<p>
Thanks for your help
--
goldengameboy@geocities.com
A question about PacMan's very late stages
Moderator: Chad
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Gameboy9
A question about PacMan's very late stages
I've noticed on a web page that if your score on the 254th screen shows anywhere a `255`, then you can get by the 255th screen without it breaking and you can continue playing. For example: 3,025,500 after 254th screen would let you keep playing. Can anyone verify this?
<p>
Thanks for your help
--
goldengameboy@geocities.com
<p>
Thanks for your help
--
goldengameboy@geocities.com
-
stephen krogman
This is incorrect. There is no way to continue past the 256th board
which is the split-screen. Allthough I have seen in person, Rick
Fothergil actually play the split-screen board where if you know what
your doing, you can find 9 more dots before you have no choice but to
die because the board is useless at this point. So the way to get a
perfect game is to eat all ghosts, pacmans, keys, and get to the
split screen on your first man so you can utilize your remaining men
to get 90 pts per man left over, thus giving you a score of
3,333,360pts and that's it! Rick died on his first man around 3M pts
then he finished the game. Leave a window of "90" pts for a perfect
game which there will be about a half a dozen "split-screen" players
who will be battling it out for a perpect game at next years New
Hampshire Classics tournement the first week of June.
<p>
Regards,
Steve Krogman
--
skrogman@concentric.net
which is the split-screen. Allthough I have seen in person, Rick
Fothergil actually play the split-screen board where if you know what
your doing, you can find 9 more dots before you have no choice but to
die because the board is useless at this point. So the way to get a
perfect game is to eat all ghosts, pacmans, keys, and get to the
split screen on your first man so you can utilize your remaining men
to get 90 pts per man left over, thus giving you a score of
3,333,360pts and that's it! Rick died on his first man around 3M pts
then he finished the game. Leave a window of "90" pts for a perfect
game which there will be about a half a dozen "split-screen" players
who will be battling it out for a perpect game at next years New
Hampshire Classics tournement the first week of June.
<p>
Regards,
Steve Krogman
--
skrogman@concentric.net
-
Mark Longridge
Steve is basically right, and the reason why you can't get past
the split screen is because you can't eat enough dots to advance
to the next board. If you set MAME pacman with infinite lives,
you can actually clear the split screen because 9 dots reappear
after you die, and eventually you eat enough of them to advance.
Of course this is cheating, so there is no legal way you can
do this.
<p>
In Dig Dug, you get to round 256 (it shows as zero) then that's it.
Finito. You start the round with a pooka on your head and all your
men die in succession.
<p>
There is a lot of misinformation on the internet about Dig Dug and
Pacman (remember the books that said there was gold and silver bars
in Pacman?) but now we know the rumours are just not true.
<p>
Mark
--
cubeman@iname.com
the split screen is because you can't eat enough dots to advance
to the next board. If you set MAME pacman with infinite lives,
you can actually clear the split screen because 9 dots reappear
after you die, and eventually you eat enough of them to advance.
Of course this is cheating, so there is no legal way you can
do this.
<p>
In Dig Dug, you get to round 256 (it shows as zero) then that's it.
Finito. You start the round with a pooka on your head and all your
men die in succession.
<p>
There is a lot of misinformation on the internet about Dig Dug and
Pacman (remember the books that said there was gold and silver bars
in Pacman?) but now we know the rumours are just not true.
<p>
Mark
--
cubeman@iname.com
-
BeeJay
Some interesting stuff. Does anyone know if Namco did this Stage 0
(256) stuff deliberately or not?!
<p>
I wonder about that definitive answer you gave. Remembering that if
you play Galaga on anything other than the hardest setting it will
lock up on Stage 0 (256) but if you have it set to the hardest
setting then it still plays ok on Stage 0 (256). If that's a
programming bug I'd be very interested to know why the bug doesn't
occur just because the setting is on hardest !!!
<p>
Actually I like to think it was a deliberate feature the programmers
slipped in.....
<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
(256) stuff deliberately or not?!
<p>
I wonder about that definitive answer you gave. Remembering that if
you play Galaga on anything other than the hardest setting it will
lock up on Stage 0 (256) but if you have it set to the hardest
setting then it still plays ok on Stage 0 (256). If that's a
programming bug I'd be very interested to know why the bug doesn't
occur just because the setting is on hardest !!!
<p>
Actually I like to think it was a deliberate feature the programmers
slipped in.....
<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
-
Chris Parsley
The reason that round 256 problems happen in earlier made games is
because they used the hexidecimal number system to save data space -
aka the same memory saving technique that now makes the y2k problem,
and 256 is one number too high as the highest number that can be done
is 255. That's why Galaga, Pacman and the like have that problem.
The hard reason is actually a suprise, but they used one additional
memory space for round number on hard level only. Allows for
16*16*16 levels in that game.
--
cparsley1@hotmail.com
because they used the hexidecimal number system to save data space -
aka the same memory saving technique that now makes the y2k problem,
and 256 is one number too high as the highest number that can be done
is 255. That's why Galaga, Pacman and the like have that problem.
The hard reason is actually a suprise, but they used one additional
memory space for round number on hard level only. Allows for
16*16*16 levels in that game.
--
cparsley1@hotmail.com
-
BeeJay
Ah yes, but not all 8 bit games lockup when they reach round FF + 1.
<p>
Gyruss and Juno First both clock back to the "real round 1" at FF+2
like Galaga does on the hard difficulty setting. Actually Juno First
is incredibly difficult on Stage 0 but you've generally got enough
stacked up lives by this time to survive it anyway.
<p>
So I guess the question is why did Namco do it with so many of their
games ?! That's why I was suggesting that perhaps it was done
deliberately - either that or every one of their games crapped out
due to divide by zero errors.
<p>
How did you find out they used an extra "stage-holder-place" only
when the hardest difficulty is set? It still says "Stage 0" when
playing and it still goes back to Stage 1 proper as far as speed,
firing rates etc goes?
<p>
Also, anyone know why on Galaga they allowed the extra digit(s) for
player 2's score...... another feature perhaps....)
<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
<p>
Gyruss and Juno First both clock back to the "real round 1" at FF+2
like Galaga does on the hard difficulty setting. Actually Juno First
is incredibly difficult on Stage 0 but you've generally got enough
stacked up lives by this time to survive it anyway.
<p>
So I guess the question is why did Namco do it with so many of their
games ?! That's why I was suggesting that perhaps it was done
deliberately - either that or every one of their games crapped out
due to divide by zero errors.
<p>
How did you find out they used an extra "stage-holder-place" only
when the hardest difficulty is set? It still says "Stage 0" when
playing and it still goes back to Stage 1 proper as far as speed,
firing rates etc goes?
<p>
Also, anyone know why on Galaga they allowed the extra digit(s) for
player 2's score...... another feature perhaps....
)<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
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Gameboy9
Hmmm... I wasn't expecting THIS long of a thread .... Well I'll
make it longer!
<p>
I read your response BeeJay, and a few days ago I watched several
galaga games - is this thing you're talking about the reason most of
you play two player games and kill the first person?
<p>
Thanks again
--
goldengameboy@geocities.com
.... Well I'll make it longer!
<p>
I read your response BeeJay, and a few days ago I watched several
galaga games - is this thing you're talking about the reason most of
you play two player games and kill the first person?
<p>
Thanks again
--
goldengameboy@geocities.com
-
BeeJay
Gameboy,
<p>
You've got it in one. Because it makes it easier to verify the final
score when you've got all the digits visible most people who can
clock Galaga over 1 million use player 2 and waste player 1 - or in
the Krogman's case it shows both extra digits !!!!!!!!
<p>
One day Steve I hope to get that 10 million'th digit to show up.
<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
<p>
You've got it in one. Because it makes it easier to verify the final
score when you've got all the digits visible most people who can
clock Galaga over 1 million use player 2 and waste player 1 - or in
the Krogman's case it shows both extra digits !!!!!!!!
<p>
One day Steve I hope to get that 10 million'th digit to show up.
<p>
BeeJay.
--
bjohnstone@cardinal.co.nz
-
Chris Parsley
I'll cue you in on that one. According to the schmetics for the
game, the data space wasn't designed to allow the program to kick to
0 and back to 1, but in actually that's what it did. The extra space
was designed to prevent, according to the sheet, the 1's digit of the
score to not display anything other than 0.
Note: Some Namco games with a little persuation can have the ones
digit not be zero, or even display a hexidecimal score, aka. 3A429E
in Pac-Man Jr. I had got once.... (Won't tell you how it did it!)
Namco cut many corners in their programming, and that's why most of
their old machines crap out at FF+1...
Why other games are awfully hard at FF+1, also known as 0, is because
of the computations that are done with the level determining how hard
the level is, is that the computer would get the divide by 0 answer,
and then by default, auto-sticks in the toughest number programmed
for difficulty, and it would only appear, by the schematics, only if
that error occurs...
Hope that clears things up...
From someone who had an utter fasnication of the inside workings of
the blasted contraptions, and tried to keep them working.
Chris
--
cparsley1@hotmail.com
game, the data space wasn't designed to allow the program to kick to
0 and back to 1, but in actually that's what it did. The extra space
was designed to prevent, according to the sheet, the 1's digit of the
score to not display anything other than 0.
Note: Some Namco games with a little persuation can have the ones
digit not be zero, or even display a hexidecimal score, aka. 3A429E
in Pac-Man Jr. I had got once.... (Won't tell you how it did it!)
Namco cut many corners in their programming, and that's why most of
their old machines crap out at FF+1...
Why other games are awfully hard at FF+1, also known as 0, is because
of the computations that are done with the level determining how hard
the level is, is that the computer would get the divide by 0 answer,
and then by default, auto-sticks in the toughest number programmed
for difficulty, and it would only appear, by the schematics, only if
that error occurs...
Hope that clears things up...
From someone who had an utter fasnication of the inside workings of
the blasted contraptions, and tried to keep them working.
Chris
--
cparsley1@hotmail.com
-
stephen krogman
Gaming companies that allowed this extra memory space to continue
after 255 was more then just Namco. Williams also allowed a game to
continue after this stage of 255. For instance, in Robotron, even
know you had to keep track of the stages because they rolled over at
99, if you did that twice and then got to stage 55 (255) the next
stage after that so called last stage (happens to be a brain board)
it resets to stage 1 and the game is exactly the same as if you just
put a quarter in it from the beginning. This will cont. as long as
you stay alive and play. One question I do have is why doesn't Ms
Pacman end at stage 255 when Pac man does? There both Namco? Ms
Pacman only has 136 stages! what happened to the rest?
<p>
Regards,
Steve Krogman
--
skrogman@concentric.net
after 255 was more then just Namco. Williams also allowed a game to
continue after this stage of 255. For instance, in Robotron, even
know you had to keep track of the stages because they rolled over at
99, if you did that twice and then got to stage 55 (255) the next
stage after that so called last stage (happens to be a brain board)
it resets to stage 1 and the game is exactly the same as if you just
put a quarter in it from the beginning. This will cont. as long as
you stay alive and play. One question I do have is why doesn't Ms
Pacman end at stage 255 when Pac man does? There both Namco? Ms
Pacman only has 136 stages! what happened to the rest?
<p>
Regards,
Steve Krogman
--
skrogman@concentric.net