosts kept up their relentless pursuit. Just about everyone with a set of opposable thumbs and a passing interest in entertainment has played Pac-Man: in the 36 years since its release, the classic arcade game that sees players flee a set of roaming ghosts through the tight twists of a maze has made more than $2.5 billion. Well waka-waka us sideways, we'd never heard of this one before.
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