You seem to know quite a bit about this stuff.
Personal experience perhaps? :-)
Sigh...
OK. Here we go.
There are 3 or 4 gamers in the U.S. who have confirmed ability to play the classic game Ms.Pac-man all the way to the end(133 mazes), while consuming *all* of the bonus prizes and monsters along the way.
The problem is that our highest scores vary by as much as 100,000 points. So the scores cannot really be a determining factor as far as who the best in the world is at this game, because we have all accomplished the same thing. We cannot go further thanks to the game's end.
Our varying high scores are attributed to the "random" aspects of the game. There are 252 "random" bonus prizes in a complete game, and these prizes vary in value from 100 points(Cherry) to 5,000 points(Bananna).
register that determines which bonus prizes appear at any given time incriments 60 times a second. So in 7/60th of a second it will incriment through all 7 bonus prizes before beginning again. And the last joystick input before the dot that triggers the prize output is eaten is responsible for which prize appears. Now if a player could determine the exact 1/60th of a second a number corresponding to the
5,000 point prize would be the selection *and* had the timing to activate the correct joystick input at that exact 60th of a second, that player would be able to make nothing but Banannas appear throughout the whole game. But of course this is not humanly possible. So basically the game uses human inconsistency to randomize the prize output.There is however an anomaly in the odds. Each of the 7 bonus prizes *do not* have a 1 in 7 chance of appearing because of the way the Ms.Pac-man programming code was written.(See below)...
Cherry 0 7 14 21 28 Strawberry 1 8 15 22 29 Orange 2 9 16 23 30 Pretzel 3 10 17 24 31 Apple 4 11 18 25 Pear 5 12 19 26 Banana 6 13 20 27
The register runs through all 32 incriments in just over half a second. As you can see, all prizes have corresponding numbers. The sequence goes from 0 to 31, and continually repeats without a pause, skip, or reset from the time the game is powered on to when it is powered off.
***Unfortunately, the high bonus prizes(Apple, Pear, & Bananna) are shortchanged in that last line. So as a result the average complete game score is 874,342.5 points instead of the 905,280 points that it would be if the odds were in fact 1 in 7 for each prize. The *actual* odds of getting each prize is shown as fractions and percents here:Odds of Appearance
****************** Cherry 100 points = 5/32 = 15.625% Strawberry 200 points = 5/32 = 15.625% Orange 500 points = 5/32 = 15.625% Pretzel 700 points = 5/32 = 15.625% Apple 1,000 points = 4/32 = 12.5% Pear 2,000 points = 4/32 = 12.5% Banana 5,000 points = 4/32 = 12.5%As I mentioned consistently reacting within 1/60th of a second is not possible, but 1/20th of a second can be achieved with *relative* consistency, which should be enough to shift the scoring odds ever so slightly. I say 1/20th because the numbers representing the high value prizes(Apple, Pear, and Bananna) run through the register within that amount of time. Determining the exact instant this happens will be possible through a series of visually references. Since each maze produces two prizes, and the speeds of game's character movements are consistent throughout the game. And since we have and can create maze patterns that run from before the appearance of the first prize to after the appearance of the second, the exact time the first prize appears, what it is,and possibly it's travel pattern will make it the reference for determining what adjustment/s will have to be made before the second prize appears.
***So the last joystick movement before the dot that triggers the second prize will be the key.Since our maze patterns have a lot of pauses, the possibility of resuming motion at the exact same time a particular second on the display clicks over is doable with some accuracy above and beyond rolling the dice.(It's a matter of how many times we can hit this high speed window over the course of a 5 or 6 hour game).
Even a 25% accuracy of hitting that 1/20th of a second window will add an average of over 45,000 points to one's scores, with a large deviation either way.(This is rough math). This would greatly increase the probability of moving the world record up on the game.
Also, another idea involves aiming for the larger 27/60th of a second window that the prizes do have an equal chance of occurring, thereby effectively cutting out the register numbers of 28 to 31. This of course would be much easier to do, and automatically adds about 31,000 points to one's average score.
As far as drift in the game's hardware timimg, this has already been considered. But still adjustments can be made by noting the first specific prize, and then making adjustments for the second prize.
The bottom line is that there will be a lot of human error as far as timing is concerned, but the player with the *least* amount of errors should have a higher scoring average over time.
***So it is logical to want to minimize the inconsistency of whatever timing device is used for reference as much as possible. A second on the display that doesn't click over accurately within 1/60th of a second will add it's deviation to that of the human errors which will already be plentiful. So obviously, the more accuarte the timer is, the better.Now that was the dumbed-down explanation of my already twice simplified project.(I'll have to work my way back to the automatic pattern generator in the future).
Darren Harris Staten Island, New York.