High Score Challenge - S19 - R04 - Tricky's Pacman

[KarateEd]

Stardot high score challenge
Season Nineteen: Round 04
Tricky's Pacman chosen by FourthStone

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RULES
Round Four starts at 9pm on Monday the 14th of November and ends at 9pm on Monday the 28th of November
The aim is to score as many points as possible
Post scores and screenshots/photographs in this thread
The rules are here
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DISK IMAGE
http://www.bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=3523
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INSTRUCTIONS

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SCORING
Points will be awarded using the following formula.
points = (YS / BS * 50) + ((NOP - YP + 1) * (50 / NOP))
YS = Your Score
BS = Best Score
NOP = Number of Players
YP = Your Position
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HIGH SCORE TABLE

HST goes here

Link to Overall High Score Table...http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=25601

Thanks to Galax for the Mode 7 fonts.

An old classic but done up much better......Ed ...........
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[klintworth]

Such a good version - very smooth!

[KarateEd]

Here's an entry score for starters......

[FourthStone]

First game for me, such a nice game to play on the beeb.

Score: 52830

[MatthewThompson]

First game since last time we played this , such a great version of Pacman, authentic and loud - just like an arcade game should be !

[Venger]

First go from me. Is it my imagination, or is it a little bit harder than when we play-tested it a while back? Hmm...

Great game, as usual, but I'm a bugger for pressing Escape if I die too early and that means reloading the whole game again .

[Venger]

A smidge better but not into the 100K+ scores like last time.

[tricky]

I'm glad your still enjoying it.
I don't think that there were any changes since last time, but I don't know which version is on BBC micro.co.uk
I got my best score after losing my first life on the first screen, I guess I just stopped trying and settled in.

[FourthStone]

Not sure if it's a bug or not, sometimes the ghosts don't slow down after eating a power pill, not really a big deal but thought I'd mention it.

Really shows off what the good old beeb was capable of, as do all of Tricky's games

[tricky]

I'll check source control tomorrow if I remember as see what I did.

[Cybershark]

Never got on well with Pac Man in any form, but here's a token stab from me: 20800

[fwibbler]

I also never did well in Pacman even though I enjoy the game.
As always, this is an excellent version from Tricky.
Here's my starter score...

[KarateEd]

A bit better.....

[Venger]

A little higher again but down on my old scores

[Venger]

A little bit more like it.

[tricky]

Good job I added that extra digit but I can't remember if there is a second!

I never got on with PAC man either it was only that I liked my own dithered mock-up.

[Venger]

Good job I added that extra digit but I can't remember if there is a second!

I never got on with PAC man either it was only that I liked my own dithered mock-up.

I don't think there's any danger of me getting the million points to see if there's a 2nd extra digit! I never really played that much Pacman in my younger days, as I preferred shoot-em-ups, so I'm not really that good at it.

[tricky]

What does that say about the rest of us

[fwibbler]

...it was only that I liked my own dithered mock-up.

I like the way you've done the colours too.
Most 4 colour games, you can easily see the colour limitation, but this one doesn't shout it out to you (if you see what I mean...)

[Venger]

Managed to beat my score from when we play-tested the game

[tricky]

First game since last time 25630

It's all about not panicing and just letting them go away so you can clean some more dots that aren't near the power dots.

[Venger]

The power pills don't work anymore!!! It starts off that they don't work on one level and on the next they do, then as you get a little further, they don't work on every level .

I'm not sure whether this is deliberate (as the game should get harder the further you go) or whether it's an unintended oversight. Any ideas, Tricky?

Do you want me to try and get a video of when this happens, Tricky? If I can show you where it starts, will that help?

Edit: I should've made it a bit clearer that this happens well into the game, quite a few levels into the "Keys" levels. It happens when I get to around 170K. I think it'd be from level 16 onwards.

[sydney]

First go.
49410

[Cybershark]

I liked Tricky's advice, about letting the ghosts do their own thing. Results initially seemed quite promising, but it didn't last long

32250

I never delved into Pac Man - or its clones - too deeply before, but is ghost behaviour somewhat different here? It seems possible to hoodwink them into following you one direction, and then switching back on yourself. My remembrances of their traits is that, once they have their mind set on it, they will relentlessly track you along a set path - without distraction. They just seem a bit more generally relaxed here?

[lovebug]

wonderful game tricky, very well done

sadly my first attempt score is pathetic
 

[MatthewThompson]

A good improvement, still nowhere near the score I got last time. The game does feel a little bit harder this time, but that might just be me .

[MatthewThompson]

Even better score !

wish there were some extra lives - pretty sure there aren't any !

[maniacminer]

LOL I was playing this for around five hours, my sister and husband came around for dinner and I persuaded her to have a few goes, she loved Pac Man BITD then she sat and watched me play (probably got a suntan in the process) - the brother-in-law summed it up for me "whoever wrote this game didn't want you hogging the computer all day" where I was yelling (without swearing - yeah, it is possible!) about the power pills doing nothing whatsoever, the turbo red ghost (especially when it leaves the teleport tunnel on the left side) and the lack of extra lives Her after-dinner (and ahem a wee dram) score is the hiscore and mine is the last score. I was getting 65k+ many times and then it dawned on me, it's the "fruit" that needs concentrating on, then all of a sudden the scores were 100k+ true to my word, this is my last attempt on this game, as when I died this time, I let out some choice swearing, for which, I got told off, but I retorted that I had just stopped to get my breath before continuing, pointing out I had about eight hours of pent up annoyance to discharge. Yeah, a good conversion, well done Tricky! Mildly frustrating, especially when I accidentally hit ESCAPE out of habit and have to *FX 200 2 and reboot, but nowhere near as bad as The Last of The Free (I almost lost my voice yelling at that) and the Beeb I am working on is very, very good at turning working components into non-working components...

[Venger]

It definitely gets a lot harder when the power pills stop working. Strategy has to change slightly so as to try and avoid close contact with the ghosts at all costs (whereas before you had a bit of a safe haven where the power pills are located).

[tricky]

29K is a good score, some of us had quite a bit of practice and a couple of us did extensive play testing ;
The ghosts logic is by the book, except where one of the ghosts in the arcade checks left, down, right and up-left mine just does the compass points-i thought it was a bug in the original, but I now think that it might be too avoid a single safe spot. The time you get before the ghosts turn back is very close to the arcade and should let you get to about the same place as you would in the arcade. After a number of levels, the ghosts only reverse, they are no longer edible The speeds of the ghosts are also as per the arcade, but with slight alterations to keep Pacman at 100% and scale the ghost speeds accordingly.
There is quite a bit of detail available on line and this is what I used, so it might not be perfect, but as with most of my games I try to get it close enough to feel right.