![]() ![]() There is also the matter of the ghosts suddenly changing direction during the levels, how long they remain frightened blue ghosts, and how long it takes them to exit their starting location. ![]() Pac-Man initially, only to chicken out and go rogue when the distance between them narrows. Meanwhile, Sue, the orange ghost, will move towards Ms. Inky is the most non confrontational, “go along to get along” type of the bunch, and will pass up many opportunities to trap you. Pinky is more of an ambush artist, trying to head you off at the pass. Blinky, the red ghost, will try to narrow the distance between themselves and Ms. True scholars of the game know that the ghosts have “behavior patterns,” meaning-as any programmer already knows-there is a reason for how they move, where they move, and why they move. For everyone that wants to call it “ Pac-Man with a red bow and some lipstick” (and even the people that made it have said as much), the game is truly superior in every describable way. There are four different levels as opposed to Pac-Man‘s one, the fruit now wanders the level (instead of sitting stationary below the ghost’s “home base”), bouncing in from a random exit after a certain number of pellets have been eaten, and the enemies are slightly less predictable. Pac-Man was born.įor all the (rightful) love and acclaim the original Pac-Man gets, there is no denying that Ms. In order to keep the Pac-Man gravy train going, Midway capitulated and Ms. When their previous patch kit of the arcade game Missile Command proved successful (and they came out of a lawsuit with Atari not only unscathed, but employed by them) they boldly told Midway (the manufacturer and distributor of Pac-Man) that they had beaten Atari in court (the suit was dropped on the condition that the three men didn’t sell any more patch kits) and that they would win against Midway. They chose Mike Horowitz (another MIT student) to do what basically comes down to a mod of Pac-Man featuring different levels, changing the behaviors of the ghosts, and so on. ![]() They had noticed a trend where players were getting so good at games that they were either spending less money (due to them getting less Game Over screens), or were simply no longer playing the game once the challenge aspect fell away. One of the most interesting stories in episode one of the Netflix gaming documentary High Score tells the tale of how MIT students Doug Macrea and Steve Golson created enhancement kits for arcade games, basically modding the system board in order to make arcade games (that players were starting to master) more difficult in order to ensure people continued to pump quarters into the machine. Pac-Man fever, and muses on the classic game while reflecting on a few early entries in the Pac-Man series that don’t get much love. ![]()
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