The Pac-Man Dossier | Hacker News Reader

The Pac-Man Dossier

gamasutra.com

58 pointsTomte10 comments

> In 1999, Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida became the first person to obtain a perfect score of 3,333,360 at Pac-Man

No, he probably did not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNSJX1a2weo

Yeah, that record is largely irrelevant. Pac Man record attempts were run with three lives. TG created a new five life category. The accomplishment is tantamount to being the first person to win the 101m dash.

David Race is the definitive world champion of Pac Man, holding the record for fastest perfect game. Recently he put up the first perfect game on an Anniversary cabinet and he did it on his first attempt.

> without losing a single life in the process.

What does it matter if you were allowed three lives or five lives if he lost zero lives?

it's in the article, but at the glitched level 256 there are a few dots that respawn when you die, you need all the lives to squeeze out those last few points.

As far as I can see only his Donkey Kong records were disputed.

"on July 3, Mitchell achieved the perfect score at an arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire, and set the game's world record as recorded by Funspot and Twin Galaxies". So no MAME involved in that one.

"With a camcorder supplied by Funspot bearing down over his shoulder, Mitchell’s every last move was taped for posterity -- if not, at least, for irrefutable proof of the achievement. "

https://www.funspotnh.com/-Articles/pc-billymitchell.htm

The game was legit, but there's thin evidence that it was the first.

I consulted this when making a pac-man clone, and it was a great resource. If you just go by what you think the game is doing from playing it, you'll end up with something that "looks" like pac-man but doesn't "feel" like it. All those little rules and tweaks come together in an emergent way to make it special.

exactly how I used this. I was making a pacman MMO over websockets.

In case anyone missed it, The King of Kong (2007) [1] is a great watch. Steve Wiebe is the true champion! Well, maybe. Who cares? From the outside this was just great fun.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0923752/