6 ms·

Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior

139 points by r11t 16y ago

wahnfrieden 16y ago
That link is down, but you can see the full article at their homepage too: http://gameinternals.com/ http://gameinternals.com/
- elliottcarlson 16y ago
  Both links work fine for me though the server seems pretty slow at the moment.
  - Deimorz 16y ago
    tumblr seems to be going up and down, I don't know if that's normal or if I just had bad timing posting this. If it is actually normal I might have to reconsider using it. I also had some issues with the sheer number of incoming requests overwhelming my server that I've got the images hosted on, but I think I've got that resolved now.
moses1400 16y ago
awesome freaking post - i love pac man (i actually prefer ms pac man) and it was well worth the very long and detailed review.
holyjaw 16y ago
It's interesting to revisit Pac-Man so many years later. As a kid, it was always just a game with unpredictable behavior, incomprehensible in its abstractness. Dissecting it now and providing concrete detail to every movement feels like one of those "destroying my childhood" moments.
- orangecat 16y ago
  My reaction was the opposite. Now I know why my Pac-Men were disproportionately killed by the red and pink ghosts, and learning that their "unpredictable" behavior is the result of simple but clever algorithms makes it even more impressive.
silvertab 16y ago
That was so much more interesting than I anticipated! Never was a big Pac-Man fan, and I guess I always assumed that the ghosts were just aiming directly for Pac-Man! To learn that they each have their personalities and targeting mode is awesome and makes the game much more interesting!
lotusleaf1987 16y ago
If you're interested in this you might also check out King of Kong is also an interesting documentary on Donkey Kong and the world record holders. Also, it's one of the better documentaries I've seen.
- Deimorz 16y ago
  It's an entertaining movie, but I don't like to see it referred to as a "documentary". They did a lot of manipulative editing and such to make things seem a lot more dramatic than they actually are. Twin Galaxies released a number of statements about misleading/inaccurate things in the movie: http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewforum.php?f=86 http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewforum.php?f=86 I've heard that the documentary "Chasing Ghosts" is very good, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.
  - lotusleaf1987 16y ago
    After seeing the movie/documentary it's really hard to take anything Twin Galaxies says as credible and that link is just a bunch of Billy Mitchell apologists.
igrekel 16y ago
Ah, how it brings back memories! I did suspect this level of sophistication. It also remembered me of that talk about collaborative diffusion which used pacman as an sample application. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiobjects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiobjects
RexRollman 16y ago
Wonderful article. I still play Pacman occasionally thanks to Mame, even though I am much more of a Mr Do! fan (which I also play in Mame).
m-photonic 16y ago
The link is down for me, but I remember reading about this on another website; the coverage is probably of similar quality between the two. http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html#Chapter%204 http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html...
- m-photonic 16y ago
  Heh, at the time I posted I hadn't seen that the exact same site was actually linked in the article itself. Having now read the article I have to say this is a great idea for a site and I'll be following it with some interest. Also you should do Sonic next. ;-) http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Solid_Tiles#Slopes_And_Curves http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Solid_Tiles#Slopes_And_Curves http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Rolling http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Rolling
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
csytan 16y ago
To me, this was the most interesting part of the article: “To give the game some tension, I wanted the monsters to surround Pac Man at some stage of the game. But I felt it would be too stressful for a human being like Pac Man to be continually surrounded and hunted down. So I created the monsters’ invasions to come in waves. They’d attack and then they’d retreat. As time went by they would regroup, attack, and disperse again. It seemed more natural than having constant attack.” - Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man creator

139 points by r11t 16y ago

That link is down, but you can see the full article at their homepage too: http://gameinternals.com/ http://gameinternals.com/

elliottcarlson 16y ago
Both links work fine for me though the server seems pretty slow at the moment.
- Deimorz 16y ago
  tumblr seems to be going up and down, I don't know if that's normal or if I just had bad timing posting this. If it is actually normal I might have to reconsider using it. I also had some issues with the sheer number of incoming requests overwhelming my server that I've got the images hosted on, but I think I've got that resolved now.

moses1400 16y ago

awesome freaking post - i love pac man (i actually prefer ms pac man) and it was well worth the very long and detailed review.

holyjaw 16y ago

It's interesting to revisit Pac-Man so many years later. As a kid, it was always just a game with unpredictable behavior, incomprehensible in its abstractness. Dissecting it now and providing concrete detail to every movement feels like one of those "destroying my childhood" moments.

orangecat 16y ago
My reaction was the opposite. Now I know why my Pac-Men were disproportionately killed by the red and pink ghosts, and learning that their "unpredictable" behavior is the result of simple but clever algorithms makes it even more impressive.

silvertab 16y ago

That was so much more interesting than I anticipated! Never was a big Pac-Man fan, and I guess I always assumed that the ghosts were just aiming directly for Pac-Man! To learn that they each have their personalities and targeting mode is awesome and makes the game much more interesting!

lotusleaf1987 16y ago

If you're interested in this you might also check out King of Kong is also an interesting documentary on Donkey Kong and the world record holders. Also, it's one of the better documentaries I've seen.

Deimorz 16y ago
It's an entertaining movie, but I don't like to see it referred to as a "documentary". They did a lot of manipulative editing and such to make things seem a lot more dramatic than they actually are. Twin Galaxies released a number of statements about misleading/inaccurate things in the movie: http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewforum.php?f=86 http://forums.twingalaxies.com/viewforum.php?f=86 I've heard that the documentary "Chasing Ghosts" is very good, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet.
- lotusleaf1987 16y ago
  After seeing the movie/documentary it's really hard to take anything Twin Galaxies says as credible and that link is just a bunch of Billy Mitchell apologists.

igrekel 16y ago

Ah, how it brings back memories! I did suspect this level of sophistication. It also remembered me of that talk about collaborative diffusion which used pacman as an sample application. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiobjects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiobjects

RexRollman 16y ago

Wonderful article. I still play Pacman occasionally thanks to Mame, even though I am much more of a Mr Do! fan (which I also play in Mame).

m-photonic 16y ago

The link is down for me, but I remember reading about this on another website; the coverage is probably of similar quality between the two. http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html#Chapter%204 http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html...

m-photonic 16y ago
Heh, at the time I posted I hadn't seen that the exact same site was actually linked in the article itself. Having now read the article I have to say this is a great idea for a site and I'll be following it with some interest. Also you should do Sonic next. ;-) http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Solid_Tiles#Slopes_And_Curves http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Solid_Tiles#Slopes_And_Curves http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Rolling http://info.sonicretro.org/SPG:Rolling

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

csytan 16y ago

To me, this was the most interesting part of the article: “To give the game some tension, I wanted the monsters to surround Pac Man at some stage of the game. But I felt it would be too stressful for a human being like Pac Man to be continually surrounded and hunted down. So I created the monsters’ invasions to come in waves. They’d attack and then they’d retreat. As time went by they would regroup, attack, and disperse again. It seemed more natural than having constant attack.” - Toru Iwatani, Pac-Man creator