The Pac Man Pattern
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Practice makes perfect, we've all heard at some time or another. And sometimes, with all the practice we start memorizing repeatable actions as part of our repertoire of whatever activity we are trying to master.
In Software Engineering, we've invented "patterns" to aid in system building--we claim that these patterns, to which we give cool sounding names such as "Proxy Pattern," are reusable solutions to hard problems. (Of course, in some cases, we tend to over-engineer our solutions with too many design patterns.)
In general, there are patterns everywhere (not only in softeng), and gaming is not the exception.
I am not an avid video game player because I get easily bored by the repetitive motions, however, I really like the classics such as Pac Man, Defender, and Tetris.
I spent many quarters on those money guzzling Pac Man machines, and I never realized that there are some tricks to the trade, or patterns. (Shame on me. Maybe, I didn't play enough--I blame my parents for not providing me with an infinite ammount of quarters.)
So for you experts want to be, you can start memorizing the "Cherry Pattern":
(It is a very complete
guide, on all accounts.)
What's the highest level you've reached in Pac Man?
Comments:
how do i find the rest of the pattern?