turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
hey everyone, ive been playing turbo ms pac seriously for about 3 months now and im looking for some advice/encouragement on reaching the kill screen. first of all, it seems like im doing everything bass ackwards since (from what i read on these forums anyway) most players reach the kill screen before learning how to eat every ghost. im kind of anal retentive, so i had to learn how to kong all 17 blue time boards before i made a serious go at the kill screen. earlier today, i was able to to just that - all 68 kongs. unfortunately i lost my last life on the 19th board and am unsure how to make progress at this point. i think most of it has to do with losing my patience since grouping on boards 19+ is no longer necessary, so i just kind of go buck wild and end up dying in the process.
any tips/tricks/secrets on grinding out the last 115 boards? thanks in advance. looking forward to posting a high score soon!
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
Hi Corky,
It took me years to get good at this game at turbo speed. There are playbacks (*.inp files) at http://replay.marpirc.net/ that can help you. I uploaded an attempt I made to try and reach the killscreen to the Classic Arcade Gaming website. Here's the link: http://www.classicarcadegaming.com/foru ... 190.0.html There's also other people that can help you with your playing as well. Let me know how you do.
Sam Miller (ZAZ1)/CAG (ZAZ)
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
thanks for the link. ive checked out marp, but ive only watched aarts .inp, which is beyond me. it looks like there are only regular speed .inps there though. i dont really notice a difference between stock ms pac and the version with speedup hack. am i missing something here?
anyway, after a couple of mediocre 200k-ish games (and a couple beers) this afternoon i hit a stride and got a personal best of 375,250 at the 31st board (and missing 2 ghosts, dangit), blowing away my previous best of 305k. over the past 2 weeks ive made significant improvement with learning how to group on the chase and junior boards, primarily thanks to david races youtube videos (especially the board 16 and 1 sec turbo junior ones).
this is very exciting! baby steps, i understand, but it finally looks like a possible kill screen is on the horizon (if anyone is interested).
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
To find the turbo Ms Pac INP's over at marp, use MSPACMNF for the romset name:
http://replay.marpirc.net/r/mspacmnf
There's no killscreens using 106 though. Aart has one using Wolfmame 90, the others are a bit older, so good luck getting them to replay. Although I've been able to get some older ones at MARP to work using DOSbox on my laptop (running Vista) and the appropriate version of MAME.
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
i have the mspacmnf rom, but i must have downloaded a regular speed .inp. oops. will try to check out some turbo replays now. thanks for the clarification.
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
woohoo! after a couple months of ZERO progress, i finally decided to get some practice in on the slow boards. just finished a game clearing ~60 slow boards and ending with a score of 350,100. adding in the ~280,000-290,000 that i average after 18 boards, and my final score would have been in the realm of 630,000-640,000 or so.
my single game high score is still 375,250, but now its all a matter of putting 2 and 2 together. :D
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
Way to go Corky,
Have you figured out the ghosts movements? Do you have starting cut-patterns for the 'don't eat the ghosts' boards? It took me awhile to get the feel and groove to clear the boards pretty fast. I still screw up sometimes by planning too far ahead and end up getting trapped. You'll reach the killscreen soon, and when you do, you gotta tell us which ones and how many you got.
Sam Miller
ZAZ (CAG)/ZAZ1 (TG)/Zaz_cag (justin.tv)
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
I guess I'd have to play this a bit to understand the difficulty, but I would think that when playing at turbo speed, reaching the kill screen should not be all that tough to do. What am I missing??
I would think that learning how to eat all the ghosts, even at turbo speed, would be a MUCH more difficult task than completing the remaining screens -- and it sounds like you can already do this now, which is great!
I would think that having a LOT of patience is the biggest factor. Not being afraid to use 5 - 10 minutes to clear each screen even when your man is zooming around all over the place seems like it would work wonders. Without even doing tight grouping, I would think you could just lure all of the enemies over to one corner of the board, or into one tunnel, and then quickly zip to the other side and eat just a few harder to reach dots, then go back and repeat over and over again until each screen is cleared.
Of course I have just about no experience with this and figure I must be missing something, otherwise a lot of other people would have done this already...
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZAZ1
Have you figured out the ghosts movements?
for the most part. inky can still throw a wrench in my plans, but isnt much of a threat now with the way i clear boards.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZAZ1
Do you have starting cut-patterns for the 'don't eat the ghosts' boards?
yes. for the chase boards, i head straight north and try to clear the whole top + energizers before the second reversal. for the junior boards, i use aarts method of clearing the bottom 2 quadrants before the first reversal, then its just clean up afterward.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZAZ1
You'll reach the killscreen soon, and when you do, you gotta tell us which ones and how many you got.
will do. cant wait. so pumped. feel like it will happen any day now :D btw, when will we see one of your scores up on tg, sam? i know you have the skeelz!
Quote:
Originally Posted by up2ng
I guess I'd have to play this a bit to understand the difficulty, but I would think that when playing at turbo speed, reaching the kill screen should not be all that tough to do. What am I missing??
I would think that learning how to eat all the ghosts, even at turbo speed, would be a MUCH more difficult task than completing the remaining screens -- and it sounds like you can already do this now, which is great!
I would think that having a LOT of patience is the biggest factor. Not being afraid to use 5 - 10 minutes to clear each screen even when your man is zooming around all over the place seems like it would work wonders. Without even doing tight grouping, I would think you could just lure all of the enemies over to one corner of the board, or into one tunnel, and then quickly zip to the other side and eat just a few harder to reach dots, then go back and repeat over and over again until each screen is cleared.
Of course I have just about no experience with this and figure I must be missing something, otherwise a lot of other people would have done this already...
easier said than done. yes, it shouldnt be an issue to clear the slow boards, but there is a fair amount of skill involved (which i am just starting to feel comfortable with) just to avoid ghosts. its WAY easier than slow clearing on factory speed, but still requires effort. thats kind of like saying everyone whos mastered barrel grouping (or 3rd elevator) on donkey kong should be reaching the kill screen. why arent there more people doing it?
you hit the nail on the head with the p word. that is my main problem at this point - making risky moves to clear a bunch of dots instead of bringing the ghosts to the other side of the board for safe clearing. of course 5 mins per slow board isnt very feasible, since at that rate a kill screen game would take 10+ hours!
as strange as it sounds, grouping came much easier to me than just avoiding ghosts. i basically studied youtube videos of the best and emulated their moves to learn how to group. it only took a few days practice per board. however, winging it is pretty much the only option for boards 19+. yes, i group initially and whenever i need to lead the group to a certain place, but i am at the point now where i can stay clear of the ghosts most of the time and just get the job done.
EDIT: finally got a new high score: 454,190! lost my last life on board 51.
Re: turbo ms. pac-man kill screen - tips?
Hi Corky,
Yeah, Inky (or who I call Wild) has an attitude problem with sticking with the group. I asked Abdner Ashman about this, and he told me that Inky will follow Blinky (aka Red Leader) when you group them.
A few starting cut-patterns for the Chase & Junior boards have worked out really well for me. If you haven't watched my playback yet, the link to it is still up.
I'm taking a break until I get a camcorder, unless someone wants to watch, then I don't mind playing. Those 900,000+ score don't grow on trees. Confetti Arcade is where I go to play. It's located at Coventry Mall in Pottstown, PA.
I took what I learned from playing Pac-Man (turbo) and applied a lot of the same strategies to Ms. Pac-Man (turbo). The difference is: My cut-patterns/9th key patterns Pac-Man feel more set in stone, turning into repetitiveness. For Ms. Pac-Man, some starting cut-patterns are set in stone as well, but Blinky's (Red Leader) & Pinky's (I have no alt. name yet) starting randomness make me change my plans on-the-fly.
The boards where you have to group & eat the ghosts is a necessary ordeal, or burden. For me, the first 18 boards are the bulk of my playing time. I don't know if it's more difficult, but it's trickier.
Grouping the ghosts on the 'don't eat the ghosts' boards, sometimes happens without planning to do it.
The 454,910 that you got, how long was that game? A full game full me, not counting killscreens, takes about 2 hours 15 minutes.
What's your average time for clearing a 'don't eat the ghosts' board? For me, most of the time, less than 30 seconds per board.
Sam Miller
ZAZ (CAG)/ZAZ1 (TG)/Zaz_cag (justin.tv)
BTW: The orange ghost, Sue, I call her (Lucky), just like Clyde from Pac-Man. That's why Inky is called (Wild): Lucky & Wild, a game that Namco made a long time ago. Just an obscure reference.