17 replies to this topic

[Keatah]

In my scanned copy of racing the beam, I found that it says on page 74,

"Another problem with the visuals is even more subtle. In Iwatani’s
original game, each ghost has a different color, name, and behavior. This
gives each of the opponents at least some sort of personality. The arcade
game prominently introduces the monsters by name—Blinky, Inky, Pinky,
and Clyde—during attract mode, when the machine is luring players to
insert quarters, and Blinky is further fictionalized in the interstitial scenes
between levels. No such transfer of characterization was possible on the
Atari VCS, in part because the monsters cannot be distinguished from
one another."

What?? I can clearly see the color differences in a rom from Hunter's collection, and this is the original rom from Atari, apparently. Not a homebrew, not a hack, not a re-write or anything. The colors are subtle, but they are definitely different. So what gives?

[accousticguitar]

That's not the only error in the book. In more than one place it credits Larry Kaplan with programming Combat when it was Larry Wagner who finished it. Joe Decuir started it.

[Nukey Shay]

It's more like an oversight. The description above is correct if they hadn't put "color" in the first sentance. Anything that makes up their actual "personality" (or lack of) is identical between sprites, tho. So it's correct in that context. None have names, and all of them use the same targeting (tho on different frames...which makes them appear to react differently on occasion).

[batari]

Nukey Shay, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:45 PM, said:

None have names

Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

batari, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:32 PM, said:

Nukey Shay, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:45 PM, said:

None have names

Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky.

Are you sure?

[batari]

Thomas Jentzsch, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 5:39 AM, said:

batari, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:32 PM, said:

Nukey Shay, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:45 PM, said:

None have names

Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky.

Are you sure?

I'm exactly 25% sure.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

batari, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 12:47 PM, said:

Thomas Jentzsch, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 5:39 AM, said:

batari, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:32 PM, said:

Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky.

Are you sure?

I'm exactly 25% sure.

After reading this and some more analyzing of the Pac-Man code, we should find out.

[Nukey Shay]

All aboard the sarcasm train

Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky."
Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky."
Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it."
Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy."
MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!"
Cats : "Judges...a ruling."
MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!"

Edited by Nukey Shay, Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:16 PM.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Nukey Shay, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:10 PM, said:

All aboard the sarcasm train

Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky."
Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky."
Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it."
Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy."
MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!"
Cats : "Judges...a ruling."
MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!"

Actually this is right. By using your PacMan8k code I found:
All four ghosts directly (with a bit of randomness) hunt Pac-Man like the original Blinky does.

So batari is 100% correct.

[Nukey Shay]

Make that 25% right (or 20% for the Defender alien). Holmes can't seek on frames it isn't looking.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Nukey Shay, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 4:30 PM, said:

Make that 25% right (or 20% for the Defender alien). Holmes can't seek on frames it isn't looking.

Huh?

[Nukey Shay]

Because the game only deals with 1 "ghost" per frame - any decisions for it's movement are decided & performed on that frame. That's 1/4 of the time (25%). The arcade machine has no such limitation.

[Feralstorm]

I nominate Linky, Stinky, Rinky, & Dinky.

[Nathan Strum]

Nukey Shay, on Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:10 PM, said:

All aboard the sarcasm train

Ghost 1 : "I'm Blinky."
Ghost 2 : "I'm Blinky."
Defender alien : "I'm Blinky, and I can prove it."
Contestant : "I choose the Defender guy."
MC : "I think we have a winner, folks!"
Cats : "Judges...a ruling."
MC : "It turns out that it was a trick question...the entire panel is Blinky!"

That's just begging to be turned into a comic strip.

[toiletunes]

They're all kind of blinky if you look closely

[Syntaxerror999]

batari, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:32 PM, said:

Nukey Shay, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:45 PM, said:

None have names

Their names are Blinky, Blinky, Blinky, and Blinky.

More like Flashy, Flickery, Blippy, and Blinky

[ibogost]

accousticguitar, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 11:42 AM, said:

That's not the only error in the book. In more than one place it credits Larry Kaplan with programming Combat when it was Larry Wagner who finished it. Joe Decuir started it.

This got fixed in the second printing. It was indeed an error. So many Larrys!

[ibogost]

Keatah, on Wed Mar 23, 2011 9:01 AM, said:

In my scanned copy of racing the beam, I found that it says on page 74,

"Another problem with the visuals is even more subtle. In Iwatani’s
original game, each ghost has a different color, name, and behavior. This
gives each of the opponents at least some sort of personality. The arcade
game prominently introduces the monsters by name—Blinky, Inky, Pinky,
and Clyde—during attract mode, when the machine is luring players to
insert quarters, and Blinky is further fictionalized in the interstitial scenes
between levels. No such transfer of characterization was possible on the
Atari VCS, in part because the monsters cannot be distinguished from
one another."

What?? I can clearly see the color differences in a rom from Hunter's collection, and this is the original rom from Atari, apparently. Not a homebrew, not a hack, not a re-write or anything. The colors are subtle, but they are definitely different. So what gives?

Yeah, ok, but we meant "color, name, and behavior" as a group. I see how it might be confusing, but I'm not sure I'd bother correcting it in a future run. Nick and I will think about it though.