Pac-Man Grouping Tutorial
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- Опубліковано 20 сер 2024
- A tutorial explaining the various elements of my grouping strategy for the original Pac-Man arcade game. Grouping (a.k.a., freestyle) play involves using the enemy pathfinding logic to the player's advantage by directing the four ghosts to converge and move as a single unit through the maze. Once together, the ghost group is lured to an energizer where all four are eaten for maximum score. Grouping techniques are used for all boards where the ghosts are edible (1-16 and 18).
General overview:
- At the start of each board, park Pac-Man in a hiding spot and wait until the ghosts stop reversing direction.
- Consume enough dots to trigger the first bonus fruit to appear and eat it.
- Group the ghosts together and lure them to the energizers, eating all four for maximum score. Eating very few dots before luring the ghosts to all four energizers is to ensure that Blinky (red) doesn't start moving faster than the other ghosts too early (once that happens, grouping becomes more difficult).
- Re-group the ghosts after the last energizer hit and maintain control of the group while clearing the board of the remaining dots and eating the second bonus fruit. Starting on board 9, Blinky will start speeding up early enough in the clearing process as to require employing additional tactics to keep him together with the group.
Inky - 0:04
Pinky - 1:29
Pinky + Inky - 2:31
More Grouping Tactics - 3:32
Holding Spot - 5:27
Clyde - 5:45
Energizers - 7:06
Top left - 7:18
Bottom left - 7:31
Bottom right - 7:45
Top right - 8:02
Clean Ups - 8:30
Clean Ups (speeding Blinky) - 9:45
Set Ups (Board 1) - 11:10
(Board 2) - 12:08
(Boards 3&4) - 12:57
(Boards 5+) 13:44
Gameplay examples (Board 5) - 14:36
(Board 16) - 19:52
Thanks for taking the time to make a table of contents for the video!
This video needs voice over. No one can figure out what is going on. What are the grouping patterns? Where do they start and where do they end? What do you look for to move pac-man? At what location. Stuff like that.
Exactly! What the hell does "back one space", "forward one space" etc mean?
These techniques helped me reach a score of 3333000. Thanks Jamey.
That is a great score! Congrats!
Btw, thanks for putting together the amazing Pac-Man Dossier. Btw, the Atari 5200 version of Pac-Man employs the same monster AI logic, so your information is relevant to that version as well.
You're welcome!
The Atari 5200 version has this weird thing, once you reach the 5th key and eat an energizer the ghosts stay blue for the entire screen, so all you need to do eat an energizer as soon as you start a new screen and the ghosts can never hurt you.
@@gmoney1065 Weird! NES Pac-Man has a thing where, starting from the 8th Key, the first ghost scatter period lasts a couple of minutes, and ghost don't reverse direction when they enter Scatter (they do when they enter Chase)
Inky
0:07 - Back 1 Space
0:17 - Forward 1 Space
0:31 - Back Half Space
0:49 - Back Half Space (Alt)
1:09 - Forward Half Space
Pinky
1:32 - Forward/Back 1 Space
1:58 - Back Half Space
2:13 - Forward Half Space
Pinky + Inky
2:34 - Forward/Back 1 Space
2:59 - Back Half Space
3:17 - Forward Half Space
This is REAL pac-man play. Not just memorize a pattern for each screen. This takes way longer but it's the way the game was meant to be played.
You're still memorizing patterns.....just not whole board patterns for the 17 boards they turn blue....and good luck completing the other 238 boards consistently without any patterns. I would argue there is just as much memorization with this strategy as the other.
@@brianandcindy1 Yes, there is memorization, but it's still a lot better. and yes, playing 9th key to the end, you need to use pattern or you'll never make it. Well, I guess you could make it, but would take 200 hours.. I used to think Pac-Man was the better game, but I came to realize that Ms. Pac-Man is the superior game.
@@gmoney1065 I wouldn't say this is how the developers intended on you playing it. You're supposed to just "play the game", run away from the ghosts, and get all the dots. They didn't intend on it being as strategy and patter based as it ended up being.
Grouping is still pretty much a pattern, it's a mental flow chart where you do portions of a pattern based on how close the ghosts are to eachother. It's more diversified and skill based than simply memorizing a pattern.
Ms Pac-Man is definitely superior as a game, but personally I like to stick with classic yellow, haha.
I've only been playing a few weeks, but I'm already finding patters are pretty boring to play. Learning how to group definately makes the game more entertaining.
This is very confusing
Where's the audio? This needs someone explaining what is going on.
Just got a Pacman 1Up arcade cabinet and love your videos! Thx for sharing!
(I’m also a guitar enthusiast!)
Learning to group has made me realize how much i hate clyde lol
I cant stand him either haha
It's weird. I made my own Pac-Man variant that uses the general AI of the original with some new additions, and the better I get at it, the more of a problem the enemies that don't actually try to chase you get.
I am so canfused
jeez this is like trying to solve a rubix cube
I read your comment on the other video asking for advice. I was going to suggest that you watch my tutorial on grouping tactics, but I see you've already found it.
@@jameypittman Yea the grouping for board 1 isn't so bad, it's just that orange ghost will sometimes get in the way. But once i have the pattern down and complete the board, I think i can progress on my own from there.
@@jameypittman Also, can I do the holding spot before I get my first power pellet or do I have to get it straight away?
@@aaronforrester5175 - You can do the holding spot whenever you wish. I prefer to set up my starting routines for each board so that they end in taking the upper-left power pellet, and then I go to the holding spot and start working on clearing the three remaining power pellets. I feel that's more efficient, but it's certainly not necessary.
Guess Parzival used this trick to get the highest score :P
Wow, I'm impressed.
Hi, Jamey. What did you use to record your Pac-Man game? I have arcade Pac-Man on Retroarch. When I try to record my Pac-Man game, the video playback is very fuzzy and the picture is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.
Cool!
What are your techniques? What you do is almost impossible!
He labels the solutions
Dos this involves the orange ghost to because he seams a little slower than the other 3 ghosts.
What does space mean
The width of 1 ghost.
Can you get this version of pacman online? The webpacman does not work the same.
What do you mean by forward/back?
It refers to moving a ghost (or ghosts) forwards or backwards in the group in order to get them all on top of one another as much as possible.
Are there specific ways to move clyde a half space?
i agree. if you talked over it then we could know what's happening. the video does nothing. i can't even figure out to do stuff and when.
If you watch the video carefully, you can see how the maneuvers get the ghosts all on top of each other so you can get a 1600 when you go for the energizer.
How in the can does this work
What 1space mean
The width of 1 ghost.
pac man is not eating any dots
Jhasynel Reyes That's the whole point. He's grouping the ghosts together in order to make eating all four at the power pill achievable. On this board, the power pill lasts about 1 second. In order to eat all four, he has the ghosts stacked. Great game play Jamie.
When are you going to voice this over and explain what you are doing? It's a fantastic video but useless. Please!!!!
What are you struggling with? I just learned to group from this video, and so far my best is the first 9 boards with perfect score.
I'm now up to the second key with perfect score. Are you sure it's the video that's useless? :P
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