Pac-Man: Grouping the Ghosts

This is the original, "actual" Pac-Man, played on WolfMAME. This is level 18, the "sixth key."

In this video, I use grouping techniques - rather than patterns - to corral the ghosts and eat them all, for all four energizers. The ghosts only stay blue for one second on this board, so tight grouping is a must.

The techniques I use here will be difficult to understand for most people, but it may be an interesting watch for an experienced Pac-Man player.

First, I use a clearing pattern; I never bother with grouping until the ghosts are finished with their direction reversals (about 50 seconds in), so I use the time to eat most of the dots, get both "fruits," and then duck in the hiding spot until the last reversal.

There is one mistake in the video, at 3:20. I had meant to do the manuever you see at 5:00, but my fingers slipped. With improvisation, I was able to recover immediately.

There's one original maneuver I didn't get to show off here. If the Blue ghost is roughly half a length behind the Pink ghost, I use an asymmetrical move to send one of them through the tunnel, and the other around the top of the maze. Upon reuniting, they are more tightly grouped.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• pacman
• arcade
• mame
• classic
• video
• game
• grouping
• lucid
• faia
• high
• score
• perfect
• gaming

[DarthYoda08]

i rock at this game all you need to do i figure out the pattern the ghosts go in

[LucidFaia]

Yep, but you'll be in trouble when a pattern breaks!

[jslime]

Awesome video... you are very good, have you gotten a perfect game before?

Also can you tell me where a good place to go online to read up a bit about more on grouping ghosts?

Thanks!

[LucidFaia]

My high score's just over 2 million points. I had a perfect game until the 157th level (there are 256), when I made a wrong turn. I didn't lose a life, but the key disappeared, so I lost the perfect. I ended the game immediately out of frustration.

There aren't any places I know of that describe how to group the ghosts... I taught myself by watching somebody else's gameplay, and by practicing a lot.

[CaRC1n0g3n]

omfg

So well synchronized.

You must teach me everything you know about Pac-Man. =|

[CaRC1n0g3n]

Come and get one in the yarbls, if you have any yarbls, you eunuch jelly thou!

[randycrazytrini]

did u notice that the orangey ghost wasnt chasing him at one point

[beundead]

Sorry, I haven't posted a comment on Youtube for a long time, so when my comment didn't appear, I figured it had failed, and so tried again (twice), hence it now being marked as spam.

Any chance you could take a look at it anyway and answer the questions? Big thank you if you can, and again, apologies for clogging up your video with deleted comments.

[darxtar409er]

hmmm i'm slowly understanding, especially after reading about each monster's targeting methods on another site. Most difficult for me is knowing when Clyde is in the right position, in order to go for the energiser. Would like to see it done on a slower level, because by this stage everything's so fast and pixel-perfect.

[Cypeq]

O M G

[mrhowardb]

Damn...I am speechless...I thought I knew all patterns for the is game, as I lived for it in 1980...LOL...

Thank you for posting this...

[PacMani]

yes ;)

[angelnoir9]

smh I tried getting this achievement in sept. but gave up after a couple of days. I decided id try again but that looks like a lot of work...