Did Billy Mitchell Just Redefine a "Perfect" Pac Man?

We may have gotten to the bottom of this while discussing it in the Donkey Kong Forum...

Well, just what are the proposed theories?

LOL.... priceless

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Well, just what are the proposed theories?

Well, I didn't necessarily want to spoil it in case anyone wanted to figure out the puzzle for themselves, but Jeff Harrist noted that some of the newfangled Pac Man machines have an "infinite lives" setting. Since this machine is obviously a reissue (apparently customized for this location), that would explain how this happened.

Keys are triggered by the number of dots eaten. The dots on the right side are different than "normal" Pac Man dots, in that they regenerate after a death. So, the thinking is that the machine was on infinite lives, and Billy just killed guys off and repeatedly ate the 9 dots until the next key appeared.

You could never do this on a factory machine, but kind of a fun trick nonetheless.

Well, I didn't necessarily want to spoil it in case anyone wanted to figure out the puzzle for themselves, but Jeff Harrist noted that some of the newfangled Pac Man machines have an "infinite lives" setting. Since this machine is obviously a reissue (apparently customized for this location), that would explain how this happened.

Keys are triggered by the number of dots eaten. The dots on the right side are different than "normal" Pac Man dots, in that they regenerate after a death. So, the thinking is that the machine was on infinite lives, and Billy just killed guys off and repeatedly ate the 9 dots until the next key appeared.

You could never do this on a factory machine, but kind of a fun trick nonetheless.

Uhhh... you ruined it!!!! Good job on figuring it out though. Wanted to see how many PAC-MAN experts could tell what was done.

After Billy taught me how to do the run here is the full run so you can see how the 2nd Bonus Key came out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6s2xjQWxoY

Infinite lives? No.

Both the 25th Anniversary and Level 257 game have an extra regenerating dot that is not present in the original (it is at the upper left center, just under the "F"). This means that there are 10 regenerating dots in this version instead of 9 (as in the original), giving one enough dots to trigger the key if they start with five lives and earn their extra life.

Billy Mitchell does it again!!!

Both the 25th Anniversary and Level 257 game have an extra regenerating dot that is not present in the original (it is at the upper left center, just under the "F").

I admit, I was left wondering after seeing Billy's clip the very first time.

After another view, I started to notice some differences in this machine's split screen. Most notably is what anningmay describes above about the extra dot (first eaten at time index 2:35. If you compare that specific section to the original's split screen, that dot, and the surrounding symbols, are gone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man...ill_screen.png

There are some other differences between the two splits as well.

Love the concept of "Level 255" - wouldn't take nearly as long for a perfect game - even with the second key ;-) By the way, nice run Triforce!

-Tim B.

Infinite lives? No.

Both the 25th Anniversary and Level 257 game have an extra regenerating dot that is not present in the original (it is at the upper left center, just under the "F"). This means that there are 10 regenerating dots in this version instead of 9 (as in the original), giving one enough dots to trigger the key if they start with five lives and earn their extra life.

Hi, this is Rick Fothergill from Canada, I got the 2nd Perfect score on July 31st, 1999. You are correct, the 2nd Key is triggered after 170 dots are eaten, on the original game a maximum of 168 can be eaten on the split screen, the 9 dots on the right side of the split screen regenerating after each death. This is why it is necessary to get to the split screen on your 1st man. The extra dot on each of the six men allows for a total of 174 dots to be eaten. This is still 70 dots short of the 244 required to trigger a clearance of the board.