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Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

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81–90 of 90 posts

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#81

The ghosts are unable to reverse direction in Pac-Man. You should have your agent read this: https://pacman.holenet.info/

What does it mean for the ghosts to be "unable" to reverse direction? Isn't that just another way of saying that the original ghost AI was programmed to never choose to do so? There are, in fact, a lot of things they never choose to do. The whole appeal of this idea is to see if you can make better decisions than the original ghost AI.

Ghosts can only change direction at intersections. Otherwise it's just not Pac-Man. It's one of the many many other maze games from this time period. Pac-Man means something just as much as "vintage maze game" means something.

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#82

The ghosts are unable to reverse direction in Pac-Man. You should have your agent read this: https://pacman.holenet.info/

What does it mean for the ghosts to be "unable" to reverse direction? Isn't that just another way of saying that the original ghost AI was programmed to never choose to do so? There are, in fact, a lot of things they never choose to do. The whole appeal of this idea is to see if you can make better decisions than the original ghost AI.

The original ghosts had specifically written patterns: Blinky chases pac man where he is. Pinky targets 4 spaces in front of you. Inky targets based on Blinky and Pac's positions. Clyde sticks to a corner until you get too close.

They only reverse on their own when the mode changes or you get a power pellet, otherwise they have to wait until a corner, otherwise you end up with behavior like you see in this where you both quickly dance back and forth on the otherside of a wall

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#83
This reminded me of a high school thing we had with my colleagues. There was Java game called Pac-Man that had multiplayer built-in that was based on a Bluetooth connection. One of the players was Pac-Man and up to 4 players were ghosts. What a great game. We played it non stop for the whole semester. Even during boring classes.

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#84
post #83

This reminded me of a high school thing we had with my colleagues. There was Java game called Pac-Man that had multiplayer built-in that was based on a Bluetooth connection. One of the players was Pac-Man and up to 4 players were ghosts. What a great game. We played it non stop for the whole semester. Even during boring classes.

[dead]

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#85

This reminds me of a lesser known and underrated game on the GameCube, Pac-Man Vs. (designed by Miyamoto). [1] It worked by having one player use a GameBoy Advance (connected to the GameCube with an adapter) to (privately) operate Pac-Man while the other three players use GameCube controllers to operate ghosts from the TV. Additionally, to give Pac-Man a better shot at winning, the three ghosts play from a third-pers…

I came to mention the same game. I have many fond memories of playing co-op games on the Gamecube with my cousins back in the day (Mario Party, Shrek 2, Lego Star Wars… Pac-Man Fever). But Pac-Man Vs. was possibly my favorite. It had the novelty factor because of the Gameboy link, but it doesn’t feel gimmicky or cheap - it makes a classic game better in such an elegantly simple way.

TIL my favorite Namco game was designed by Miyamato lol. I wonder if the Gameboy link was sort of a pilot program or a seed of the concept of the Wii U. I always wanted to try the Wii U but it never really had a “killer app” and I think the were very few games that took advantage of the gamepad.

It’s a shame that we’ll probably never get a unique console like that again since it was a huge financial failure that almost ruined Nintendo.

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#86

This reminds me of a lesser known and underrated game on the GameCube, Pac-Man Vs. (designed by Miyamoto). [1] It worked by having one player use a GameBoy Advance (connected to the GameCube with an adapter) to (privately) operate Pac-Man while the other three players use GameCube controllers to operate ghosts from the TV. Additionally, to give Pac-Man a better shot at winning, the three ghosts play from a third-pers…

I had a version of this for old Nokia phones (Symbian), playing via blutooth. Really fun

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#87

This reminds me of a lesser known and underrated game on the GameCube, Pac-Man Vs. (designed by Miyamoto). [1] It worked by having one player use a GameBoy Advance (connected to the GameCube with an adapter) to (privately) operate Pac-Man while the other three players use GameCube controllers to operate ghosts from the TV. Additionally, to give Pac-Man a better shot at winning, the three ghosts play from a third-pers…

Pac-Man Vs. is also available on the Switch.

Re: Pac-Man, but you're the ghost

#90
Pac-Man: Chaos version

One person plays pac-man

Two people play the 4 ghosts, 1 stick for each ghost on a dual stick controller.

One person plays the floor, and can rotate the game world clockwise or counter-clockwise.

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