Ms. Pac-Man

[krehztim]

There's a lot of stuff on the web on Ms. Pac-Man strategy, and I'm no expert. I've topped out at just over 350,000. I don't have the patience to do the more advanced grouping techniques - just makes the games take too long. Here's a decent video on how each ghost behaves. In short, Red is aggressive and will pursue the shortest path to you. Pink seems to anticipate where you're going. Green stays in your general area, and orange just runs for cover. I'll try to put up something this week on my strategy for starting each type of maze. There are no patterns. The behavior on every maze is different every time.

Ghosties

Grouping is really meant for hardcore high scores.

Stay far, far away from this old book. Ignore everything you read.

[Barra]

Cheers
We need help on this one. Hard game though
I struggle with the 3rd set of boards (the red dots)

[krehztim]

Originally Posted by Barra

Cheers
We need help on this one. Hard game though
I struggle with the 3rd set of boards (the red dots)

Alright. I gotta work tomorrow but I'll concentrate on the Pear and Banana boards tomorrow night. They're actually not too bad. Pretty predictable. Post-junior boards are a little harder.

Start by taking out the upside down T first I don't care what other people say. Then try and get 1 or 2 swipes at the top middle. Just take a little at a time. Use the tunnels and remember, if you go Down immediately after exiting a tunnel, ghosts don't follow. They go straight.

---------- Post added at 10:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 PM ----------

The problem for me is I've been playing 30+ years. How the ghosts behave is instinctual to me. Doesn't take too long to figure out. I'll get something up here tomorrow meanwhile just watch first levels of YouTube MameErs

---------- Post added 07-13-2015 at 04:49 PM ---------- Previous post was 07-12-2015 at 10:54 PM ----------

Probably the best site for FAQ.

These are my 1st 2 MAME videos ever.

First one covers Levels 1-2. I basically follow this exact pattern for both levels, but you've got to watch Red & Pink. 90 percent of the time they stay away at the beginning. For all early mazes, Red & Pink's 1st 5 seconds are random. On the strawberry, Green always follows the same pattern until the 5-second reverse. The hardest part of these 2 levels is the top - the 2 U-shaped areas, and the one at the very top middle. Take care of the U-shaped a quarter at a time. Save the top for last, unless you get a clear shot at it, with ghosts at the bottom.

Second video is Levels 3-5. I always start in this pattern, which takes care of about half the bottom. As I noted in the comment, on the Peach and Pretzel, pause ever so slightly at the bottom, as Green is coming down. He'll always head right and down. I think on the Apple, he moves too fast that you don't have to worry about pausing. I'm too much of a noob with Windows Movie Maker - you'll have to pause to actually read all the comments, sorry. I did the best I could.

I'll work on the next set later this evening. Keep in mind Ms. Pac-Man has no patterns, and I've just learned by playing over and over again. Trying to put it into coherent strategy is a little hard, since ghost behavior is never the same twice. These probably aren't incredibly helpful, but it's a tough game to nail down consistently, unless you play it 500 times.

[Barra]

Thanks Ill check those out

I played this for a bit yesterday. Starting to figure out the ghost movement.
The orange one is easy as he is always going toward the bottom left when hes near you.
Having the most problems with blue.

It seems theres a bottleneck of scores on this title. Ill put a bit more effort into this to try and break 100k

[QAOP Spaceman]

Originally Posted by Barra

Having the most problems with blue.

Where Blue is in relation to Red influences his behaviour, basically he's more aggressive if his Red pal is near, and less so if he's far away...like any bully.

Don't be deceived by Orange as she (she is called Sue after all) works on a crazy euclydian mathematical formula and can be a bit unpredicatble when you're in a tight spot.

This stuff:
The Pac-Man Dossier

explains the ghost logic pretty well and most of the stuff about Ms Pac is true of Pac, except no scatter mode, just chase, reverse, chase, reverse, chase

This thing is the absolute bollocks:
Pac-Man Tribute Project

- -- - --

You can see the ghost logic, play slow, and if you fanny about a bit you'll find the Ms Pac boards are there too



Good luck everyone


I'ma go for 100k as well. Well, 80 to start with

[krehztim]

My best shot at Levels 6-9. Start with bottom middle, I don't care what other sites might say. It's just too hard later on to get this at the end. For the top middle, just take it 6-7 dots at a time. A good but painful strategy is to use the tunnels a lot, draw the ghosts away, and just peck away at a few top dots at a time.

The first fruit comes out after 64 dots have been eaten. The next will come out with 66 dots left. Once the first fruit is on the screen, don't over-eat, because if you go past that 66-dot threshold, and the fruit is still there, you won't get the 2nd fruit. That'll cost you 5,000 pts on the banana..