ms. pac man scoring/ideas/thoughts (is this better?)

[JoustGod]

Thus, the quotation marks around "perfect game". This was meant to indicate that there is no hard number for a kill screen game for Ms. Pacman. And perfection can only be achieved by reaching the kill screen with no loss of men...err, women. If I recall correctly, roncli's game did not reach the kill screen. The current "perfect games" for Ms. Pacman on the coin-op side are in the 910K + range. So, luck and eating all ghosts are imperative for higher kill screen scores.

[LN2]

I believe it is more of a they don't want to belong to MARP. But I don't know the whole story, or even if that is the correct answer, so you could ask on the MacMAME boards over at http://www.emuverse.com .

Well, perhaps, but when I first started submitting scores to MARP I quickly noticed the only mac version in the submit page is a 2+ year old version(0.36). There have been a dozen mac versions since then....most of the PC versions were ported to the mac. 0.61 still hasn't been done though. It wouldn't take much to add at least a couple other macmame versions to that menu option list like mac60, mac56, and mac37.
Perhaps that small gesture would have more mac players submitting. Many mac users likely are using 0.60 and don't see mac60 listed so assume inps from that version aren't accepted.

I totally understand most are PC users and not mac users. I have no problem with that. I just think thoguh we would have at least 5-10 other macmame players submitting scores here if the site seemed accepting of the scores. I think there are only 2 macmame players that have submitted scores to MARP. Tech-D.jp and myself.

Remember when I first started up here a couple months ago I was asking if macmame 0.60 scores were even accepted? The GUI of the site gives the impression they aren't to a new MARP visitor.

Also it's a shame there isn't anyone around to confirm most of the scores I am submitting. I test each one in VirtualPC on my mac to see if the inp plays back. If it does then I just select mame60 for the version used and note in the comments macmame was actually used. However the inp doesn't play back correctly in anything else but macmame for most games.

I would be willing to help confirm some macmame submitted scores if someone was around to confirm mine.

I think MARP would want all of the best inps and scores here versus some other site with macmame scores that stay in their own separate world.

I almost feel like just getting a PC for playing mame but even if I got an older, cheap system for like $300-400, that is too much just to play mame. For the other small uses I have of a PC, I just use VirtualPC. However, the emulation of that and then mame within that isn't fast enough to really be playable....although my mac isn't exactly top of the line either.

Ideally, it would be great if the part of the c++/assembly code for most of these games that results in the inp differences on playback etc. could be altered so it's cross-platform consistent. That should be a goal for a later version.

Sure this maybe means making a teeny tiny part of mame a little less efficient...right when the game first starts and has the random-seed etc. which is different on different platforms/different compilers or something. That wouldn't affect the gameplay itself though, just change the initial parameter basis for the game.

For many games the inp actually plays back correctly but is out of sync or has a different pseudo-random seed so the monsters(eg. ms pac) don't come out of the box the same way...but the ms pac input tracking is fine.

I'll ask them and see what they say. It could be most feel just like I do but just avoid MARP.

[JoustGod]

It would be nice to see some of your ideas implemented in MAME releases. I think it's a shame that there is such a fence between Mac users and PC users. Perhaps the wording for MARP's newcomer welcome screen could reflect that ALL players are welcome regardless of platform they record with. But, reality makes it difficult inasfaras the confirmation process with Mac users. It is nice when the playback works, but often it doesn't.

[mahlemiut]

There aren't really enough users of non-DOS or non-Windows versions of MAME to warrant adding them to the versions list. And I certainly don't plan on adding each of the XMAME 0.61.1 preliminary releases either.

Just use 'other' for Mac, Linux or whatever MAME versions, and mention the port used in the description.

[LN2]

Barry, yeah for inps that only playback in mac60 correctly I just select other 0.60 from the version list and note I actually used macmame60 in the description.

I can understand that but then you could just remove the mac36 as well. It gives the impression that if you are playing macmame version 0.36 is the only one accepted.

I actually don't think many of those other dos/win mame versions are used much anymore...especially several of those 37beta versions. I see all of those betas are listed. A few key ones are still used perhaps but many of those aren't.

I was just thinking if mac60 and soon when mac61 is out it would be nice to just at least see those couple added so at least the impression that modern versions are supported and accepted are fine. I wasn't asking and don't expect to see mac versions listed to the degree pc versions are.

It seems if many of those 0.37beta versions were removed then that a couple more mac versions and perhaps the latest version or 2 of xmame could be listed. The overall list would still be shorter but it makes it far more clear to the user the site actually accepts their scores.

In terms of confirmations as offered before I would offer to confirm macmame scores of other players....but then if there was someone else to confirm mine.

I agree with the thoughts above, but think about macmame players visiting here. It would be cool for them to be able to do a search and see what macmame inps are here etc. One of the big goals of MARP is to share inps of playing games at a high level with others.

That's really impossible if we are using other 0.60 as the mame used.
I always put what version of macmame was used in my description so a search could be done for mac in the description and my inps would show up for them. I see other macmame submissions here always select that mac36 even if they played with a much later version and just note what version they used in the description.

Also there is always hope that in the future the inp and game random-seed formats will be redone so for most games the inps are cross-platform compatible. It is for some games now but not most as you can see if you view my submitted scores(Rick Carter). All shown as other 0.60 seem to only playback correctly in macmame.

thx. I have posted to one of the bigger macmame forums(that actually overall is much more active than this forum. I see about 40-50 users posting in just the past couple of weeks.) asking why more macmame players don't participate at MARP etc. It's obvious from the forum many are playing macmame.

I'll post the URL with a summary of replies once I have some. I just started that thread last night.

[negative1]

from most of the posts i've
read over there,

they're pretty ambivalent
about participating..

ok, i've put up some new
high scores, and finished
off ms pac man plus (fast)...
i think it was easier than
ms pac attack...

new scores for all the
slow clones + fast versions..

ughh..how boring to watch can
they be?

later

| || | || || | |
ne gati ve 1

[LN2]

negative1, how did you get all of those so quickly? Have you been playing them the past couple of weeks then suddenly uploaded them all or did you do all of those the last couple of days? You must have played 8-10+ hours a day the past few days to just play all those games out. I know when I did a couple I haven't uploaded like a 485k mspac-fast that took like 1.5 hours. To play to the kill screen would have likely taken me a couple more hours making the time just to play 1 of those on the 3+ hour time frame. now do that for 4-5 games and that's likely 10-15 hours just playing those and reaching those scores on the first try for each one.

You sort have pissed me off(hehe) cuz now I have to play all of those again until I beat or at least closely match your scores. Based on a couple games I have up in the 400-500k range, I think I would top 800k if I could play it out to the kill screen. I was getting into playing Jr pacman a lot but now will go back to the mspac games. Have you played jrpac at all yet? For those fast ones that's gonna be tough and take some time. Are you still pausing for breaks?

I can't see playing that long and well without pausing for breaks which would be illegal. Since you had admitted you did that in your mspacman-fast runs did you do that in those other fast ones as well? Just checking.

Also who are you? Are you from the "golden age" of arcades time where I might even know you by name?

Also, when are you going to post a normal mspac score then...given what you just posted for the regular speed mspacplus and mspac attack I think you should be able to get 200+k in regular mspac .

[negative1]

hey ln2,

be prepared for a long and laborious post here,

and for those interested in ms pac man+clones...

negative1, how did you get all of those so quickly? Have you been playing them the past couple of weeks then suddenly uploaded them all or did you do all of those the last couple of days? You must have played 8-10+ hours a day the past few days to just play all those games out. I know when I did a couple I haven't uploaded like a 485k mspac-fast that took like 1.5 hours. To play to the kill screen would have likely taken me a couple more hours making the time just to play 1 of those on the 3+ hour time frame. now do that for 4-5 games and that's likely 10-15 hours just playing those and reaching those scores on the first try for each one.

I can't see playing that long and well without pausing for breaks which would be illegal. Since you had admitted you did that in your mspacman-fast runs did you do that in those other fast ones as well? Just checking.

i think 2 weeks ago, i got about 5 or 6 messages saying you
broke some of the scores, i've been playing on and off for
a week....(concentrating on hang-on/super hang-on/hang-on jr,
defender, etc...)..

anyways, last week i started playing again...i really didnt
want to, as i find most of the ms pac man games incredibly
boring (the slower ones, doubly so)...

but i think
1) you have to be either incredibly bored and annoyed to
play the game...which i was, since i was having such a
tough time with the 'hang-on' games..

anyways, i had 3 or 4 days with nothing better to do in
the evenings..so that's how i had the time..

2) i don't know about you, but i always have the TV or
music playing...i know some people need to concentrate
while playing, but i can't play in silence...(i was like
that with studying also)..

3) no, i didn't pause in the games (especially the
slow ones)...ok, maybe once or twice during the
longer games, for phone calls, answering the door,
etc....but nothing like what i did before..

and yes, both my eyes (which are really blurring right
now)...and my wrists are killing me.. which is why
i really dont' want to keep playing these versions
any more..

i tried playing with a joystick, but it was horrible,
there is no precision compared to the keyboard,
oh well,......ms pac man plus is ESPECIALLY BAD,
because you have to hold another key down to
keep the speed up going (i think i slipped a couple
of times unintentionally).....i tried putting something
on key, and changing it to another key, but that
didn't seem to work at all...maybe you had better
luck..

4) after playing the fast versions, which are
actually bearable, i then went straight to the
slow versions, and significantly improved the
scores there also...some sort of carryover effect..

what is aggravating was, that i had a high score
for ms pac man plus (slow), and i DIDNT turn
on the record feature, so i had to do it again..ughh..

You sort have pissed me off(hehe) cuz now I have to play all of those again until I beat or at least closely match your scores. Based on a couple games I have up in the 400-500k range, I think I would top 800k if I could play it out to the kill screen. I was getting into playing Jr pacman a lot but now will go back to the mspac games. Have you played jrpac at all yet? For those fast ones that's gonna be tough and take some time. Are you still pausing for breaks?

1) well, competition is good, but i really want to finish off
some of the other versions, and the champion version (super zola)
isn't that high yet...

2) its all a matter of getting into the 'zone', i think on some
of my 600k games, i lose concentration, when just a few
more levels would have finished it off...800k, you have
to be really greedy or lucky with the fruit, and every greedy
game i've played ends really fast..

3) yeah, i have 500k+ on pac man jr, which is slightly more
interesting...but i'm more interested in super pac-man,
pac-mania (if i can ever get it playing fast enough), and
all the pac'n'pal/chomp games, that you do so well on,

if you don't mind me using your hiding spots, i think i
can improve on some of those scores..

but i'm never going to play any of those pac-man games/clones,
because if i get bored with 4 screens, i can't imagine what its
like with 1 screen...

Also who are you? Are you from the "golden age" of arcades time where I might even know you by name?

i live in houston texas currently, and was in maryland
3 years ago..

and no, i've never played in tournaments, or been online with games,
until last month..and i've never submitted my scores to twin
galaxies either...i seemed to have missed out on all the
'golden' years stuff, but thanks to MARP have gotten
back into it again...that along with the progress of MAME,
and finding some decent controllers..

i've been playing the originals in the arcade since the 80s (i even
had a tabletop ms pac man machine a few years ago)..and now
i only play retro games...i don't have a computer fast enough
for other games, and i stopped buying consoles with the
sega saturn and sony psx..

Also, when are you going to post a normal mspac score then...given what you just posted for the regular speed mspacplus and mspac attack I think you should be able to get 200+k in regular mspac .

unless i'm EXTREMELY BORED, there's no way, i'd want to
play the regular ms pac man games, i'd fall asleep, i know
i would..

however, if you're interested, get the sega GENESIS
emulator, and ms pac man for it, on the hard/expert
levels there are 30+ boards if i remember (32?), and i was
never able to finish them without continuing..

to me, that is THE ULTIMATE version, (unfortunately some
of the screens have to scroll to be played)...

more thoughts in the next post..

later

| || || | | || |
ne gati ve 1

[negative1]

more (obvious) thoughts when playing ms pac man,

i realize most people know these, but am stating
them just for completeness,

[also, should the scoring be changed to 1 man only?
that might make it more interesting..]

1) have some food handy when playing, or drinks
in case you get hungry or thirsty..however, you
only have a few intermissions at the beginning
(without pausing)

2) use the restroom beforehand
3) try to play in the evenings when you are
less likely to be interuptted or disturbed

4)constantly flex your wrist and fingers,
and look AWAY from the screen so you're
eyes dont lock up.....OK THIS IS BAD, but
i play in the dark, for some reason, i can't
play with the lights on, i know its worse on
my eyes...but i dim the monitor, and turn
scan-lines on, which reduces the intensity
[it also recreates the dark arcade ambiance]

5)i've gotten to the point when i play,
that i don't look at my man anymore when moving,

pay attention to the 'overall' location of
each ghost, and what area they are in..

most screens can be broken up into
4 quadrants (there are exceptions to this),

or inside/outside, depending on the levels..

as long as you are only near 1 or 2 ghosts,
you are safe, as soon as you have 3 or 4
you could be in trouble..

6) try to finish off area's in SWEEPS, ie. clear
out a section and move to another, leaving
the energizers...this works on the screens
where they don't blink also, because you want
to be on the opposite side of the screen when
you eat those, so no ghosts are near you..


7) YES THERE ARE PSEUDO-PATTERNS for every
board....i always have at least 3 options for
starting a board, depending on what the ghosts
do....watch my replays, you'll see that i do
almost the same thing, every single time
to start off each board.

the last few records i set, i've gotten much
better 'patterns' for the +,and attack clones..

before i used to get caught in the middle,
and sides on a few of them, that happens
a lot less now..

if you lose a man early, don't worry about it...

99% of my games, i lost the first man in between
10-20 levels....and then i usually lose the 2nd one
right after that...(exception, ms pac man plus (fast),
where i went from 180k->700k, on the 2nd man)...

all the hard work is done on 3rd, and 4th men for me..

i don't know why, but i think it's getting a good start,
not playing greedy...

because you got 4-5k (approx with the average fruit)
per board...then every 4 boards, you are getting 16-20k..

and the game ends around 140/150 levels...so thats' about
300-400k+200k (from the earlier levels)...which puts you
in the 600k range, and every so often you get bananas+pears,
which adds up to 650-750k...

so if you play conservatively, you rack up all the points on
the 120 boards after they stop blinking....

every time i play greedy, i die really really fast..

ALWAYS go for the apples/pears/bananas...you need the points

9) once you're in the 'zone', you can theoretically last
until the game ends...

i don't know how it happens, but after 50/60 boards, i usually
end up playing without really thinking about it.....the ghosts
start doing the same things, and you have managed them
to stay in the same areas, and never really get close..

this can last for 300-500k...i got 500k on my second man
in ms pac man plus (fast)....i could have probably finished
it with that, but something broke my concentration, and
i died doing something dumb..

10) TAKE A BREAK FROM PLAYING THESE GAMES,
play something else, read a book, watch tv, listen
to music...

i usually can't play more than 1 fast game per day,
and maybe a few slow ones...without getting bored
and frustrated, or maybe both..

yes, this game was fun once upon a time, but i
hope to finish them off for good soon..

hopefully some of this information is helpful,

maybe posting 'psuedo-patterns' would be better,
but all i can say is watch the input files....

any questions, let me know..

later

| | ||| || || | |
ne g ati ve 1

[LN2]

be prepared for a long and laborious post here,

Geesh, the above are long posts.

and yes, both my eyes (which are really blurring right
now)...and my wrists are killing me.. which is why
i really dont' want to keep playing these versions
any more..

hehe, I know the feeling. Especially now where I have started playing Nibbler. If you aren't familiar with the game check it out. It makes the control for even the mschamp games simple compared to Nibbler...although in Nibbler you get an extra man every 4 waves so you can make more mistakes. Playing nibbler is helping me with those fast mspac games now.

i tried playing with a joystick, but it was horrible,
there is no precision compared to the keyboard

What joystick? I think only a real mspac game joystick or equivalent 4-way arcade-style joystick is all that would work. None of the 8-way joysticks even if you set them to 4-way mode work for crap for the pacman type games. The slik-stik has an option for a 4-way arcade joystick but it's too costly. I wish the x-arcade had a 4-way joystick option. It is far more reasonably priced.

I agree the keys are better. I actually visited a friend recently who has a cocktail model jrpacman and it took a bit just to get used to a joystick again. hehe

4) after playing the fast versions, which are
actually bearable, i then went straight to the
slow versions, and significantly improved the
scores there also...some sort of carryover effect..

I agree. It helps even though you might not think it does initially.

1) well, competition is good, but i really want to finish off
some of the other versions, and the champion version (super zola)
isn't that high yet...

The competition is what makes it more interesting. I think I haven't gotten to the kill screen on the fast versions just because I mentally start to get impatient so take dumb risks in movement on later boards that aren't necessary...but are just being done to try and clear the boards a bit faster.

2) its all a matter of getting into the 'zone', i think on some
of my 600k games, i lose concentration, when just a few
more levels would have finished it off...800k, you have
to be really greedy or lucky with the fruit, and every greedy
game i've played ends really fast..

Well, how greedy are you? What score do you have after board 18, the 1st "brown junior" board, the last board the energizers turn them blue? For regular mspacman-fast or mspacmab-fast I have around 220k.
I then try and eat all the fruit. That can be hard on the junior boards as you end up eating so many dots while the first fruit is dancing around the second fruit is lost.

3) yeah, i have 500k+ on pac man jr, which is slightly more
interesting...but i'm more interested in super pac-man,
pac-mania (if i can ever get it playing fast enough), and
all the pac'n'pal/chomp games, that you do so well on,

pacmania is cool. I want to get into it again soon. I had played it for a few nights a couple months ago and got around 370k but didn't submit it cuz I want to beat that high score before submitting for a game like that.

I had never really played pac-n-pal and those clones of it until that week I submitted those scores. I played it for about 10 hours worth to get those scores so I was pretty happy with it cuz to get higher would require significant time investment. I submitted the arcade rom version using the TG settings to TG. The TG settings are harder than the mame default settings so it's cool I had a partial breakout game there and got a higher score playing at the higher difficulty. I also had a little luck with those bonus/rest rounds that helped the score a little bit.

I have a score of about 315k for the "other" supoer pacman game but haven't submitted it cuz I know I can do better. It's different than the arcade one though cuz superpac speed is like 33% faster plus I'm playing that one since it isn't sanctioned by TG at the mame default settings which are easier than the TG settings I played the bally/midway distribution at.

I have scores for about 25-30 other games on my hard drive from the past few months of play I haven't bothered submitting cuz I felt I could do better. Perhaps I should just go ahead and submit a lot of those anyway cuz they are decent scores, just not 1st or 2nd place scores in most cases.

Shame your system doesn't play pacmania at speed. Perhaps it will if you turn down the audio quality. I know it's hard to play without any audio but pacmania audio is stereo etc. so perhaps you can just turn down the quality and that would help the frame rate enough so with perhaps a frameskip of 4 or 6 you can get it near 100%.

if you don't mind me using your hiding spots, i think i
can improve on some of those scores..

no problem...hope those helped you. There are others too as well as some in mspacpls and mspac attack. I'm surprised you were getting as high in score as you were without knowing sit spots like those. Instead of pausing the game which is illegal on the chase boards I get them looping in the left bottom corner then get a drink or go to bathroom quickly or relax fingers for a minute every now and then for a minute or so.

but i'm never going to play any of those pac-man games/clones,
because if i get bored with 4 screens, i can't imagine what its
like with 1 screen...

A few of those clones have 2 or more screens. A few of them are just plain stupid also like piranha. I suspect that high score and will try and view the inp in virtualpc on my mac cuz it's so far beyond all the other scores for it. Plus when you play it some yourself you think there is no way someone put that high score on that game.

With mspac-fast I have no problem with the chase boards once they don't turn blue anymore. My problem is with the junior boards where I am trying to manipulate the monsters to get the fruit. The normal way ot running the junior boards at regular speed can't be done at that fast speed so it makes it quite different.

i live in houston texas currently, and was in maryland
3 years ago..

Maryland? I live in MD. Where were you in MD?

i've been playing the originals in the arcade since the 80s

ok, so you were a golden age player.

unless i'm EXTREMELY BORED, there's no way, i'd want to
play the regular ms pac man games, i'd fall asleep, i know
i would..

The early boards are boring. Once you get to the "slow" boards where you are moving even slower than normal yet the monsters, especially the red one after you have cleared so many dots really get moving fast which makes it challenging and not so boring. You have to be on your toes. the boring part at regular speed is the 1.5+ hours playing all the early boards just to get to those slow and no-blue time boards.

Even in the fast versions I do much better once to the "slow" boards. I usually have died 2 or 3 times though from trying to eat the monsters. I figure I need to do that though to have a good shot at getting well up into the 800k range. Based on what I have done on a few mspac fast runs. I think I would be in the 800-850k range cuz I get to a point where I have 80 boards left and only 375-400k to score on those boards. Based on 1 web page I saw about mspac fruit they determined you would statistically average like 5300 pts per board...or something in that range... I forget the exact number. I multiply that by 80 and add to my score after 55 boards and I am up in the 800-850k range for a couple of my runs where I played 50-55 boards...assuming I eat all of the fruit.

jrpacman has 7 different boards for the first 7 levels so you should like that more...plus the fruit as you know is cool in that game where it goes after your energizers and makes the dots big so you move slow to eat them but get more points per big dot. I find jrpac much more difficult than mspac is....even at fast speed.

You don't think your superzola score is high enough? 600+ k is amazing. My best on that(unsubmitted) is like 385k. On those on the junior-like boards it's really hard eating both fruits each board cuz you have the 1 minute timelimit so you don't really have a lot of time to try and get it. It's not like the regular fast ones with no timelimit where you can wait for it to get where you can easily eat it or get it just as it's heading out a side door.

[negative1]

i'll get back to your points shortly ln2,

other things.

1) don't leave 1 or 2 dots anywhere,
CLEAR OUT THE AREA, otherwise you
waste time coming back

2) tunnels ARE YOUR FRIENDS, use
them all the time,

yes it's boring leading the ghosts in
their time after time, but they slow down,
and it gives you more options

3) when you have a chance to eat
a ghost, EAT THE RED ONE, because
that buys you more time, the other
ghosts won't chase after as adamantly...

4) THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT,

so be patient (even though i'm not),

sometimes you just have to wait until
the ghosts get out of your way, or they're
far enough away from you...

remember THEY DONT SPEED UP,
so there's no penalty for lounging around,

on the other hand, don't take all day...

5) know which level you're on,

nothing is worse than thinking the ghosts
will turn blue when they dont (level 17)..

after awhile, they never turn blue, so
you don't have to worry about that...

but sometimes the blue blink period
is very short....

6) use 'fake' moves a lot, jiggle the joystick,
or up/down and left/right real fast...and the
ghosts will get faked out and go in different
directions

7) constantly reverse your direction, so
they don't track you down..it makes it
much harder for them to follow you

not really much help, but sometimes
if you watch the ghosts eyes, you will see
them move in the direction they are turning
BEFORE THEY ACTUALLY TURN..

however this isn't much time, so i'm not
sure how helpful it is...

9) wait until the ghosts are almost on top
of you, until you eat the energizer...

eating ghosts ON the energizer is risky,
so i avoid it...

10) bunching up ghosts is fine, in fast mode,
because you can from energizer to energizer
to get them quickly and maximize your points..

later

| || || | || || |
n eg at ive 1

[negative1]

What joystick? I think only a real mspac game joystick or equivalent 4-way arcade-style joystick is all that would work. None of the 8-way joysticks even if you set them to 4-way mode work for crap for the pacman type games. The slik-stik has an option for a 4-way arcade joystick but it's too costly. I wish the x-arcade had a 4-way joystick option. It is far more reasonably priced.

I agree the keys are better. I actually visited a friend recently who has a cocktail model jrpacman and it took a bit just to get used to a joystick again. hehe

i have 2 different types, an old 8 way analog type,

and a newer logitech gamepad, with analog/digital
stick and pad..neither are very impressive..(at
least not for the pac-man/maze games)

i have a namco arcade stick for the psx, that could
work with a converter, but i remember they weren't
that great for the arcade classics either..

Well, how greedy are you? What score do you have after board 18, the 1st "brown junior" board, the last board the energizers turn them blue? For regular mspacman-fast or mspacmab-fast I have around 220k.

i play pretty conservative, so i probably have about
150-200k if i'm lucky..

many times i die going after the last ghost..
which isn't worthwhile,

i don't have very good 'bunching' up patterns,
it's pretty random..

I had never really played pac-n-pal and those clones of it until that week I submitted those scores. I played it for about 10 hours worth to get those scores so I was pretty happy with it cuz to get higher would require significant time investment. I submitted the arcade rom version using the TG settings to TG. The TG settings are harder than the mame default settings so it's cool I had a partial breakout game there and got a higher score playing at the higher difficulty. I also had a little luck with those bonus/rest rounds that helped the score a little bit.

pac'n'pal is such a cool and weird game (like dig dug 2)...
i never saw it in the arcade, but it reminds me vaguely
of super pac-man...i can never get all the $ on the bonus
levels, i thought there was a pattern to them, but i guess
there isnt?

I have scores for about 25-30 other games on my hard drive from the past few months of play I haven't bothered submitting cuz I felt I could do better. Perhaps I should just go ahead and submit a lot of those anyway cuz they are decent scores, just not 1st or 2nd place scores in most cases.

it's up to you, but i would submit them..
some of the scores on the board have been
there for years, and it looks like no-ones been
playing them...(at least the 'classic' ones that
i've been playing lately)..

no problem...hope those helped you. There are others too as well as some in mspacpls and mspac attack. I'm surprised you were getting as high in score as you were without knowing sit spots like those.

i'm way too impatient to prolong the
game any longer than i have to...

just frustration i guess..

Maryland? I live in MD. Where were you in MD?

i was in lexington park from 1996-1999, its about 60 miles
south of washington dc, and about 30 from waldorf...
i worked on two different naval bases, as a programmer
for the government..

i usually went to the annapolis mall to play the newer
games...but there were some smaller malls in
fredricksburg that had classic games, it was like
being in a time warp...

i didn't really go to the malls in DC though, as
i was concentrating on console games more for
those years..

The early boards are boring. Once you get to the "slow" boards where you are moving even slower than normal yet the monsters, especially the red one after you have cleared so many dots really get moving fast which makes it challenging and not so boring. You have to be on your toes. the boring part at regular speed is the 1.5+ hours playing all the early boards just to get to those slow and no-blue time boards.

i guess, i mean, its just boring to eat dots only without ghosts..
i wonder what the scores would be like if they kept blinking
throughout the whole game?

jrpacman has 7 different boards for the first 7 levels so you should like that more...plus the fruit as you know is cool in that game where it goes after your energizers and makes the dots big so you move slow to eat them but get more points per big dot. I find jrpac much more difficult than mspac is....even at fast speed.

yeah, but only 3 of them? (i forgot) keep repeating after awhile,
so its' not that big of a difference....

i wish all the ms pac-man versions would keep cycling through
all the boards, instead of the just the last 2...i always thought
that would have made them slightly more interesting..

You don't think your superzola score is high enough? 600+ k is amazing. My best on that(unsubmitted) is like 385k. On those on the junior-like boards it's really hard eating both fruits each board cuz you have the 1 minute timelimit so you don't really have a lot of time to try and get it. It's not like the regular fast ones with no timelimit where you can wait for it to get where you can easily eat it or get it just as it's heading out a side door.

i meant this version:
------------------------
1st clone of
mspacman Ms. Pacman Champion Edition / Super Zola Pac Gal [Champion Edition](mschamp-ce)

negative1 (@) 03 Nov 02 03:42:32

381,810
------------------------

i can never keep all those versions straight..

and yes getting the fruit is the key to those,
but you don't want to run out of time either...

well onto pengo....
and i'll check out nibbler sometime..

later

|| | || | || | || |
ne g ati ve 1

[LN2]

i play pretty conservative, so i probably have about
150-200k if i'm lucky..

Yeah, I was guessing you had about that given what final score you had at the kill screen.

many times i die going after the last ghost..
which isn't worthwhile,

It's worth it when you have men to spare reaching the kill screen like you seem to have had for at least one of those runds.

i don't have very good 'bunching' up patterns,
it's pretty random..

figured that. actually the bunching methods for the chase boards only partially work. the lower left energizer is the hardest one to get all 4 cuz your extra speed. The junior boards are very hard to get all 4 on each with your speed. At regular speed I can eat more monsters on the junior boards than I do at fast speed.

pac'n'pal is such a cool and weird game (like dig dug 2)...
i never saw it in the arcade, but it reminds me vaguely
of super pac-man...i can never get all the $ on the bonus
levels, i thought there was a pattern to them, but i guess
there isnt?

I think there is...if you play the first 2 stages the same way each time then the bonus stages, at least where the red monster normally is, is the same. I am not 100% sure but I think it might just be related to where you eat the last fruit or trigger the last "card" on the board before the bonus stage.
I can always get a lot on the first bonus...although the x2 green "pal" isn't in the same place each time the red monster is. However the later bonuses I found there are a few spots the red monster can be....but then again there might be some subtle difference to how I cleared the board(s) before it that alter that.

It is very much like superpac. The monsters have exactly the same routines as they do in superpac except how the "razz" behavior is. In superpac the "razz" where the monsters stop and shake in place then continue is only that. In pac-n-pal for a couple of them they are called back to their corners like in regular pacman...and later ones they actually reverse/pop after that razz. Other than that the monsters seem just like they are in superpac.

it's up to you, but i would submit them..

Well most I didn't thinking if I only played the game a couple more nights I would get the high score or at least vastly improve my own score. However many of those games I haven't touched in a couple months now so perhaps I will upload some of them.

i was in lexington park from 1996-1999, its about 60 miles
south of washington dc, and about 30 from waldorf...
i worked on two different naval bases, as a programmer
for the government..

ahh, ok. odds we never met or played at same place then. Back then I lived on the Eastern Shore in Salisbury.

yeah, but only 3 of them? (i forgot) keep repeating after awhile,
so its' not that big of a difference....

For jrpac you have the first 7 boards as different, then boards #4-7 repeat themselves over and over... However when they do you keep getting beer fruit for 5000 each versus it becoming random like mspac or fixed to whatever that board number is. So if you can play through those later boards your score can go up quite fast.....25+k per board.

i wish all the ms pac-man versions would keep cycling through
all the boards, instead of the just the last 2...i always thought
that would have made them slightly more interesting..

Perhaps....I think the first 2 types of boards would be fairly easy as "slow" boards though where they don't even turn blue cuz you have 2 sets of side doors for escape plus on the peach-apple boards it's very easy to group them up then go around and pretty much clear the board in 1 big move...keeping them grouped.

381,810

Yeah, that's the score of yours I think is most vunerable. The problem with that one is those wiggly boards repeat as boards where you have no blue time. It's hard to clear those in only 1 minute. I generally say screw the fruit on those and just try and get past those boards.

well onto pengo....
and i'll check out nibbler sometime..

pengo is a game I used to be great at way back when...got to play that again sometime myself....although I have many other games I want to set scores on first before relearning a game like that one.

I am doing some investigating on nibbler. See my post on it in the regulation play forum.