Pac-Man: Cherry Pattern with Ghost Pass-Thru Bug

[GCNRulz]

If you can pass through a regular ghost, then, in theory, can you pass through a ghost in frightened mode?

[jameypittman]

@GCNRulz - In theory, yes. In actual practice: I've never seen it happen (or heard of it happening). I suspect this has to do with the fact the ghosts move much slower when frightened thereby by reducing/eliminating the potential to "swap" tiles with Pac-Man. --Jamey

[GCNRulz]

@jameypittman It is possible. I just saw a video with this happening. Watch Let's Play Pacman! Google Style! by Popoman100 1:50-2:01 if you don't believe me.

[jameypittman]

@GCNRulz - It's not a matter of me believing you regarding what can be done in Google's Pac-Man clone. My comment/response was referring to the game behavior of the original, arcade hardware; not the Google web-game. I don't believe there's any documented case of Pac-Man passing through a ghost in frightened mode in the real deal (i.e., not some web-based simulation). As I've been playing the true arcade version for over 30 years, I'm fairly confident I would have witnessed it by now. :)

[GCNRulz]

@jameypittman Well, someone should test if it is possible, and it isn't going to be me. :P

[jorgefl1965]

@jameypittman it does happen and it SUCKS

[jameypittman]

@jorgefl1965 - You've seen this happen on the original arcade Pac-Man (or original romset in MAME for that matter)? I'd be excited to see a video or .INP file of that as I have never seen that happen. And yes, it would definitely suck.

[BannanaOfDoom]

Hey, i tryed getting the ROM for Pacman, for installing on MAME, i got it, then i tryed to run it, it said it failed and i tryed with the files just being there in the rom folder, and as a folder, and as a zip.. How can i fix this?

[DopefishJustin]

@BannanaOfDoom You need the parent set puckman.zip as well as pacman.zip. Put both in the roms/ subfolder of the MAME folder.

[bonceypineapple20]

I Have Been Reading The Article Myself Too As I Am Making My Own Pac Man Game In C++ Called PC Man

[ClintJCL]

I'm surprised there's not a lot of douchey comments saying this is fake :)

[9thKeyPattern]

this happened to me the other day but with the orange ghost.. thats how i found this video.

[pacboy24]

its good game play, but not much of a pattern. its more of just free play. patters dont involve moving pacman the other way but just going without stopping.

[jamescahill]

sweet awesomesauce

[WelshGreen8225]

that was really good. imma try that. hah

[rockhero1995]

FREAKING AWESOME!!!

[RoxStarDon]

Damn that was fast.

[conan900]

Wow. That was some beautiful gaming right there. Perfect.

[multibuypie]

how did you go through the red ghost at 41 seconds

[jameypittman]

Go to The Pac-Man Dossier web site (the link is in video info) and look for the section in Chapter 3 entitled 'Just Passing Through' -- it explains why Pac-Man can occasionally pass through a ghost.

[metal1531]

Its a programming glitch that was never caught when they made the game.

[lizardizzle]

@jameypittman I've been reading through this site and have just reached this video where it's embetted. Very interesting stuff, mate!

[jameypittman]

@lizardizzle - glad you are enjoying the article!

[lizardizzle]

@lizardizzle speaking of which, I don't know if you've seen this video, but from what I've learned from your article, there isn't much of a reason why this works. it's a way that you can position yourself that the ghosts cannot find you.

just put this after the "/" after youtube.com

watch?v=X0GNITlhjdg&NR=1

[jameypittman]

@lizardizzle - oh i'm very aware of the "hiding spot" where the ghosts never find you and, if you read Chapter 4 of the Pac-Man Dossier it will explain the pathfinding logic for each ghost. Their simple A.I. routines coupled with the fact they cannot go "up" certain passages creates this oddity where they can't get to you. Basically, it's a flaw in the programmer's design but certainly a neat one!

[lizardizzle]

@jameypittman aha! I figured it out. :3

Blinky will always go down right after the area below pac-man (going up is forbidden) and once it reaches the right/down branch after that, it'll go down because the target (pac-man) is the same distance either way, so it goes by up,left,DOWN,right. Then it repeats that forever.

Plinky: since pac-man will be facing up, the target will be on the left/lower side of the monster pen, so Inky isn't really a threat. It'll go in circles forever.

[lizardizzle]

@jameypittman Continueing. I ran out of space

Inky: since the target is two up and to the left and Blinky is allways below Pac-man, Inky's target is always above pacman either near where it would be for Pinky, or when Blinky is in the lower area of the map, it's way above pac man, so Inky's not a threat.

Clyde is hopeless if Pacman is standing still and not in Clyde's "scramble" area. Poor Clyde... XD

this is so cool, everything makes sence now!

[jameypittman]

@lizardizzle - exactly right - you got it!

[phantomdj]

Very nice. Can you record it again with sound?

[jameypittman]

I ought to. It's a pain since you have to record the sound separately from the video when using the .MNG recording in MAME.