Someone got Perfect Pacman Score????
Kirk Is
claims some guy playing Pacman got "3,333,360 points -- the maximum
possible points allowed by the game"- does this mean he got every ghost
with every powerpill on every board, up to board 256 where the game
crashes? Considering even a few boards into it, powerpills last just long
enough to change the direction of the ghosts, but are *theoretically*
eatable... I wonder how they calculated this as a "perfect" score- so much
so that when he got 3,333,290, they knew he missed it by 70. It's not
like 3,333,360 (or even 333,336) is near any power of two.
--
Kirk Israel - kis...@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com
"Windows 95, 98..what do they do after that? Suddenly my faith in
Microsoft's handle on the millenium bug is diminished"--D.Murray
John Giors
The article appears to be genuine.
Unfortunately, I don't remember all of the scoring, but, as I recall, the
ghosts were worth an increasing number of points if eaten in sequence (200,
400, 800, 1600 points). Just counting for ghosts, this is the score for 256
levels (4 powerpills on each level):
256 * 4 * (200 + 400 + 800 + 1600) = 1024 * (3000) = 3,072,000
That leaves a grand total of 261,360 points unaccounted for, so the score of
3,333,360 doesn't seem unreasonable.
I didn't know that each fruit can only be eaten once. If fruits
"regenerate", it would be impossible to arrive at a true maximum score.
You are right that it seems very incredible that anyone could actually catch
all four ghosts every time. Geesh, we thought we were the game addicts!
John Giors
Software Engineer, Eagle Interactive
----
"A ship in harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are built for."
-- John A. Shedd
>>>>Kirk Is wrote in message <7lt4od$bp7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>...
Erik Mooney
>possible points allowed by the game"- does this mean he got every ghost
>with every powerpill on every board, up to board 256 where the game
>crashes? Considering even a few boards into it, powerpills last just long
>enough to change the direction of the ghosts, but are *theoretically*
>eatable... I wonder how they calculated this as a "perfect" score- so much
>so that when he got 3,333,290, they knew he missed it by 70. It's not
>like 3,333,360 (or even 333,336) is near any power of two.
Er, for that matter, how exactly do you miss getting 70 points? There's
nothing in the game that scores exactly 70 points, except for 7 dots or an
energizer + 2 dots... but you can't very well skip any of those...
Kirk Is
> Er, for that matter, how exactly do you miss getting 70 points? There's
> nothing in the game that scores exactly 70 points, except for 7 dots or an
> energizer + 2 dots... but you can't very well skip any of those...
Sorry, it was 90 points.
Maybe his strategy was to clear everything except an energizer, and then
he got killed? The article
http://www.twingalaxies.com/PR-Pac-Man_World_Record.html
claimed to get the prefect score you had to do it on one man.
I'm still not sure I believe it's physically possible, just in terms of
ghosts changing back from blue.
--
Kirk Israel - kis...@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com
"The death of God left the angels in very strange position."
--Lions Unix Documentation
Jeff Williams
"John Giors" <jgi...@eagle-interactive.com> wrote:
> You are right that it seems very incredible that anyone could
actually catch
> all four ghosts every time. Geesh, we thought we were the game
addicts!
I would think if you know all the patterns to each board, you'd have
the ghosts lined up perfectly in a cluster right next to the energizer
every time. It's been a while since I saw anyone really good play Pac
Man, but I do remember that the better players knew how to do this.
--
// Jeff Williams
// bassc...@my-dejanews.com
// http://www.geocities.com/soho/2024
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
scottith
mind getting a copy of that...
Cadimus
> In article <3783...@news1.jps.net>,
> "John Giors" <jgi...@eagle-interactive.com> wrote:
> > You are right that it seems very incredible that anyone could
> actually catch
> > all four ghosts every time. Geesh, we thought we were the game
> addicts!
>
> I would think if you know all the patterns to each board, you'd have
> the ghosts lined up perfectly in a cluster right next to the energizer
> every time. It's been a while since I saw anyone really good play Pac
> Man, but I do remember that the better players knew how to do this.
Not sure about you but I dusted off an ancient book titled "How to score
over 1,000,000 on Pac Man" Maybe I should try and see if I can reach or
break the theorical score limit.
Kirk Is
Wired News had an article on the Pacman score with the following quote:
"He said the record-breaking game's first 20 screens were tense and
grueling, while the remaining 236 screens -- all identical -- strained his
endurance"
So he just had to memorize 21 patterns. I wonder how long each of the 236
screens took, waiting around til the opportunity to nab all 4 ghosts
arose?
The wired article is
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/20607.html
--
Kirk Israel - kis...@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com
I feel like a million tonight, but one at a time. --Mae West
Lee Seitz
>
>Unfortunately, I don't remember all of the scoring, but, as I recall, the
>ghosts were worth an increasing number of points if eaten in sequence (200,
>400, 800, 1600 points). Just counting for ghosts, this is the score for 256
>levels (4 powerpills on each level):
>
>256 * 4 * (200 + 400 + 800 + 1600) = 1024 * (3000) = 3,072,000
>
>That leaves a grand total of 261,360 points unaccounted for, so the score of
>3,333,360 doesn't seem unreasonable.
*But*, at the high levels (7th or 3rd key and above, depending on the
chip in the machine) the ghost don't change at all! There are 240
dots (10 pts. each) and 4 engergizers (50 pts. each) on each board.
>I didn't know that each fruit can only be eaten once. If fruits
>"regenerate", it would be impossible to arrive at a true maximum score.
The fruits appear twice on each screen, so there is a maximum. Here's
what I get:
256 * (240 * 10) + (dots)
256 * (4 * 50) + (energizers)
17 * (4 * 3000) + (monsters)
2*100 + 2*300 + 4*500 + 4*700 + 4*1000 + 4*2000 + 4*3000 +
(256 - 12) * (2 * 5000) (fruits) =
614,400 + 51,200 + 204,000 + 29,600 + 2,440,000 = 3,339,200
That's for an original (slow) machine. The newer (faster) version
"skips" some boards. (That is, the fruits are all there, but the
pattern required and duration of the monsters change map to "higher"
boards.) This gives only 14 boards where the monsters change, so
substituting that gives:
14 * (4 * 3000) = 168,000
614,400 + 51,200 + 168,000 + 29,600 + 2,440,000 = 3,303,200
Neither of which matches the figure given in the press release. So
what am I doing wrong??? (My info on whether the monsters change or
not and fruit values comes from the revised edition of _Master
Pac-Man_ by Ken Uston.)
--
Lee K. Seitz * lks...@hiwaay.net * http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/
Wanted: Pac-Man tie and Rom, Spaceknight weapons.
Visit the Classic Video Games Nexus for all your classic link & news needs!
http://start.at/cvgnexus
J.D. Forinash
Lee Seitz <lks...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>The fruits appear twice on each screen, so there is a maximum. Here's
>what I get:
>
>256 * (240 * 10) + (dots)
>256 * (4 * 50) + (energizers)
> 17 * (4 * 3000) + (monsters)
>2*100 + 2*300 + 4*500 + 4*700 + 4*1000 + 4*2000 + 4*3000 +
>(256 - 12) * (2 * 5000) (fruits) =
>
>614,400 + 51,200 + 204,000 + 29,600 + 2,440,000 = 3,339,200
...which puts you 5,840 over what they think.
240 for the fact that you only get 255 boards, not 256
200 for the energizers you don't get on the 256th board,
and
10,000 for the fruits you didn't get.
...which puts us 4,600 points under. :-/
Closer, but we're still off by something.
-F
--
J.D. Forinash ,-.
Georgia Tech College of Computing CNS ( <
211 CCB; (404)-385-0391 `-'
The more you learn, the better your luck gets.
Erik Mooney
>is a letter from a Richard Chau noting the split-screen that occurs on the
>256th board, and he says:
>
>"After cleaning up the first board [the 256th board], the second board
>is perfectly normal."
>
>In the same issue in the Technocracy section (p. 70), there is a picture of
>the 256th board, general skepticism that the board can be cleared and the
>statement:
Anyone recall the old videogame book, circa 1983, "Defending the Galaxy" ?
Much to my surprise, I found a year or so ago that my library still had
its old copy. The book has a little blurb on the Pac-man split screen,
with a picture. It mentioned how someone finally got through to the
"other side" after the 256th board, and said something about how the
fruits and monsters reset back to as if it were board 1, but the monsters
didn't turn blue. It also said there were at least two more split
screens, one somewhere in the high 300s (it said exactly where, I forget)
and there was another in the 480's that varied. I'll have to see if the
book is still there next time I have a chance (probably next weekend)
johnso...@osu.edu
that allows you to save your game? If you die or miss a point on a
board, restore...Keep doing it until you get to the end. Granted, it'd
take more than six hours, but as long as you spread it over a coupla
days, a few hours a day, you should be fine. :)
Lee Seitz
J.D. Forinash <fox...@cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>
>In article <ufa7EsYy#GA....@pet.hiwaay.net>,
>Lee Seitz <lks...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>>
>>614,400 + 51,200 + 204,000 + 29,600 + 2,440,000 = 3,339,200
>
Well, I got confused on that point. I think I saw some reference in
this thread to 256 boards. I thought I'd heard 255 before, but then I
figured, maybe the first (cherry) board in Pac-Man is 0x00, not 0x01,
so there were 256 boards before it went screwy (0xFF + 1). Of course,
thinking about that now, if that were tha case you'd probably just go
back to the first board instead of the "split board," wouldn't you?
Lee Seitz
J.D. Forinash <fox...@cc.gatech.edu> wrote:
>In article <ufa7EsYy#GA....@pet.hiwaay.net>,
>Lee Seitz <lks...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>>what I get:
>>
>>256 * (240 * 10) + (dots)
>>256 * (4 * 50) + (energizers)
>> 17 * (4 * 3000) + (monsters)
>>2*100 + 2*300 + 4*500 + 4*700 + 4*1000 + 4*2000 + 4*3000 +
>>(256 - 12) * (2 * 5000) (fruits) =
>>
>
>
>and
>
>10,000 for the fruits you didn't get.
>
>...which puts us 4,600 points under. :-/
>
>Closer, but we're still off by something.
Okay, let's try this again. Looking at the split screen photo at
VGR's web site (http://www.clark.net/pub/vgr/pics/pac-man.gif), and
comparing to a normal board, it looks like there's 104 dots and two
engergizers. So...
255 * (240 * 10) + (104 * 10) (dots)
255 * (4 * 50) + (2 * 50) (energizers)
17 * (4 * 3000) + (monsters)
2*100 + 2*300 + 4*500 + 4*700 + 4*1000 + 4*2000 + 4*3000 +
(255 - 12) * (2 * 5000) (fruits) =
612,000 + 1040 + 51,000 + 100 + 204,000 + 2,459,600 = 3,327,740
Hmmm, now I'm 5,620 under. Assuming it appears okay and is edible, I
believe 102 dots will only yield one key (5000 pts.), which still
leaves me 620 points off.
Heck, I think I'll just ask Mr. Day. I'll let y'all know what he
says.
Lee Seitz
Lee Seitz <lks...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>
>Okay, let's try this again. Looking at the split screen photo at
>VGR's web site (http://www.clark.net/pub/vgr/pics/pac-man.gif), and
>comparing to a normal board, it looks like there's 104 dots and two
>engergizers. So...
>612,000 + 1040 + 51,000 + 100 + 204,000 + 2,459,600 = 3,327,740
>
>Hmmm, now I'm 5,620 under. Assuming it appears okay and is edible, I
>believe 102 dots will only yield one key (5000 pts.), which still
>leaves me 620 points off.
>
>Heck, I think I'll just ask Mr. Day. I'll let y'all know what he
>says.
(Cross-posted to r.g.v.a.c because of similar threads there.)
Well, Walter Day called me and conferenced in Billy Mitchell earlier
this evening. (Surprised the heck out of me! He sent a brief e-mail
earlier, but I was in a hurry and only half read it.) I'm not at
liberty to reveal everything we discussed, but here's what I can tell
you.
First, after the call, it occurred to me I could use MAME's cheat
function to go straight to the split screen. (Why didn't we think of
this before???) I think I miscounted the dots on the good half.
There seem to be 112. Anyway, the key is that there are also dots on
the bad half. (They're hard to see on the photo I referenced earlier
because it's so small.) And they reset each time you die! So a
perfect score includes eating these dots and dying, then repeat.
A perfect game also sets the number of lives to maximum. Since the
game has a finite end, it was agreed among the top players that this
should be done to allow the absolute maximum score to be achieved.
At this point I'm sick of trying to do the math, so I'm simply going
to take Walter & Billy at their word that 3,333,360 is the max.
possible score. I have no reason not to believe them.
Some other threads referenced classic magazines that gave higher
scores and ways to get past the split screen. Quite simply, Walter
didn't believe back then that people would lie about a video game
score. In his defense, most players had signed documents from their
local arcade saying they achieved the score they submitted.
Apparently the arcade's simply went along with the lying claimants,
either knowingly or unknowingly. After relating all this, Walter
said, "I hope I'm not wrong now, but I was definitely wrong then." He
seems to have enough different people who should know all telling him
the same thing to be right this time. Thanks to him and Billy for
taking the time to talk to me.
The Maverick
>
> Some other threads referenced classic magazines that gave higher
> scores and ways to get past the split screen. Quite simply, Walter
> didn't believe back then that people would lie about a video game
> score. In his defense, most players had signed documents from their
> local arcade saying they achieved the score they submitted.
> Apparently the arcade's simply went along with the lying claimants,
> either knowingly or unknowingly.
However, with all the Pac Man "experts" running around in the old days,
you would think that someone already would have posted a max score back
then as well...
the Mav
--
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http://www.volcano.net/~themaverick
The Classic Microgames Museum
http://www.angelfire.com/ca/themav/micind.html
The Macho Women with Guns Homage Page
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Kirk Is
> Lee Seitz wrote:
> >
> > Some other threads referenced classic magazines that gave higher
> > scores and ways to get past the split screen. Quite simply, Walter
> > didn't believe back then that people would lie about a video game
> > score. In his defense, most players had signed documents from their
> > local arcade saying they achieved the score they submitted.
> > Apparently the arcade's simply went along with the lying claimants,
> > either knowingly or unknowingly.
> However, with all the Pac Man "experts" running around in the old days,
> you would think that someone already would have posted a max score back
> then as well...
Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
pill??
--
Kirk Israel - kis...@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com
"We are animals. Our first instinct when we see an object of beauty
is to eat it." --Douglas Coupland, "Shampoo Planet"
Lee Seitz
Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>
>Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
>pill??
When they actually change, yes.
Lee Seitz
Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>
>Lee Seitz (lks...@fly.hiwaay.net) wrote:
>> In article <7miefj$cn7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>,
>> Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> >Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
>> >pill??
>
>> When they actually change, yes.
>
>where you hit the powerpill right as the ghost hit it, and only in that
>case could you eat the ghost.
No, I'm pretty sure they don't change at all. It's certainly not
figured in the 3,333,360 figure. If I modified my previous
calculations for even eating one monster four times on 220+ boards, it
would be over that figure by almost 200,000 points.
Kirk Is
> In article <7miefj$cn7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>,
> Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
> >
> >Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
> >pill??
> When they actually change, yes.
Aha. But could they change for an instant? One could imagine a situation
where you hit the powerpill right as the ghost hit it, and only in that
case could you eat the ghost.
Just a thought.
--
Kirk Israel - kis...@cs.tufts.edu - http://www.alienbill.com
"Anything worth doing well is worth doing slowly." --Gypsy Rose Lee
russ juckes
scribed:
>In article <7miefj$cn7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>,
>Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>>
>>Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
>>pill??
>
>When they actually change, yes.
I vented my spleen about this when it was first posted, but a couple
of things have occured to me since - where was it, and where was the
webpage with it - anybody remember?
Outta here,
Russ Juckes - Atari Jaguar, Jamma Cabinet & Sinclair ZX Spectrum Owner
--
"Do you *really* want to play?" http://www.raiden.demon.co.uk
Gaymond Lee
juckes) wrote:
>On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 13:47:15 -0500, lks...@fly.hiwaay.net (Lee Seitz)
>scribed:
>
>>In article <7miefj$cn7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>,
>>Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
>>>pill??
>>
>>When they actually change, yes.
>
>I vented my spleen about this when it was first posted, but a couple
>of things have occured to me since - where was it, and where was the
>webpage with it - anybody remember?
>
>
>Outta here,
I wish they would elaborate as to whether or not it includes when they
flash/change for a second or two or only when they turn solid blue.
Gaymond Lee
Dane L. Galden
"Florida restaurant owner scores the first perfect game of Pac-Man since it was invented 19
years ago; Billy Mithcell scored 3,333,360 in 6 hour game getting every dot, energizer, ghost
and fruit on the 256 boards."
I'm filled with comments, but may just let the story speak for itself. Of course, I'm surprised
if this is the first perfect game. Can anyone else confirm *anything* about this story.
Another amusing part is that this was one of only two U.S. stories running this morning: the
other was a Washington Post quoted story about the federal gov't revoking the license of a gun
wholesaler...
In article <378f85f9...@news.earthlink.net>,
Anthony Palmer
Excuse me since I'm late coming into this thread, but I found this
article in Time Magazine (7-19-99 issue, page 21). I don't know if
this has been posted already, but I do remember someone saying CNN
ignored it. But seeing that CNN and Time are affiliated, I wasn't sure
if anybody saw this:
"STEP ASIDE, PAC-MAN, THERE'S A NEW CHOMPION:
Forget hotdogs and burgers, over the Fourth of July weekend, Billy
Mitchell, 33, ate every dot,energizer and blue ghost on his way to
scoring the world's first Pac-Man perfect game. The six hour feat was
witnessed by Twin Galaxies, which publishes a video-games record book.
After completing all 256 levels, Mitchell, a Florida hot-sauce
manufacturer who also holds the world's Donkey Kong record, promptly
announced his retirement from Pac-Man competition. Junior Pac-Man,
however, is another story."
-Anthony Palmer
Erik Mooney
>
>where you hit the powerpill right as the ghost hit it, and only in that
>case could you eat the ghost.
So, someone slow down MAME to one frame per second, and try it out :) (my
guess: no, the monsters aren't eatable)
Lee Seitz
Gaymond Lee <gay...@cari.net> wrote:
>>On Thu, 15 Jul 1999 13:47:15 -0500, lks...@fly.hiwaay.net (Lee Seitz)
>>scribed:
>>
>>>In article <7miefj$cn7$1...@news3.tufts.edu>,
>>>Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Have we confirmed that he manages to eat all four ghosts with every power
>>>>pill??
>>>
>>>When they actually change, yes.
>I wish they would elaborate as to whether or not it includes when they
>flash/change for a second or two or only when they turn solid blue.
>Gaymond Lee
Yes, he did. Here's a message I just got directly from Walter Day:
| Billy got every blue man - even the one's that last less than two
| seconds. He manipulates them into a group and then eats them when
| they are virtually on top of the energizer. He will be demoing this
| at the CGE'99 show.
Basically, when they say it was a perfect game, they literally mean
perfect!
st...@erols.com
well if you figure that the one ghost is programmed to always try to get
3 spaces in front of pac man... that one always follows him... the other
two are random... you could conceivably maniplulate them into a group...
it may take a while to learn how... but it can be done...
Philip
David Choi - CNED/P96
yes, this can be done. However it cannot be done in a minute. I have
seen how this is done. A player will "play around" with the monsters
for many minutes (5 ~ 10 minutes is not uncommon) just to group them
all together for 1 energizer pellet.
Multiply this by 4 energizers per round and all the rounds in which
the energizers are effective (blue time) and you can begin to see
why a perfect game can take close to half a day to accomplish.
I have no patience to pull fake-outs for twenty minutes per round
so I will never acheive a perfect score and neither will 99.99%
of all other players, but so what?
DCI #3
st...@erols.com wrote: