October 2005
Beginner
501 pages
15h 5m
English
Content preview from Retro Gaming HacksBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Learn the Patterns of Pac-Man
Smash your high scores and become a Pac-maniac.
When Pac-Man descended on the world’s arcades in 1980, it was responsible for the loss of more quarters and hours than any game before it. The colorful maze game with its iconic characters and catchy music was simple to learn but impossible to master.
Or was it? Not long after the game became popular, Pac-Man addicts started to realize that the behavior of the dastardly ghosts that populated the dot-filled maze was not random. The ghosts moved according to certain rules, and if the player followed specific patterns through the maze he would not be hurt. This led to the rise of Pac-Man masters who could spend hours on a machine for a single quarter…and to the rise of “How to Win at Pac-Man” paperbacks that sold millions.
You can’t find those paperbacks on sale in your local supermarket anymore, but you can still learn the secrets of the Pac-Man patterns on various web sites like http://www.hanaho.com/pacman and http://www.upcweb.com/D3B/Downloads.aspx, where you can download a PDF version of the book How to Break a Million at Pac-Man.
In this hack, I’ll cover some of the general rules for patterns, peculiarities of ghost behavior, and other tidbits you’ll want to know. Then, I’ll take you step-by-step through a pattern, described at the Hanaho web site, that will take you unharmed through the first half of the first Pac-Man board.
General Pac-Maneuvers
- Never hesitate
This is one of the most important things you ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.