Thank you! Totally could not have done it without your videos of the patterns for levels 1-8,10-11, and 14. I also learned the one I used on level 170 from your video.
42:08 The game thinks were *on level 255* because the *level counter* started at zero, *fruit counter* at one. Because the fruit counter is 0 on level 256th, here's short explaination: The fruit counter was suposted to always draw seven fruits. Each number has their own case: (I replaced Galaxian with a monster coz emoji doesn't exist) Level 1 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒) Level 2 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓) Level 3 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑) Level 4 = A (⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑) Level 5 = A (⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎) Level 6 = A (⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎) Level 7 = A (🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇) Level 8 = B (🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇) Level 9 = B (🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾) Level10 = B (🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾) Level11 = B (🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔) Level12 = B (🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔) Level13 = B (🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑) Level14 = B (🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑) Level15 = B (👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑) Level16 = B (👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑) Level17 = B (🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑) Level18 = B (🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑) Level19 = C (🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑) Level20 = C (🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑) (Fruit list is 20 elements long: 🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑) Mechanics of cases: A - If the level is at most 7, then draw fruits from 1 to level. Then, erase 7-level fruit spaces. B - If the level is beewen 8 and 18, then draw fruits from level-6 to level. C - If the level is at least 19, then draw fruits from 13 to 19 (always seven keys) Well, 256 was suposted to be in Case C, because 256 ≥ 19. However, the machine was 8-bit and it treated as zero. In 8-bit system, 0 = level 1, 1 = level 2, and so on forever. 8-bit values can be writed at range from 0 to 255. 00000000 is 0, when all bits are turned off, and 11111111 is 255, when all bits are turned on. Even if we try to add 1 to 255, all the bits will get back to zero, because 256 requires a ninth bit, which doesn't exist here. After passing 255th level, the fruit counter was of course 255, but after the increment came 0. Because it was less than 8, the Case A was applied to happen. The machine has in general 1024 bytes for graphics ($4000 to $43FF) and another 1024 bytes for colours. ($4400 to $47FF). The memory was starting from the right, instead of left. Firstly ($400 to $403F) there's a fruit & live counter. The maze is stored at beetwen $4040 to $43BF. The memory was ending at ($43C0 to $43FF) when the scores were displayed (1UP; HIGH SCORE; 2UP) What does it mean to start at 1 and end at 0? It means to draw fruits until it overflows back to 0. When we try to draw 256 fruits, the first 13 are good. 14th isn't visible. 15th's up half isn't visible. Fruits 15th to 30th got glitched down half (start of maze drawing). 21st to 30th are scrambled. 31st onward are now drawn on the maze. After that, seven blank tiles were drawn.
I want to throw some info out there because it seems that a few people are finding that these patterns don’t work the same when they attempt it. 1. A lot of Pac-Man’s you see in collections are NOT the same rom as the arcade version. You need to be playing the arcade rom for these patterns to work. They may have been created from the ground up or are using a modified version of the rom. 2. You cannot slip up the pattern even ONCE. It will mess up the timing because these patterns are very specific Edit: there are also things like the Pac-Man pocket player that try to imitate the original version on different hardware. The pocket player in particular seems to be a Sega Genesis recreation. You can usually tell when it isn’t an arcade rom because it’s supposed to sound exactly right. If you notice a sound effect in the game sounds different than what you’re used to, you’re more than likely not playing the genuine version
20:27 Regarding your point about the random fruit time - there is a set of incrementing timers that are used to pause when eating monsters and expire the fruit. They reset to zero at the start and restart of any level. They are tracked by hundredths, tens of hundreths, and seconds (at least, those are the only ones I'm concerned about). Hundredths are incremented each frame and only count to 6, which then increments tenhundredths to 10, which then increments seconds. If tenhundreths is currently 9 and hundredths is currently 5 when you eat the fruit, the next frame will increment seconds which consumes a full second of fruit time, resulting in the 8.91 seconds you mentioned. It isn't exactly random, because on a perfectly repeated pattern, the fruit will always disappear at the same moment. (at least, this is what I estimate, having studied the arcade disassembly to attempt my own clone). Update: I just noticed your detail on the timers at 51:21. The same group of timer bytes are used for the eaten ghost pauses and the fruit timer, so I presumed they are always the same for each pattern. If the fruit timer (which uses seconds and is 'random' from the value of the tenhundredths timer) is variable when the eaten monster timer (which uses tenhundreths and is 'random' from the value of the hundreths timer) is not, that means I have more studying to do. I assumed they were both reset with a level, because the monster pause timer is so critical for a pattern to work, otherwise the monsters get out of position as timers expire while eyes are running back to the monster box.
See the outtakes, where I show eating the fruit at one iteration of the pattern, but it disappearing before eating it in another iteration. I really liked that pattern, but I think it cost me 5000 points 1/10 of the time.
@@brianandcindy1 I trust your results. I was just thinking that if the fruit timer is random, then so is the eaten monster pause timer, and that can significantly affect pattern success. I'll keep looking at it. Thank you for the detailed video!
I tried out a pattern on level 1 in Steam Arcade Pac-Man. The fruit keeps disappearing at the exact same time. But maybe that version isn't coded the same as what you were playing here. Also, I realized that the first monster eat timer could be random, but once its timer is consumed, it has lined up the timer for the rest of the monster eats for the rest of the level. The first monster eat doesn't matter - the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ones matter for timing. Since the first eat lined up the timer, the rest of them are now lined up properly. That's my current finding. I'll keep looking.
Thanks for taking the time to watch! Yeah, the ability to legitimately "pause" the game is great. As much as I love the game, I don't want to play it for 4 hours straight.
Sort of....you can finish the level that way, and the fruit will return to cherries, and a couple of half keys will still be there for 1 more level, but everything else will be the same as 255.
I've been trying to learn the first four patterns (cherry through second peach for about two months. I struggle to pass the levels consistently. Do you have any pointers? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I'm playing with a Mister fpga and dominux 4 way joystick. Thank you for any help.
The only joystick that I have ever been able to use properly is the one on the physical Pac Man machine. With hand-held joysticks, I have found it virtually impossible to time all my turns consistently, though I haven't used them that much. I use the arrow keys on a keyboard.
@@brianandcindy1 I have a physical pacman machine with a fixed joystick. I just wondered if you had any other pointers, possibly something that I'm missing. Thank you for your response and patterns, it is amazing to watch this video.
One month later... I have successfully gotten all of the points for the first four boards, 4 times. The board I struggle to pass is the strawberry. I have tried to analyze side by side, but can't see anything wrong. Do you know how to do this analysis? What program do you use for side by side comparison to see delays, etc. Thank you for any help.
@@davidrice9995 Where does the pattern start to fail? When I was learning the strawberry patterb, it would often fail when trying to get all 4 blue monsters in the upper left. This was usually due to a slow turn when getting the monsters in the lower left.
0:54 Level 1: Pattern 1
2:18 Level 2: Pattern 2
3:46 Level 3: Pattern 3
5:01 Level 4: Pattern 3.4
6:25 Level 5: Pattern 5
7:50 Level 6: Pattern 5.6
9:09 Level 7: Pattern 5
10:23 Level 8: Pattern 5
11:39 Level 9: Pattern 9
13:10 Level 10: Pattern 5.6.10
14:27 Level 11: Pattern 5
15:43 Level 12: Pattern 9
17:04 Level 13: Pattern 9
18:37 Level 14: Pattern 5.14
20:00 Level 15: Pattern 9
21:29 Level 16: Pattern 9
22:53 Level 17: Pattern 17
23:56 Level 18: Pattern 9
25:20 Level 19: Pattern 19
26:18 Level 20: Pattern 19
27:15 Level 21: Pattern 21
28:10 Level 71: Pattern 21.71
30:18 Level 124: Pattern 21.124
31:07 Level 128: Pattern 128
32:17 Level 150: Pattern 21
33:12 Level 170: Pattern 1.170
34:05 Level 192: Pattern 1.170.192
35:15 Level 230: Pattern 21
35:33 Level 251: Pattern 21.251
36:35 Level 254: Pattern 21.254
37:21 Level 255: Pattern 21
38:15 Level 256: Pattern 256
39:53 Level 256: Pattern 256 (2nd Man)
40:47 Level 256: Pattern 256 (3rd Man)
41:27 Level 256: Pattern 256 (4th Man)
41:59 Level 256: Pattern 256 (5th Man)
42:32 Level 256: Pattern 256 (6th Man)
43:49 Postgame Show
44:20 Outtake #1: Slow Pattern 1
44:27 Outtake #2: Slow Pattern 2
44:48 Outtake #3: Slow Pattern 3[.4]
45:13 Outtake #4: Slow Pattern 5[.*] (Clyde to Corner)
45:23 Outtake #5: Worse Slow Pattern 5[.*] (Short of Energizer)
45:32 Outtake #6: Slow Pattern 5 (Pinky Up)
45:44 Outtake #7: Failure to move Down for 3rd monster, Pattern 5
46:09 Outtake #8: Space Out Pattern 5.14
46:19 Outtake #9: Slow Pattern 9 (Caught from behind by Pinky)
46:26 Outtake #10: Slow Pattern 9 (3rd energizer turnaround, green-eyed red monsters)
46:42 Outtake #11: Fast Pattern 9 (2nd fruit turnaround)
47:17 Outtake #12: Fast Pattern 9 (missed hesitation)
47:28 Outtake #13: Slow Pattern 9 (too long hesitation)
47:41 Outtake #14: Pattern 9 (Alternate 4th Energizer)
48:14 Outtake #15: Pattern PK (alternate for Levels 19 and 20)
49:10 Outtake #16: Pattern 21 (alternate ending)
49:19 Outtake #17: Pattern 21.251 (easier ending sometimes available)
49:39 Outtake #18: Fast Pattern 21.254 (failing to wait for Clyde to pass)
50:00 Outtake #19: Safe Spot Deaths
50:32 Outtake #20: Pattern 5, Safe Spot, Level 5/11 vs 7/8
51:04 Outtake #21: Pattern 21.124 variation illustrating fruit timer
52:11 Outtake #22: Failure to account for Mode Switch
52:18 Outtake #23: Up "Illegal" Passage
52:33 Outtake #24: Pattern 21 (stopping a turn too soon)
52:42 Outtake #25: Pattern F-4 (Fast pattern for Levels 21-255)
53:28 Outtake #26: Pattern F-4 (Booey Example)
53:34 Outtake #27: Pattern F-4 (Four Green-Eyed Pink Monsters)
54:02 Outtake #28: Blinky Turns Away
54:23 Outtake #29: Level 256 (Frozen in Place)
54:32 Outtake #30: Level 256 (It matters how you get to the BC stop)
54:48 Outtake #31: Level 256 (Mode Switch Reversal)
54:56 Outtake #32: Other Perfect Score ("Hard" Setting)
55:10 Outtake #33: Why 256 is as it is
55:30 Outtake #34: Turnabout is Fair Play
55:46 Outtake #35: Why The 1-Frame 4th Scatter
55:56 Outtake #36: More Readable Level 256 Screen
56:09 Outtake #37: Eating a monster before he is fully out of the pen
56:36 Outtake #38: Tile Grid and examples
58:17 Outtake #39: 2 Player Perfect Game
58:41 Credits
thanks!
A lot of great information you've included here. Well done!
Thank you! Totally could not have done it without your videos of the patterns for levels 1-8,10-11, and 14. I also learned the one I used on level 170 from your video.
42:08 The game thinks were *on level 255* because the *level counter* started at zero, *fruit counter* at one.
Because the fruit counter is 0 on level 256th, here's short explaination:
The fruit counter was suposted to always draw seven fruits. Each number has their own case:
(I replaced Galaxian with a monster coz emoji doesn't exist)
Level 1 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒)
Level 2 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓)
Level 3 = A (⬛⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑)
Level 4 = A (⬛⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑)
Level 5 = A (⬛⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎)
Level 6 = A (⬛🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎)
Level 7 = A (🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇)
Level 8 = B (🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇)
Level 9 = B (🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾)
Level10 = B (🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾)
Level11 = B (🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔)
Level12 = B (🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔)
Level13 = B (🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑)
Level14 = B (🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑)
Level15 = B (👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑)
Level16 = B (👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑)
Level17 = B (🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑)
Level18 = B (🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑)
Level19 = C (🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑)
Level20 = C (🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑)
(Fruit list is 20 elements long: 🍒🍓🍑🍑🍎🍎🍇🍇👾👾🔔🔔🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑🔑)
Mechanics of cases:
A - If the level is at most 7, then draw fruits from 1 to level. Then, erase 7-level fruit spaces.
B - If the level is beewen 8 and 18, then draw fruits from level-6 to level.
C - If the level is at least 19, then draw fruits from 13 to 19 (always seven keys)
Well, 256 was suposted to be in Case C, because 256 ≥ 19. However, the machine was 8-bit and it treated as zero.
In 8-bit system, 0 = level 1, 1 = level 2, and so on forever. 8-bit values can be writed at range from 0 to 255. 00000000 is 0, when all bits are turned off, and 11111111 is 255, when all bits are turned on. Even if we try to add 1 to 255, all the bits will get back to zero, because 256 requires a ninth bit, which doesn't exist here.
After passing 255th level, the fruit counter was of course 255, but after the increment came 0. Because it was less than 8, the Case A was applied to happen.
The machine has in general 1024 bytes for graphics ($4000 to $43FF) and another 1024 bytes for colours. ($4400 to $47FF).
The memory was starting from the right, instead of left. Firstly ($400 to $403F) there's a fruit & live counter.
The maze is stored at beetwen $4040 to $43BF.
The memory was ending at ($43C0 to $43FF) when the scores were displayed (1UP; HIGH SCORE; 2UP)
What does it mean to start at 1 and end at 0? It means to draw fruits until it overflows back to 0.
When we try to draw 256 fruits, the first 13 are good. 14th isn't visible. 15th's up half isn't visible. Fruits 15th to 30th got glitched down half (start of maze drawing). 21st to 30th are scrambled. 31st onward are now drawn on the maze.
After that, seven blank tiles were drawn.
Thanks! There is a great video out there illustrating all of this.
“Short” explanation
I want to throw some info out there because it seems that a few people are finding that these patterns don’t work the same when they attempt it.
1. A lot of Pac-Man’s you see in collections are NOT the same rom as the arcade version. You need to be playing the arcade rom for these patterns to work. They may have been created from the ground up or are using a modified version of the rom.
2. You cannot slip up the pattern even ONCE. It will mess up the timing because these patterns are very specific
Edit: there are also things like the Pac-Man pocket player that try to imitate the original version on different hardware. The pocket player in particular seems to be a Sega Genesis recreation. You can usually tell when it isn’t an arcade rom because it’s supposed to sound exactly right. If you notice a sound effect in the game sounds different than what you’re used to, you’re more than likely not playing the genuine version
Yes, if the program is different, I wouldn't expect them to work the same.
20:27 Regarding your point about the random fruit time - there is a set of incrementing timers that are used to pause when eating monsters and expire the fruit. They reset to zero at the start and restart of any level. They are tracked by hundredths, tens of hundreths, and seconds (at least, those are the only ones I'm concerned about). Hundredths are incremented each frame and only count to 6, which then increments tenhundredths to 10, which then increments seconds. If tenhundreths is currently 9 and hundredths is currently 5 when you eat the fruit, the next frame will increment seconds which consumes a full second of fruit time, resulting in the 8.91 seconds you mentioned. It isn't exactly random, because on a perfectly repeated pattern, the fruit will always disappear at the same moment. (at least, this is what I estimate, having studied the arcade disassembly to attempt my own clone).
Update: I just noticed your detail on the timers at 51:21. The same group of timer bytes are used for the eaten ghost pauses and the fruit timer, so I presumed they are always the same for each pattern. If the fruit timer (which uses seconds and is 'random' from the value of the tenhundredths timer) is variable when the eaten monster timer (which uses tenhundreths and is 'random' from the value of the hundreths timer) is not, that means I have more studying to do. I assumed they were both reset with a level, because the monster pause timer is so critical for a pattern to work, otherwise the monsters get out of position as timers expire while eyes are running back to the monster box.
See the outtakes, where I show eating the fruit at one iteration of the pattern, but it disappearing before eating it in another iteration. I really liked that pattern, but I think it cost me 5000 points 1/10 of the time.
@@brianandcindy1 I trust your results. I was just thinking that if the fruit timer is random, then so is the eaten monster pause timer, and that can significantly affect pattern success. I'll keep looking at it. Thank you for the detailed video!
I tried out a pattern on level 1 in Steam Arcade Pac-Man. The fruit keeps disappearing at the exact same time. But maybe that version isn't coded the same as what you were playing here. Also, I realized that the first monster eat timer could be random, but once its timer is consumed, it has lined up the timer for the rest of the monster eats for the rest of the level. The first monster eat doesn't matter - the 2nd, 3rd and 4th ones matter for timing. Since the first eat lined up the timer, the rest of them are now lined up properly. That's my current finding. I'll keep looking.
this is amazing! thanks for all the great info that pause rest spot is fantastic
Thanks for taking the time to watch! Yeah, the ability to legitimately "pause" the game is great. As much as I love the game, I don't want to play it for 4 hours straight.
42 anniversary of king of the 80s
Welcome to the annotated Pac-Man Perfect Game!
54:32 You need to go in a _safe_ way to got into yellow BC within *4,95* seconds (before 1st chase starting)
Way to go😊
1:43 Pacman's death is being *chomped*
NOSTALGIC games
46:36 Well, 7490 because you couldn't get the 6th pac-man's nine dots.
In the context of a perfect game, you are correct.
41:42 So, if you were to cheat and have infinite lives could you eat 244 dots on level 256 and progress to level 1 again?
Sort of....you can finish the level that way, and the fruit will return to cherries, and a couple of half keys will still be there for 1 more level, but everything else will be the same as 255.
Hello, I have a question. What emulator do you use and where did you get the Pac-Man ROm from? pd: Thank you for all the info
Mame 0.178 is what I used. If you Google pacman.zip rom you should find it
@@brianandcindy1 Thank you so much!
@@brianandcindy1 Sorry for the inconvenience but how did you change the lives from 3 to 5?
@@partiv On mine, I hit Tab and then Dip Switches.
I have a question regarding the first Energizer on the strawberry pattern. Whenever I eat the 3rd ghost I get 200 points instead of 800. Why is that?
What game version are you using? Hand held one did that for me, too.
@@brianandcindy1 yes the pac man shaped connect n play with orange joystick
I've been trying to learn the first four patterns (cherry through second peach for about two months. I struggle to pass the levels consistently. Do you have any pointers? I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I'm playing with a Mister fpga and dominux 4 way joystick. Thank you for any help.
The only joystick that I have ever been able to use properly is the one on the physical Pac Man machine. With hand-held joysticks, I have found it virtually impossible to time all my turns consistently, though I haven't used them that much. I use the arrow keys on a keyboard.
@@brianandcindy1 I have a physical pacman machine with a fixed joystick. I just wondered if you had any other pointers, possibly something that I'm missing. Thank you for your response and patterns, it is amazing to watch this video.
@@davidrice9995 Key thing is to be making your turns very slightly before the intersection. If you don't do that, you will be slow.
One month later... I have successfully gotten all of the points for the first four boards, 4 times. The board I struggle to pass is the strawberry. I have tried to analyze side by side, but can't see anything wrong. Do you know how to do this analysis? What program do you use for side by side comparison to see delays, etc. Thank you for any help.
@@davidrice9995 Where does the pattern start to fail? When I was learning the strawberry patterb, it would often fail when trying to get all 4 blue monsters in the upper left. This was usually due to a slow turn when getting the monsters in the lower left.
I downloaded MAME 0.250 and "pacman.zip" and I want to put into folder, what is called?
I figured out, "roms".
How to set 5 lives on a single game?
On mine, I hit Tab, and a menu pops up and I select Dip Switches, and one of those is for the number of men.
@@brianandcindy1
MEMORY OK
1 COIN 2 CREDITS
BONUS 10000
PAC-MAN 5
UPRIGHT
@@brianandcindy1 Also, is possible saving the state?
@@SzymekCSC Yes. On mine, it's Shift-F7 and then a letter or number. To resume from a saved state, it's F7 and then the same letter or number.
@@brianandcindy1 I found one bug : youre able to clear round 0 (kill screen) by pressing F1 key (working 0.250)