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Pac Man Mystery: Case of the Disappearing Orange
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:04 am
by Almighty Dread
Had a bizarre moment, during Pac Man practice, today. Playing my usual stage 4 pattern, I was baffled, when the second orange disappeared, before I could eat it. How something unexpected like this could happen is beyond my ability to figure out. If anyone's curious about it, I've provided the INP recording of the incident. To verify that I executed the pattern without error, check:
https://youtu.be/HdxLMqlNkQ4.
Re: Pac Man Mystery: Case of the Disappearing Orange
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 7:21 pm
by Zhorik
From
http://www.pacmanmuseum.com/history/pacman-scoring.php
Whenever a fruit appears, the amount of time it stays on the screen before disappearing is always between nine and ten seconds. The exact duration (i.e., 9.3333 seconds, 10.0 seconds, 9.75 seconds, etc.) is variable and does not become predictable with the use of patterns. In other words, executing the same pattern on the same level twice is no guarantee for how long the bonus fruit will stay onscreen each time. This usually goes unnoticed given that the majority of patterns are designed to eat the bonus fruit as quickly as possible after it has been triggered to appear.
So I recommend you switch to a pattern than always gets the fruit within the first 9 seconds it appears to avoid this.
Re: Pac Man Mystery: Case of the Disappearing Orange
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2016 9:13 pm
by GJTMarper
Interesting. I wonder how that variability in how long the fruit stays on screen is expressed in the game code. (I'm sure it would involve an RNG somehow...)