Ms. Pac-Man Energizers Last Challenge

[Zhorik]

Ok, there's a thread over on the Twin Galaxies forms ( http://www.twingalaxies.com/forums/view ... hp?t=10737 ) that started out being about clearing slow junior boards on mspacman eating all 4 energizers as the last dots on the board. NotMan and I were talking on #marp and came up with a new challenge for scoring as high as possible on mspacman starting on the first screen and eating all 4 energizers as the last dots on each board. Oh, and you aren't allowed to eat any ghosts either. You just get points from the dots and fruit. If you accidentally eat an energizer early or eat a ghost, your score is taken from just before the accidental eat.

NotMan submitted an example attempt at this challenge here: http://marp.retrogames.com/inp/1/b/7/sh ... olf106.zip

Since the TG forums don't allow file attachments and these recordings don't seem very appropriate as normal MARP submissions, I'm creating this thread as a place to discuss the challenge and to attach INPs for the challenge.

-George

[VelvetRolo]

Hi guys. So, hopefully to get things rolling here's a far from perfect attempt at this up to the 13th Maze with 70,840 points. Lot's of room for improvement... I'll give it another try later and hopefully be able to hit at least the first slow level.

Kevin.

[NotMan]

70k! Nice! Welcome to MARP, VelvetRolo. I thought the orange boards would be tough to pass, due the long tunnel by where the upper 2 Big Energizers are. Jr boards shouldn't be that hard.

I guess 100k isn't that far off from there. Good luck, VelvetRolo.

NotMan

[VelvetRolo]

Thanks NotMan. I see you have a score of 420,730 on Ms. Pacman, so you could probably do much better than 13,760 if you really wanted to!

I tried this again... Got to the first level of the 2nd junior round {Level 18} with a pathetic score of 80,800 (come on fruit God) and died twice stupidly on that level - both because of Sue. Damn. I at least wanted to get to a slow level. What a waste of about an hour. And MAN, you would not have believed the cursing coming out of my mouth on the chase stages. I am so used to practising the slow stages that I cannot time my movements properly to get the ghosts to go into the top energizer areas while I go into the tunnel.

Don't know if anyone's too terribly interested, but I'll attach the .inp.

[tar]

DARN!
i have to see this.

[The TJT]

Ooops...

http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product ... ductid=906

[tar]

yeah , and one of the ghosts is violent.

and died twice stupidly on that level - both because of Sue.

[VelvetRolo]

yeah , and one of the ghosts is violent.

Maybe not as as The TJT's avatar. But Sue probably also thinks, "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to bash your brains in".

Thanks for watching, and posting the proof picture!

[NotMan]

VelvetRolo wrote:

Thanks NotMan. I see you have a score of 420,730 on Ms. Pacman, so you could probably do much better than 13,760 if you really wanted to!

Uh, 420k is actually is mspacmbe which is turbo mspac on default setting. I could do better than 13k if I wanted to unless if Zhorik, LN2, Zylquin and others want to try it out.

Here another inp with save state feature which it was supposed to be left off from Time Trial version which Jason Dyer left off which it never made through this year TT or may be in future Time Trial version. Who knows?

Level 21 only (Kill Screen?? Maxmium difficulty???). I tried do a perfect run on Level 21, but failed losing one life. Oh well...

Attached zip file has save state file included. You have to copy this file mspacman-a.sta in STA directory.

To playback correctly under cli command. Use Wolf106.

mame mspacman -playback mspacman -state a

Have fun!

NotMan

[VelvetRolo]

Hmm. I get "Error: Failed to load state", even when running WolfMame106 and manually trying to load it. (F7 then a). If I then press Shift-F7 + b, it'll create mspacman-b.sta right there beside the file you gave me, so the directory is set correctly...but I can't load your state in. Not sure why.

[NotMan]

Did you check your STA directory to make sure that mspacman-a.sta is there. Check your mame.ini file to see if your STA directory is correct.

or

Did you forget to add mame command. -state a

like mame mspacman -playback mspacman -state a

A is name of save state file under STA directory under mspacman.

Zhorik has pb my replay correctly earlier.

NotMan

[VelvetRolo]

Yes, all is as it should be.

I can type this (replacing 'a' with 'c') which will then successfully load mspacman, load MY save state c, and do your inputs on it:

mamep106-vc.exe mspacman -playback mspacman.inp -state c

But if I use 'state a', it won't load, even though it's definitely there... And and as I was trying to say in my other post, that command line above is irrelevant anyway, as I also get the error when simply using F7 + a from within WolfMame106.

So, I guess we're outta luck unless someone else has some idea.

[Zhorik]

NotMan, it worked when you sent it to me before, but now when I try and load the save state, it doesn't work. This is with .106, right? Can you unzip the save state and make sure it loads correctly for you?

[NotMan]

I see where the bugs is.

Have you tried this

mamep106-vc mspacman -state a (or -state mspacman-a)

It should automatically load file mspacman-a under sta directory. You are not suppose to use F7 + a or whatever to load. It okay if you want to rename mspacman-a to mspacman-b or whatever

It suppose to work on Wolf106 only. If you put another version in the same directory in Wolf106 and it will not work.

I guess that I'll try another save state on Wolf101, next time.

Let me know if it does work for ya. This just a testing stage of save state features on WolfMame.

NotMan

[Zhorik]

Ok, it plays back for me if I use "mamep106-vc -pb mspacman -state a" with the CLI version. If I just try and load the savestate using F7, it fails.