Ms. Pac-Man

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Ms. Pac-Man
Studio General Computer Corporation
Publisher Midway Manufacturing
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1982
genre Maze
Game mode 1 or 2 players, alternating rounds
control Joystick (4-way)
casing Standard and Cocktail
Arcade system CPU : Z80 3.072 MHz
monitor Raster ,
resolution 224 × 288 (vertical),
16 colors

Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 arcade game that was released as one of the sequels to Pac-Man . It was produced by the American company Midway Manufacturing . Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America in January 1982 and is one of the most successful arcade video games to date. In Ms. Pac-Man the player controls a female character, the mazes of the game were more complex than in the predecessor Pac-Man and there have been several improvements compared to the original title.

Gameplay

Ms. Pac-Man

The game mechanics of Ms. Pac-Man correspond to the original Pac-Man . The player collects points by eating the pills that are scattered all over the place and staying away from the various ghosts. There are individual special energy tablets on the playing field. If Ms. Pac-Man swallows this, all ghosts change their color to blue and try to avoid her. Fruits that appear partially can also be eaten by Ms. Pac-Man and earn extra points. With each round the ghosts and also Ms. Pac-Man get faster, which makes the game more and more difficult.

In Ms. Pac-Man , there are some changes to the original Pac-Man :

  • The game has four different mazes that are displayed in different colors.
  • Three of the four labyrinths (the first, second and fourth) have four tunnels that connect the respective outer sides.
  • The walls are filled with a color instead of a simple border like in the original game. This makes it easier, especially for beginners, to see where the paths in the maze are.
  • The behavior patterns of the ghosts are much more complex than in the original game.
  • Instead of being in the middle of the maze, the fruits appear randomly all over the playing field and bounce randomly through the maze.
  • Ms. Pac-Man's orange ghost is called Sue instead of Clyde.
  • The sound effects and music have been changed a lot compared to the original, including the opening theme and the sound effect for a death.
  • Like Pac-Man , Ms. Pac-Man has a bug that makes it impossible to play level 256 of the game. But the game contains a number of other bugs that make it impossible for the player to reach the 256th level without additional tools.

Development history

Ms. Pac-Man was originally intended as an expansion pack for Pac-Man . It was developed under the title Crazy Otto by the programmers of the General Computer Corporation (GCC). While Crazy Otto was in development, GCC had just reached an agreement with Atari on their Super Missile Attack expansion package for Missile Command . Part of the agreement was that GCC would not release any further expansion packs without consulting the maker of the original game.

Instead of giving up Crazy Otto entirely, GCC decided to introduce the game to Midway, Namco's American distribution company for Pac-Man . Midway was waiting impatiently at the time for Namco's next Pac-Man game, which was to appear under the name Super Pac-Man . Midway bought the rights to Crazy Otto , changed the sprites to match Pac-Man , and changed the name to Ms. Pac-Man . So Ms. Pac-Man was released as an arcade game.

Reception and records

  • The Time magazine placed the game in 2016 at number 5 of its video game leaderboard.
  • In June 2017, an artificial intelligence achieved the maximum number of points of 999,990 points (the best human players have so far scored around 250,000 points). The Microsoft subsidiary Maluuba used 150 software agents perfected for individual tasks (for example for collecting fruit or evading ghosts ). Their particular goals are synthesized by an AI based on deep learning into an overall game strategy.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ US Copyright Filing PA0000140275
  2. ↑ Donhodges.Com — Ms. Pac-Man's Kill Screens Analyzed And Fixed
  3. ↑ Ms. Pac-Man Videogame by Midway (1981) - The International Arcade Museum and the KLOV
  4. ^ Doug Macrae from GCC speaks at California Extreme 2010
  5. ↑ Alex Fitzpatrick et al .: The 50 Best Video Games of All Time. In: Time.com. August 23, 2016, accessed June 20, 2017 .
  6. ^ Brian Heater: Microsoft's AI beats Ms. Pac-Man. In: TechCrunch . June 15, 2017, accessed June 20, 2017 .