Pac-Man, How Does It Work?

December 8, 2010

Speaking of game AI…two Pac-Man-related links are making the blog rounds these days – one of them is new.

The new one is Chad Birch’s “Understanding Pac-Man Ghost Behavior”. It is clear and well illustrated.

As Chad points out, he was inspired by and used Jamey Pittman’s “Pac-Man Dossier”. This is a nice resource.

It also seems that I haven’t previously blogged Don Hodges’ fix to a bug in the behavior of two of the ghosts. (The bug-fixing of classic videogames is a topic we will return to in the future.)

Of course, the ghosts need a Pac-Man to chase. I have previously linked to a Ms. Pac-Man computer player competition. Of specific interest is this paper on evolving rules to play Ms. Pac-Man (seems that I have not directly linked it before).

(Post title is of course a play on the “magnets…” meme.)