Pac-Land
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arcademugs
Newbie
I am slowly improving, as a kid I seem to remember playing it for ages on 1 credit. My performance these days is putting my childhood memories into serious doubt!
I am struggling to advanced past the first round! I am getting more determined though.....
I am struggling to advanced past the first round! I am getting more determined though.....
I haven't updated progress here for a while. A little while back I bought a NAMCO pac-land PCB and got it all set up and working. I need to sort out my controls properly so I've only played about 5 games on it so far, the best score of which is below (1,328,040). The PCB is back in storage at the moment as I've got about 3 car projects which I aim to get finished by March 2015, once those are done I will sort out a proper control setup and start playing a bit more regularly again.
Goal for 2015 is to beat masa.jp's 2.15M score on MARP
(but on World rather than the Japanese edition) Do-able I think but very very difficult!
Goal for 2015 is to beat masa.jp's 2.15M score on MARP
That's incredible dude! I struggle to get 500,000 on easiest settings (easy enemy AI skill, start with 5 lives and bonus life every 30K, 80K, 130K, 300K, 500K and 1 million) and that's on an original cab! You've got leet Pac-Land skills buddy, that's for sure! I'm pretty confident that you'll beat the 2.15M score with a bit more practice.
I wish I had more secrets to reveal to help you on your way but I've pretty much reversed the entire game now and found nothing new since I revealed all the secrets last year.
I wish I had more secrets to reveal to help you on your way but I've pretty much reversed the entire game now and found nothing new since I revealed all the secrets last year.
Thanks cmonkey, and I wouldn't be able to hit those scores without your help - knowing how and where to search for the S-pacs, knowing the rules to always find the hidden power ups and getting the 6x7650 balloons (which I hit most of the time on trip 1, at least) are all very important parts of my gameplay, the S-pacs in particular are worth a big chunk of the scores.
On MAME I have got over 1.6M, and I think if I could play a "perfect" game (no silly loss of life, no deaths on "easy" rounds, and a bit of luck on some scoring opportunities) I think I would max out at around 1.9M. To beat masa.jp's score, I'm going to need to work on a handful of "hard" rounds - I have a shortlist of around 6 rounds - and develop some better strategies for those in particular.
At present I don't think I'm ever likely to get close to the 4.1M world record. That just seems a very very long way off!
On MAME I have got over 1.6M, and I think if I could play a "perfect" game (no silly loss of life, no deaths on "easy" rounds, and a bit of luck on some scoring opportunities) I think I would max out at around 1.9M. To beat masa.jp's score, I'm going to need to work on a handful of "hard" rounds - I have a shortlist of around 6 rounds - and develop some better strategies for those in particular.
At present I don't think I'm ever likely to get close to the 4.1M world record. That just seems a very very long way off!
My plan was to stop posting MAME scores and start posting scores on NAMCO hardware, but had a good game on MAME this morning so couldn't resist posting again. Score is 1,749,500.
I lost a ridiculous life on trip 1 and nearly stopped the game! Last death on round 63, which is a bugbear round for me (almost always lose a life on it, need a better strategy for this round). Part of the challenge of round 63 is time is very tight, so the player is forced to take some risks to get through. On losing a life, the timer is reset and it can be completed with fewer risks after that. If I had just kept one more life going in (e.g. not throwing away a life on trip 1 would help), the next five rounds (trip 16 return and all of trip 17) are quite low risk, and would have very likely seen a 1.9M score. So close!
I lost a ridiculous life on trip 1 and nearly stopped the game! Last death on round 63, which is a bugbear round for me (almost always lose a life on it, need a better strategy for this round). Part of the challenge of round 63 is time is very tight, so the player is forced to take some risks to get through. On losing a life, the timer is reset and it can be completed with fewer risks after that. If I had just kept one more life going in (e.g. not throwing away a life on trip 1 would help), the next five rounds (trip 16 return and all of trip 17) are quite low risk, and would have very likely seen a 1.9M score. So close!
Impressive! I've played quite a bit of Pac-Land, but not to anywhere near this level. Any chance of a play through vid? I'd love to watch your techniques and try and get a few pointers for a better game.
G
Guests
Guest
Wow! Huge score!
Again, set up a stream!! There's such crap on the TV I'm always watching people play live.
Cool game!!
Again, set up a stream!! There's such crap on the TV I'm always watching people play live.
Cool game!!
Thanks all!
When I set up my namco hardware with proper controls etc., I will add a webcam, partly to allow me to review gameplay for patterns of lost lives etc., but then it should be easy to make this available online. This project is still a few months off though.
I have tried recording MAME plays to video, with mixed results - I think my aging laptop struggles to cope, it barely has the horsepower to run MAME let alone do anything else. I may try a few different settings and see if I can convert an old .inp into a video and upload it to youtube. Unfortunately it may take a computer upgrade to make it all happen. Any suggestions on how best to do it gratefully received!
When I set up my namco hardware with proper controls etc., I will add a webcam, partly to allow me to review gameplay for patterns of lost lives etc., but then it should be easy to make this available online. This project is still a few months off though.
I have tried recording MAME plays to video, with mixed results - I think my aging laptop struggles to cope, it barely has the horsepower to run MAME let alone do anything else. I may try a few different settings and see if I can convert an old .inp into a video and upload it to youtube. Unfortunately it may take a computer upgrade to make it all happen. Any suggestions on how best to do it gratefully received!
Only just seen this! Excellent score dude! Congratulations! True dedication! I played Pac-Land at Play Blackpool at the weekend (my first game of it for about 6 months) and got just over 300,000.
Oh well, only another 1.8M to go to catch up with you!
Ah, I would have liked to have made it to play blackpool but other stuff got in the way - that said, I might not have found time to post that score if I had gone...
Was the pac-land at play blackpool the one with the joystick and japanese romset? I really think pac-land needs to be played with buttons! There are little tricks you can use (including having both buttons pressed) that are very difficult or impossible with a joystick.
Was the pac-land at play blackpool the one with the joystick and japanese romset? I really think pac-land needs to be played with buttons! There are little tricks you can use (including having both buttons pressed) that are very difficult or impossible with a joystick.
Yes, it was the cab with the stick. And to make matters worse the stick was decidedly dodgy, whereby it wouldn't recognise left direction pushes half of the time! This is not too bad for outbound (left to right) rounds but made the return trips (right to left) considerably more difficult than they needed to be. It also made sudden stops (both buttons pressed) and quick turns virtually impossible, and you know more than most how important they are towards getting a good score.
So, what's the next target then, now that you've hit the lofty heights of 2M?
So, what's the next target then, now that you've hit the lofty heights of 2M?
Sounds like 300k was a pretty good score under those circumstances!
My next step, I think, is to take a bit of a break from playing pac-land while I still have some tiny thread of sanity remaining
perhaps for a month or two and try to get away from playing MAME and get on to playing on the real hardware. My setup for the real hardware is still a lash up and I want to make something better out of that. I haven't decided quite what to do yet - space constraints mean I don't want to get a full size cab, but then a two-thirds size scratch build might be fun to do and take up a bit less space...
Once I've done that, put on a proper video feed so I can record to twitch, get practicing again so I can score something in the region of 2M consistently then possibly submit a score. It won't be a no.1 record of course, but I'm not sure I'll ever reach four million. Not sure my reactions are quick enough any more!
My next step, I think, is to take a bit of a break from playing pac-land while I still have some tiny thread of sanity remaining
Once I've done that, put on a proper video feed so I can record to twitch, get practicing again so I can score something in the region of 2M consistently then possibly submit a score. It won't be a no.1 record of course, but I'm not sure I'll ever reach four million. Not sure my reactions are quick enough any more!
terminator2k2
Active member
Didn't even know this post existed until now, one of my all time favourites Pac land, even though time after time I can't even make the swimming pool on the 2nd level lol
I'm returning to playing again after a short sanity preserving break from playing the game. I'm experimenting with using my phone to record gameplay (results were a bit rubbish to begin with, but slowly getting better).
I'm not quite back to the play standard I was at, but managed to record a 1.8 million point game and upload to youtube here:
Still scope for improvements - both in gameplay and video recording, will keep working on it!
I'm not quite back to the play standard I was at, but managed to record a 1.8 million point game and upload to youtube here:
Still scope for improvements - both in gameplay and video recording, will keep working on it!