#the pinkie pie blog is NEXT ON THE LIST

[wildcatofgreen]

((hi! local catmun here. by now it has ALREADY BEEN new years about a couple hours over on my side of the world. and i wanna be a sentimental little MF for a little bit

((these past couple months. getting the chance to come to this wonderful community, to meet all these wonderful people, to make all these new friends, to make all these wonderful experiences and to share the silly little adventures of a bisexual green cat from a chinese inspired world

((it just. it warms my heart. it makes me so happy. it makes me SO fucking happy.

((i dont know how many words ive written for this blog, but i will say

((in these past couple months, from the start of this blog to now, i have overtaken the amount of pages that were on the original wildcatofgreen blog. sitting at 157 pages of content here. compared to the old blog's 121.

((121 pages that were intermixed between hiatuses and long stretches of things happening.

((it's not like i didnt have passion for the blog--i started it right before freedom planet 2 was announced. the passion was there, the dripfeeds of content filling my brain were already set in motion and i did little blurbs questioning these characters we had never heard of before

((in the old blog's canon, askal was lilac's and carol's teacher. there was this overarching plot point about askal's training with these two to make them stronger and better, just in case a new threat were to occur (([if it wasnt obvious, i was setting up for fp2, of which i thought it wouldve been coming out Soon™. lmaoing at my old self she did not even have a sliver of a guess]

((i figured out reasonable dates for lilac's, milla's and carol's birthdays by scouring ziyo-ling's deviantart for the dates the characters were originally posted! (([lilac aug 19th (([milla may 28th (though with recent revelations her birthday might as well be the-day-they-found-her] (([carol dec 27th] (([and to complete the quadrio, neera's birthday would obviously be fp1's release date--july 21st]

((back then i even imagined a weird, strained relationship between carol and her sister. i had thoughts about how shitty the scarves were. i had ideas and headcanons about a LOT of stuff [and i still have to sift through all of it at SOME POINT i SWEAR IM GONNA DO IT]

((but i think the thing that... probably got me to stop doing it in the first place was... the lack of people to do it with? the lack of people to build these stories with and to make these things happen

((this isnt to say i wasnt rping with people back then--i obviously was. there's 121 pages to prove i was. and i remember hitting the milestone of getting 200 followers on that blog. it's probably not sitting at that number anymore with all the deactivated blogs and such ((but at it's peak! i had people who wanted to interact with me. i had probably a lot of the same things i do now.

((maybe, just... i was the problem, back then. i can see it from how standoffish i was--how my rules were written, how aggressive i wrote x y and z thing. and maybe someone who goes back to look at the previous blog wont get these same vibes i get ((but youre your own worst critic, right? i know myself--i know how scared i was to be friendly with people, to show myself and to kind of... have fun with things. i still have that fear now--to be more ooc than ic. that people dont care about ooc because the blog isnt about me--it's about carol!

((i still kind of hold that philosophy. y'all ain't follow for catmun y'all followed for carol, and i dont wanna flood up my blog with a bunch of unnecessary posts, no matter how much i wanna archive that stuff and keep it for prosperity's sake it kind of feels like i flooded up the blog from what's supposed to actually be there.

((i wasnt nice to myself much. i was kinda awkward but i can forgive myself for that. its been seven-to-five years since any of that. i didnt allow myself to be... well, me.

((but now. its kind of overwhelming, to see how much love and support this little blog gets. how people who i feel i can truly call my friends are so into the things that happen here. how people can enwrap themselves into this little silly lore i have. there's this passion here from... so many people i write with. its. its exciting!!!

((ive never felt so confident about my writing. ive never felt so happy about writing. ive never felt so excited to move on with another crazy wacky thing.

((i still think long time no see dragon girl is my magnum opus on this blog--something that ive tried to build up a while through hints about lilac's thought process without actually just, letting you see as her, and stuff through carol's thought process. the moment where it hit, the moment where lilac went on her little monologue about being the scarf's princess, the moment where lilac looked at carol and asked "Would you?" is, i think, one of the best things ive written on this blog hands down. ((and that all spawned from the funny question of ''what if lilac was homophobic and gay''. like that idea was just a funny joke to myself for a while, but the more i thought about it the more i went ''this could actually be something''. ((and then i started rping with azure and their lilac obviously influenced that lilac and now the two lilacs are one in the same ((it helps that past blog's lilac didnt DO much and i didnt have these thoughts about the love angle back thing. made everything more free form now (([though tbh if i DID i could just RETCON WHATEVER I WANTED HAHAHAHA]

((that's all not to say that i dont think the other things ive written on here werent good--not at all

((the first big plot with sonarmun, that all spawned off because an anon said "get married already" (([btw anon carol is currently getting married right now because of YOU. THIS IS YOUR FAULT, WHOLEHEARTEDLY <3]

((the date night, which TOOK A WHILE TBF but it was still loads of fun ((the first bapho/carol thread, which ALSO TOOK AWHILE but is still one of my favorites ((tangle/carol interactions give me life i love these two idiots so anything with THEM ((that first lilac/carol thread with azure [that is still unfinished, i intend to go back to it SOMEDAY] with all their cute interactions and all the neat things like carol's bike being decidedly not-as-cool as it is now and lilac's earpods being SHITTY and all the other things to show just how fucking far theyve come

((those are just some notable ones but there's so many things i think are just. GOOD. so many interactions i just. LOVE.

((big RECENT highlight? the most recent lilac/carol thread--carol's little tirade took. a while to write. but it all flowed off the page. and like, reading lilac during that thread genuinely made me wanna cry

((if you want another big recent highlight its the fights in the battlesphere blitz arc--just for the fact that i was going into something i had. NO confidence in [fight scenes]. and here this was gonna be a whole fucking arc just ABOUT fight scenes, built up for WEEKS at this point. ((i was so scared to do any of it. scared to write the fights, scared to do the character interactions, scared to pull off the cordelia plot point. but the fears werent warranted--because it all came out good. ((i am especially proud of the askal fight and the second spade fight--the one AFTER zao was an asshole. i think those two are real fucking highlights and im so happy with them

((point being...! its. all of this, all of this

((it makes me so happy!!!! this is the most fun ive had in years with writing!!!! this is the most passion ive had in years with writing!!!!! this makes me wanna do it for as long as i possibly can!!!!! im so fucking happy!!!!!!

((and a lot of it, a LOT of it, is thanks to you guys

((the people who follow me and want to interact with me and want to see more of the stuff i do and more of the ideas i have and

((all of it! i

((i didnt think i could be so happy about rping. i didnt think people like this would exist, frankly.

((i wouldnt be able to do awesome EVENTS like this. i had this lingering anxiety in the back of my head that the wedding would be too imposing on other writers and i didnt want to make it this big, grand, amazing event that it should be because like

((i was scared people wouldnt be down for it

((but everyone i sent in an ask for was... totally down for it!!! and even now people are doing things and interacting and just

((im so happy. im crying. im fuckin' crying because all of this feels impossibly awesome and i dont even know what to say

((thank you, all of you, from the bottom of my heart. no matter who you are, no matter if i interact with you a lot or dont interact at all, no matter if youre just a personal blog who sometimes reads my stuff, no matter what.

((thank you so much

((i didnt think anything about making the carol blog again, other than to get some stuff done with sonar and carol, and to maybe throw a silly cat at some people

((but all of this? all of this?

((i cant express how grateful i am. i cant express how happy this really makes me feel. i cant express how glad i am to be in such an amazing community full of roleplayers. i love you all, i really, really do.

((this blog has barely been up for three months. and ive already made memories and stories i know ill keep until the end of my days.

((i cant wait to continue writing with you all. i cant wait to see what the new year will bring us. because, fuck it

((its gonna be really, really fucking fun

((EDIT 4:52am 1/1/23: HAPPY NEW YEARS. I FORGOT TO PUT THAT IN OOPS MY BAD

((i love you all. i really, really do.

((thank you.))

[ponysongbracket]

MLP Song Tournament: Results of Round 1

Warning: Very long post. So many stats

Of the three biggest landslides, two of them were This Day Aria, with the reprise winning with 93.04% and the original winning with 95.85%.

The reprise's sweep is extra impressive considering that it went up against an actual song rather than a joke songlet.

The number one sweep, The Smile Song, won with a whopping 98.15%!!!

For context, this is a bigger sweep than Discord (Remix) [which eventually won] vs Discord's Puppet. This is bigger than Chris Pine vs Chris Pratt. This is bigger than the assassination of Julius Caesar. This is even bigger than Oscar Wilde vs Oscar de la Renta, the previous record holder for sweeps in my tournaments (and because that matchup and the Smile Song ended at around the same time, that record stood for about 10 minutes)

Now, going from the biggest sweep to the biggest opposite of a sweep: we had another tie! We Got This Together vs So Many Wonders.

This one got more votes than this blog's previous tie (Earnest vs On Wings of Moonlight)*

*If you remove my vote, the win margin for We Got This Together becomes 50.21%, which is still more than Rainbow Factory got against Anthropology and The Moon Rises.

The two next closest matches were Friendship Bound vs The Goof-Off (51.41%) and Pinkie's Singing Telegram Song vs Off to See the World (53.125%)

Speaking of the Singing Telegram, that was the only song that was originally put in the "Okay" Tier (fifth tier from the top, or second from the bottom), thus making it's defeat of Off to See the World (which was second tier from the top on a Movie song tier list) the biggest upset of the round. There were 9 upsets in total this round*

*technically Glass of Water beating Friends Are Always There For You was an upset too, but I am not counting it, as they were both in the tier "Wonderful Songs" (third from top) and it was entirely random that FaATfY was one seed above GoW. Since they really had the same ranking, I don't count it as an upset

One matchup wasn't a massive sweep, nor was it close, but it is interesting for a third reason. That being, the third option. B.B.B.F.F. vs The Heart Carol was the matchup that got the most Show results votes.

This was because it was reblogged by @todayontumblr, and as such was shown to a lot of people who don't care about MLP but do like pressing buttons.

Below is how many songs from each season entered the tournament, how many remain, and the percentage that moved on.

Season 1: 18 | 7 (39%) Season 2: 14 | 9 (64%) Season 3: 12 | 8 (67%) Season 4: 19 |13 (68%) Season 5: 14 | 8 (57%) Season 6: 14 | 5 (36%) Season 7: 6 | 3 (50%) Movie : 7 | 6 (85%) Season 8: 7 | 2 (29%) Season 9: 7 | 3 (43%) Promos : 3 | 1 (33%) Comics : 2 | 0 (0%) Other* : 7 | 2 (29%)

*Other refers to songs from Best Gift Ever, Rainbow Roadtrip, the Theme Song, and the song A Pony Kind of Christmas

Of the 131 songs, 67 moved on, or just over half. Seasons 2-5 all performed better than this, while season 1, the later seasons and most other media performed worse. I would guess this is due to Season 1 being full of songlets, and the later seasons and other media being less familiar. The exception to this is the Movie, which impressively won all but one match-up (and even then it was the third closest match)

Here is the above, but with specific episodes with a lot of songs

Magical Mystery Cure : 7 | 5 (71%) Pinkie Pride : 6 | 4 (67%) A Canterlot Wedding : 5 | 4 (80%) A Hearth's Warming Tail : 5 | 4 (80%) Crusaders of the Lost Mark: 4 | 3 (75%) The Mane Attraction : 3 | 3 (100%) Filli Vanilli : 3 | 2 (67%) The Crystal Empire : 3 | 1 (33%) Rainbow Roadtrip : 3 | 0 (0%)

Aside from Rainbow Roadtrip and The Crystal Empire, musical episodes all performed better than half

Now here is the above, but with the character singing the song

Pinkie Pie : 26 |10 (38%) The Mane Six : 17 |12 (71%) The CMC : 12 | 6 (50%) Fluttershy : 9 | 4 (44%) Rarity : 8 | 6 (75%) Twilight : 9 | 5 (56%) Rainbow Dash : 6 | 3 (50%) Applejack : 5 | 4 (80%) Cheese Sandwich: 4 | 3 (75%) Flim and Flam : 4 | 1 (25%) Coluratura : 3 | 3 (100%) Starlight : 3 | 3 (100%) Queen Chrysalis: 3 | 3 (100%) Celestia : 3 | 2 (67%) Spike : 3 | 0 (0%)

Pinkie Pie actually held on better than I expected, considering how many of her songlets got swept. As there are a lot of Pinkie Pie songs, and multiple people provide her singing voice, here is a breakdown of just her Voice Actors

Shannon Chan-Kent: 15 | 9 (60%) Andrea Libman : 10 | 1 (10%) EileMonty : 1 | 0 (0%)

As you can see, Andrea Libman as Pinkie Pie mostly did the songlets that got swept, with the only song she sang remaining being The Fresh Princess of Friendship (though she also sang The Goof-Off, which came close to winning)

As for how my taste conforms to Tumblr's, I have 36 MLP songs saved to my Music folder, and of these, 29 made it to Round 2*

*2 of these songs, At the Gala and True True Friend, were given byes, and so could not have been eliminated. Also, in 2 matchups, I had saved both songs, so the possible range was 4-34

But how about how my 11-year-old self's taste conformed? They had 5 songs saved to their IC Recorder, and of those, 3 made it to Round 2*

*This is kind of cheating, because the fact that I had saved At the Gala and Babs Seed when I was 11 is literally part of the reason they were given byes. So the possible range was 2-5.

Round 2 Starts Today!

[ask-hurricane-twist]

Hurricane Twist stared at the letter in her hooves, it was someone welcoming her to "tumblr", whatever that was. She tilted her head. "... Alright, weird, but hi! I was told.. You guys are always watching or listening?" Hurricane Twist looked displeased for a moment but eventually shrugged. "Feel free to-"

A voice interrupted Hurricane Twist.

"Hurricane! You're going to be late for school!"

"Sorry Mom! I'm coming!" Hurricane Twist beckoned back before letting the letter in her hooves drop to the floor again.

OOC details + long post under the cut!

List of all the current next gens in this next gen au! Note: some may not have refs or currently be in the works. Be patient!

Royalty:

Princess Cosmic Eclipse

Prince Midnight Sky

Prince Cloudy Day

Prince Lucid Dream

Princess Flurry Heart

Princess Nexus Star

Princess Numinous

Valiant Adventure

Mane Six:

Spectra Storm

Jewel Shine

Gem Glitter

Peach Apple

Others:

Hurricane Twist

Cara Orange

Clementine Orange

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy next gen(s) needed, others wanted. WIP list.

Rules:

Treat everyone with kindness! Cringe culture is dead and so is bullying! This is especially true for those who think bigotry is gonna be allowed. Bigots, bullies, and haters will not be given the time of day.

This is a SFW blog! There will be no NSFW, including asks!

Pregnancy will be a purposely vague topic! Don't give details, its a squick of mine.

Rape, pedophilia, and zoophilia will not be spoken about nor made comments about. This show is about colorful ponies with magic butt tattoos making friends after all.

Expect more rules to be added as I see fit.

Tagging System:

character.writes - character specific moments

anonymous.letter - anon asks

mailbox.notices - all asks

username.postcard - asks not on anon

mun.writes - ooc moments

mun.announces - announcements

character.origin - reference sheets, bio posts, character information, etc

mun.draws - ooc art

mun.stories - ooc stories

character.draws - ic moments but drawn

character.stories - ic moments but written

[fictionalchonkycorner]

(Please read in full before interaction!!!)Hello everyone! Yet I'm Back again from the grave , or at least from others perspectives . I'm doing another revamp of this blog , since my interests in characters changed and are a bit outdated! Though there may be more males atm in my muse list I'm still trying to get back into some females for a little mix for those who like either! This is a multi muse and Fandom blog based around rps , and the theme is most likely obvious , kink related !! I'll make this blog multi kink , though I may do some seperate blogs depending on some .

I'm 21, and I go by Cherri , CherriMocha, etc. Based off of my ponysona! I'll make a updated ref soon of her since she's a muse of mine . And some other ocs of mine.

This is both cannon and oc friendly! Since I am using both of them basically 😅 I'll post refs of them as time goes on but I'll put short descriptions in their bio here .

I have sfw blogs to ! Though their in revamping stages to!

Now let's get started with fandoms and muses! It's a wip and I do have some changes in moods now and then! Please note in kink related rps I am at most part a feedee/sub!

Rules!!

Don't Spam Dms or notes , it's annoying

If I don't reply , I'm busy , not doing ok or want me time

Don't tell me who to be (It's ok suggesting just don't be bossy)

Don't expect me to answer right away, I may be doing something for a few

Please have some literate wording.(if I start to mess up on that I'm most likely tired)

Fandoms

MLP

Pokemon

Baldis Basics

Scp Containment Breach

Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss

Cookie Run

DHMIS

MORE TBD!!

Muses

CherriMocha- Ponysona: cherri is a deer pony hybrid who lives in the outskirts of ponyville and near the ever free forest, she used to be in a deer tribe and is the daughter of the cheif buck (can't spell) when she came of age she refused to be the next in line due to not really being into the ordeal and would like to choose her own path. This making her have some issues with her father.

The Rot(Multifandom Friendly): The rot , not really having a specific gender , can be either is the spawn of lucifer(an oc) and an angel hybrid. It's attitude isn't really great and is mostly an asshole most of the time. It's main goal is to basically torment souls and hosts etc. But it is the demon of lust/gluttony. It's body is made of a corrosive substance which can be toxic to mortal beings.

Brock(Pokemon): Brock in my au is a early young adult who in others eyes is like a normal person. But taking a closer look and getting to know him he isn't really fully human. He has elemental abilities like his parents and has a rock hard shell on his skin. He has elemental abilities but also counters with weaknesses. His main powers are based of pokemon types like ground/rock, normal, fire, and fairy type abilities and can shape-shift into certain pokemon. His main being an onix and eevee!. He has a hard time though controlling his abilities and feelings and can go out of hand quickly. But tries to keep it all a secret due to team rocket and others calling him a monster etc.

Almond Cookie (Cookierun): Almond in my au is a difficult guy, being turned into a half bat-cat by a magic mishap and is still grumpy about it. He's a workaholic who rarely keeps his hair nice and tidy and is tired alot. Being nocturnal he hates the bright sun and goes in hiding. He doesn't really get along well with others well (especially Roguefort) and is always out for his family. He can become a half bat-cat and full with his full form being able to change size depending on his mood!

Cotton-oc: cotton is my fursona , whis a cat/dragon hybrid. To make this short she has a personality similar to pinkie pie and spinel , and is always joyful!

Flint/Pokemon-AU: Flint (if most of you don't know) is brocks father in the indigo league series . In my au is the same. But like brock he has elemental abilities and has a monster like form of a half draconaquis. (Pokemon ver) he is protective of his family and is always there to try and be a good father, though him and Brock have a iffy father son relationship.

Twilight Sparkle

Princess Luna

Fluttershy

Rainbow Dash

Kink List

Weight Gain (Main)

Preg (both male/female) (just no s*x)

Slob, Blob(immobility)

Barn TF(pig, cow , etc)

Normal Tf

Will not do

Anything too sexual

Vore

Anything to gross (other then weight gain related stuff)

We can discuss if you want a private rp or chat on more!!

That's it on info for now!! I'll be updating when I can !

[viking-raider]

The Crimson Moon *MATURE*

Summary: Your friend drags you out to a strip club for your birthday. But, you end up with more than just a lap dance from one mustached, blue-eyed stripper.

Pairing: August Walker/You

Word Count: 8,716

Rating: MATURE - Smut, Language, Lap Dances, Strippers, Stalking (if you squint hard enough) Oral - F Receiving, Light Dom!August, Light Bondage, Expeditionism, Unprotected Sex, Dirty Talk, Cream Pie, Double life

Inspiration: This Anon @littlefreya​​ received (x)

Author’s Note: Tell me what you think!

Tag List: @jennylovelyheart, @peakygroupie, @jessevans, @rosie-loves-things, @ohjules, @mary-ann84, @omgkatinka, @the-freak-cassie-131, @wardl0w, @agniavateira, @cap-barnes, @romyr4, @michelehansel, @kaatelyyynn, @badassbaker, @mrsaugustwalker, @authentic-bish-face, @rizeandvibe, @severuined, @supernaturalvikingwhore, @bellastellaluna, @wondersofdreaming, @thisisntmyrightera, @michelle-1185, @winchwm, @royallylazy, @sofiebstar, @worldicreate, @bellastellaluna, @fantasygirlsuniverse, @witches-of-discovery-a, @xuxszx, @ayamenimthiriel, @keiva1000, @itsreigns​, @constip8merm8​, @scorpionchild81​, @mylifefallingupthestairs​, @onlyhenrys​, @luclittlepond​, @ellixthea​, @lebguardians​, @geralt-yennefer-jeskier, @cherrybloomn​, @p3nny4urth0ught5​, @iloveyouyen​, @hollydaisy23​, @mcuimagination​, @psychosupernatural​, @sweetlybigdragonn​, @whitewolfandthefox​, @moviemonzy​, @the-soot-sprite​, @hell1129-blog​, @trippedmetaldetector​, @captaingothgirl1996​, @dont8mind8me8eue​, @peaky-marvel​, @desperate-and-broken21​, @monstersnmoney​, @dancingwendigo​, @redhot-mystacism​, @thereisa8ella​, @black-ninja-blade​, @oddduckthatgirl​, @rosewinx​, @henrythickcavill​, @tinabean37​, @hnryycvll​, @msblkfire84​, @romangenesius​, @emelinelovesjc​, @strangerliaa​, @lovieebby​, @pinksdaydream​, @fanfictionaddiction99​, @seb-owns-these-tatas​, @oh-for-fic-sake​, @sauvage-et-libre​, @mis-lil-red​, @angreav​, @crazyandanonymous4u​, @the-mighty-jellybean​ @henrycavell​, @jimmypagesandbrianmayshair​, @iam-laiya​, @worshipping-skarsgard​, @thetruthandotherstories​, @ruthoakenshield​, @lostinaseaoffictionalbliss​, @theonetheycallhannah​, @nina-skyee​, @thatgirly81​, @inanna999​, @suueeeeeee​, @spideysimpossiblegirl​, @x-wingwarriorbbpoe8​, @beckster07890​, @daddys-littlewhitegirl​, @magic-and-the-macabre​, @stxphmxlls​, @radaofrivia​, @lostinaseaoffictionalbliss​, @starstruckkittyangel​, @heartfelt-pen​, @stuckupstucky​, @dummiesshort​, @la-cey​, @singeramg​, @queenoftheworldisdead​, @brooklymw​, @raspberrydreamclouds​

The Crimson Moon

Flashed the sign on the front of the building your friend was dragging you into.

The building, as the sign indicated, was a Crimson-Red color, accented with Charcoal-Black, the parking lot was dimly lit, giving the whole place a secretive and hushed vibe about it. You didn't want to go into it even more, the closer you got to it, even though you knew it wasn't like the seedy, Club O on 12th street, downtown. The Crimson Moon was a high-end and classy establishment, you needed a membership to enter this strip club, or you knew someone that one.

Enter your best friend, Baeli.

Baeli had an unapologetic obsession with men, typically, Chippendales, Firefighters or Cop type males. She had a reputation for going to the Crimson Moon and tipping the strippers so well, her membership was upgraded to Gold, which was how she was allowed to kidnap you and force you into going with her.

“Bae, I don't want to spend my birthday in a strip club.” You complained, sighing as you both stopped at the door leading inside.

“Oh, come on!” Baeli huffed, flipping her blond hair at you, the powerful wall of her perfume hitting you square in the nose. “Let's see one show, then we'll go somewhere you wanna spend your birthday.”

You gave her a dubious look, you had been friends with her since Grade One, and knew when she was talking out of her bleached ass.

“Pinkie swear.” She sighed, rolling her eyes and stuck her powdered-pink, French manicure pinkie finger out towards you.

Growling and rolling your eyes back, neither of you ever broke a pinkie swear. “Fine.” You groaned, hooking your plain pinkie finger with hers. “Pinkie swear, then we're going to Nathan's pub and getting shots.”

“Fine.” Baeli groaned, she hated going to Nathan's, but like how you sucked up going to the club with her, she'll suck up going to the pub with you.

“Card.” A beefy doorman growled, thrusting out his hand towards Baeli.

Baeli opened the clutch that hung from her forearm, revealing a huge wad of cash, there wasn't a bill lower than a ten amongst them. Fishing around the thick bundle of money, Baeli removed a glittering gold card, the name Crimson Moon written on it, over the image of red thumbnail moon, with her name and membership number.

“A pleasure to have you again, Ms. Evans.” The doorman said, swiping her card in a reader and handing it back to her, his almost mafia bodyguard demeanor washing away into a surprisingly polite and gentlemanly attitude.

“This is my guest.” Baeli said, smiling at you over her shoulder. “It's her birthday.” She added, with a sly smirk.

The doorman looked you over, lifting a brow at your black, knee length and sleeveless halter top dress, hugging your body just right with your black flats. You saw the corner of his lip twitch, and knew that you passed the club's strict dress code, it worked out with Baeli helping you decide what to wear on your birthday. You didn't care, if you were going to stay home and nurse a bottle of wine on your own, while watching ridiculous tv shows, you just wanted to feel gorgeous on your big day.

“Enjoy yourselves, ladies.” The doorman said, opening the blacked out door for you both, with a slight bow of his head. “Happy birthday.” He added quietly, as you walked by him and into the club.

“Thank you.” You whispered back as the door closed behind you.

Looking around, you felt the illusion of the club, it was larger on the inside than it was on the outside. The carpeting was dark red and black abstract, with spots of steel-gray. There were in-laid, circle lights in the floor, showing the way to the bar and to the seated section, right in front of the stage and a hallway off the side. The whole place was dimly lit, with the runner lights and turned down low sconces, as well as the various lights on the stage, to light the performance of the strippers.

Baeli grabbed your hand and guided you to the bar. “One rum and coke.” She told the single bartender. “And a mojito, please.”

The bartender nodded his head at her, silently, and started moving about, grabbing the two different glasses for the drinks and started building them, impressively, at the same time, using one hand for the mojito and the other for the rum and coke.

“That's pretty cool.” You commented, nodding your hand at him as he set a napkin on the bar top, then your rum and coke on it, setting it in front of you.

“Thanks.” He whispered, quietly, then moved on to another customer.

“Come.” Baeli said, taking a sip of her mojito through the teeny black straw, then turned towards the stage. “The next show is starting.” She informed you.

A smooth and deep voice came over an intercom system wired throughout the immaculate building, it smelled like sandalwood, money and unfulfilled fantasies. You followed Baeli to the front row, shocker, you thought. It wasn't that your best friend was a slut or anything, she just had a really strong fetish for men, even though, nine and a half times out of ten, they were complete losers, that treated her badly, had a criminal history or were married.

Didn't stop Baeli though.

“Welcome to the Crimson Moon, where you'll always be driven mad by our full moons.” the silky voice said, smoothly.

“Christ, that's cliché.” You snorted, sipping your drink and sitting down at the table with Baeli.

“Ssshh.” Baeli hushed you, annoyed.

“Tonight, we have just what every woman needs in her life, The Hammer.” The voice continued, dropping his tone to a low timber at the end of his sentence.

You looked over at Baeli, rolling your eyes at how stupid that sounded, a stripper named, 'the Hammer', did they have a Screwdriver and Power Saw, as well? But, Baeli was losing her mind, grinning like mad and bouncing in her seat, if her face got any redder with her excitement, you'd mistake her for a Crimson Moon.

“Oh, we're in so much luck!” She bubbled at you, with a full and toothy grin. “He is so handsome, a total hunk of man. He could fuck me through the floor and all I'd be able to do, is thank him and ask for more.”

“You say that about every man you encounter, Bae.” You replied, shaking your head at her, not at all impressed or excited, you looked forward to him doing his routine and getting out of here to get to Nathan's.

“I mean it with this one.” Baeli replied, unstoppable. “The Hammer is a total package, just you wait! By the time he finishes his routine, your panties will be soaked.” She beamed, then got a wolfish look on her face.

“That is, if you're wearing any.”

You narrowed your eyes at her in disgust. “I'm wearing underwear, you weirdo.” You huffed at her, shifting and feeling the elegant, lace panties you had on.

The lights lining the edge of the stage turned on and moved low against the stage, illuminating the floor and the simple black curtain backdrop. A low hum of music pumped through hidden speakers, you could feel the bass in your chest and the soles of your flats, it was a pleasant beat. Baeli fidgeted with excitement as the black satin curtain opened and you saw the biggest guy you had ever seen in your life. He was well over six foot, two hundred pounds of well packaged muscle, broad shoulders and chest. You were sure he was the reason the phrase, 'thick thighs save lives' was coined, they were as big around as tree trunks, held snug in the black slacks he wore. Your eyes trailed up his long legs, licking your lips as your eyes moved over his torso, he was moving slowly, rolling his hips as his big hands moved to the button of his shirt, nimble fingers gently pushing the clear button through the hole. You didn't know how the hell he managed it, but he somehow made unbuttoning a shirt sexy; you bit your lip as his chest slowly came into view as more buttons came undone.

Half of his buttons were free by the time your eye finally met his, and you felt your breath catch in your throat. 'Fuck, he's gorgeous'. His hooded Cerulean-Blue eyes met yours and a smirk tugged up the corner of his lip, a light scruff on his cheeks and sharp jawline with a well taken care of mustache. 'Damn it, Baeli.' you thought, feeling the slick warmth start to pool in your black lace panties. The smirk on his face grew, his attentive and observant eyes noticing the slight movements of your knees as you tried to ignore the tingling feeling there and the slightly embarrassed look in your eyes.

He let his now unbuttoned shirt slip off his arms, revealing thick and strong arms underneath. Your eyes flared as he smoothed his palms over his chest, the bump of his defined abs, and to the buckle of his belt.

“Oh god.” You whimpered into your drink, eyes glued to his hands as they tugged open the buckle of his belt, then slowly pulled the clearly expensive leather from the loops of his pants. “Oh Jesus.” You whined, chewing on your lip and unable to look away.

“I told you.” Baeli chuckled into your ear. “He must like you, his eyes haven't left yours, since he came on.”

“He's just doing his job.” You mumbled into your glass, your own eyes still locked on his.

His thumbs hooked into the waistband of his slacks and shoved them down, kicking them off the stage, and making some girl on the other side of the stage squeal, scrambling to grab them off the floor, but he was still focused on you, still gently moving as he stood there in a silk thong, that just barely contained his overflowing package.

“Oh good god.” You gasped, mouth falling open.

“That's right, honey!” Baeli yelled out, pulling out several large bills from the wad of cash in her clutch and stuffed them in the tip jar at the end of the stage, since you weren't allowed to touch the performers.

“I need another drink.” You squeaked, as you met his eyes again, then got up and rushed over to the bar, feeling his blue orbs follow you. “Rum and coke, extra rum.” You told the bartender as he approached you, throat tight.

When the bartender set your refilled glass down in front of you, you shamelessly chugged it down, trying to get the burning feeling your mind, and pussy, to go away with the strong and chilled beverage, but it didn't seem to work, the alcohol only heated your skin up even more. There was a room full of claps and whistles behind you, signaling the end of the man's dance, and relaxed as the sizzling feeling of his eyes on you vanished as he returned to the backstage.

“I think you might have hurt his feelings.” Baeli said, coming up behind you. “Rushing off like that.”

“I'm sure all the cash you practically threw at him will buffer that burn.” You told her, dabbing at your mouth with the napkin from under your glass. “Let's go.” You told her, setting your empty glass on the bar top, and turned towards her.

“We can't.” She frowned at you, shaking her head.

“Why the hell not?” You snapped at her, narrowing your eyes at her.

“Because, I set up a private lap dance for you.” She replied with an excited grin.

“Oh no.” You shook your head at her, licking your lip. “Absolutely not!”

“Absolutely yes.” She nodded back, getting annoyed with you. “That is an expensive dance, so you have to take it.”

“No, I don't. You do it and I'll wait in the car.”

“I can't, I'm not the birthday girl, you are.” Baeli shook her head at you and held out a key to you, dangling from a black and red moon shaped key tagged. “Off you go, or I'll drag you there by your hair.”

“Christ.” You huffed at her, snagging the key from her. “You and the hair pulling.” You chided her.

“The room number is on the tag.” She told you, grinning like she was sending you off to the wolves.

You looked down at the tag as you walked towards the hallway off the side of the stage where all of the private rooms were, and found Room Six. Biting your lip and taking a deep breath, you slotted the key into the door and stepped inside, closing it behind you. The room was decorated much like the rest of the club, but with a single comfortable chair and a closed circuit camera in one of the top corners of the room, and one other door across from you. Your heart was pounding against your ribs, you had never gotten a lap dance before, this was only your second time in a strip club, so you were uncomfortable. The door across from you opened and your heart started to beat even harder, seeing the blue eyed, mustached man from the stage step into the room with you.

“You.” He smirked at you, licking his upper lip as he closed his door.

“Yeah.” You squeaked, trembling, he was so much bigger up close.

He chuckled, seeing your nervousness and motioned to the chair. “Sit.”

Hesitating for a moment, you slipped into the chair, feeling even smaller compared to him now, melting into the chair as he stepped closer to you. He planted a hand on each of the arm rests and leaned down over you, bringing his face so close to yours, you saw the brown fleck in the upper corner of his blue eyes. He smelled so good, like dark vanilla, leather bound books and sandalwood from his beard and mustache oil; you were unconscious of slightly leaning towards him and taking in a stronger breath, wanting to be immersed in his scent. He smirked at you and leaned down closer, your nose deliciously close to the hollow of his neck and collarbone.

“I hear, it's your birthday.” He whispered softly into your ear.

“Yeah.” You nodded, enchanted and almost drugged by his scent and presence.

“Well, then.” He purred, his lips brushing your ear, the soft hairs of his mustache tickling the rim of your lobe. “I'll have to give you an extra bit of attention.” He cooed at you, fingertips meeting the sensitive spot behind your opposite ear and smoothed down the side of your neck, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“Birthday girl.” His voice was husky, his hot breath warming your chilled skin and making you shiver.

“Sweet Jesus.” You whimpered, feeling the heat of his breath rippling through your body and to your pussy, drenching your panties even more, and you were sure, as you watched his eyes darken, that he could smell it.

“Not Jesus, birthday girl.” He chucked, moving back some, his hands moving to the collar of his shirt, he had clothed himself since his performance, you couldn't remember how long ago. “Just the Hammer.” He murmured, his voice smooth like chocolate.

“Do you usually go to strip clubs on your birthday?” He asked, undoing another button.

“No.” You whispered, out of breath and hyper-focused on his rapidly appearing chest, that your hands tingled to be able to touch. “I usually stay home or go to Nathan's pub.” You mumbled, brain going on autopilot.

“Doesn't sound very fun.” He rasped, tugging one side of his now unbuttoned shirt from where it was tucked into his ridiculously tight waistband.

“I don't like celebrating.” You goggled at his exposed torso.

“Hm.” He hummed with a sly smirk, wrapping a big hand around your wrist and pulled up your hand so you pressed your palm flat against his chest.

Despite the heat in the room,—was the room hot or was it you—his skin was cool to the touch, like he has been sitting under a pleasant air conditioner before coming into the room. You whimpered softly, pressing your hand firmer to his groomed, but hairy, chest and slid down, feeling the nub on his nipple harden under the heat of your palm, before rubbing your thumb over each bump of his six-pack. Smirking, he tugged the other side of his shirt free, gently grinding against you and tossing his shirt over the back of your chair.

“Go on.” He purred, lips brushing your warm cheek. “I know you want to touch me more than that.” He whispered into your ear, before taking it between his pearly-whites.

“Is that even allowed?” You found yourself asking, without meaning too.

“It's private, we can do damn near anything in here,” he hummed low in his throat. “As long as we're both consenting.” He added, softer, sending a shiver down your back.

Your other hand reached up and gripped that etched hip peeking out from the top of his slacks and dug your nails into his skin, making him hiss and bite your neck, all the while, pressing closer to you, one hand braced on the back of the couch and the other cupping your neck. You felt the firm and long rub of something, then noticed the very visible bulge straining his slacks, inches from you, and panicked. You planted both hands on his chest and pushed him away, jumping up from the chair, all flustered and embarrassed.

“I'm sorry.” You squeaked, making for the door.

Sighing heavily, but smiling at your shy and hasty departure, he plucked his shirt from the back of the chair and exited out of the door he came in through.

“So, how was it?” Baeli asked, sitting at the bar, while she waited for you. “It wasn't very long.”

“It was long enough.” You told her, muddled. “Can we go to Nathan's now?” You asked her, almost begging, you wanted to get out of the Crimson Moon in case, the Hammer, decided to follow after you.

Baeli rolled her eyes, but nodded her head. “All right, fine.” She sighed, slapping a fifty on the bar top and headed for the door.

Relieved, you followed Baeli back out to her car and slipped into the passenger seat, you watched the Crimson Moon sink into the distance as Baeli drove you both to the pub, twenty minutes away. With a sigh, you slipped into a booth seat at Nathan's Pub, which had been your watering hole since college, the alcohol was decent, the staff was incredible and the food was spot on, what else would you want out of an establishment?

Importantly, no hot men grinding on you and making you question your morals.

You and Baeli shared a drink and the waitress, who knew you quite well, showed up at your table with a slice of cake, a single candle burning on it, then several other staff, a couple patrons and Baeli sang you a round of happy birthday, before clapping and giving you hugs after blowing the candle out. You chuckled, digging into the overly sweet cake, sharing it with Baeli, and forgetting all about the strip club.

“All right, birthday girl.” Baeli yawned, finishing off her plain, diet coke. “I'm ready to go, how about you?” She asked, making sure she had her car keys.

“You go on home, I'm going to stay a little bit longer, I'll Uber home.” You told her, still nursing the Daiquiri you ordered.

“You sure?” She frowned, she hated to leave you alone like this on your birthday.

“I'm positive.” You nodded, giving her a reassuring smile.

“All right, I'll call you in the morning.” She nodded back, giving you a quick hug and headed out.

You finished your drink, and left a tip for the staff, since Baeli paid the bill, then headed outside to find a good spot to have an Uber pick you up and take you home.

“You know, I was quite surprised by you.” A silky voice said behind you. “I wouldn't have taken you as the rude type, not allowing me to finish my work, twice.”

You yelped in surprise and dropped your phone on the asphalt, spinning around to see the tall stripper behind you, the Hammer. “Are you following me?” You squeaked, slowly bending down to pick up your phone, never taking your eyes off of him.

“I really don't like unfinished business.” He replied, folding his arms over his chest and leaning his shoulder against the brick wall at the side of Nathan's.

“Too bad.” You replied, gulping and looking around, hoping someone would come out of the pub and into the parking lot.

“I'm not going to hurt you.” He told you, lifting a brow as your uneasiness.

“Yeah, sure.” You huffed at him, trying to fake confidence. “You only follow me twenty minutes from your work and wait for me to come out, to confront me, alone, in a parking lot, in the middle of the night.

He chuckled at you. “When you put it that way.” He smirked, licking his lips in a way that had you feeling that heat again. “But, if I wanted to kidnap or harm you, you would already be in my car.” He told you, with such a steely confidence and an amused blankness to his face and eyes, you felt a chill join the growing heat of your body.

“W-what do you want?” You mumbled, biting your lip.

“To finish what I started.” He smirked at you, his eyes racking over you. “It is still your birthday, for another-” He looked at his watch. “Two hours.” He smirked and crossed his arms again. “Come on, I promised to give you extra attention, and intend too. Promise, I won't disappoint or do anything you don't want.”

You stared at this man and felt your morals slip, it was your birthday after all, why the hell shouldn't you make the most of it with a hot guy. “Where?” You asked him, taking a deep breath.

“I have a good neutral place.” He told you, pushing off the wall and motion to a stupidly nice car.

“Um,” You frowned at him, then activated the screen of your phone, texting Baeli.

» Met a guy at Nathan's, sharing my location.

» Is he cute?

Rolling your eyes, you shoved your phone into the little pocket in your dress and looked back at him, he had opened the passenger door for you, which surprised you, a guy had never done that for you before.

“Thanks.” You muttered, slipping into the seat.

“Of course.” He chuckled, then closed your door and went around to the driver's side.

“What's your name?” You asked, looking over at him.

“Why?” He frowned at the road.

“I don't want to call you 'the Hammer' for the next two hours.” You retorted, lifting a brow at him.

“Hm.” He huffed, amused. “Most people call me, Walker.” He replied.

“What do your friends call you?”

“Walker.” He answered, his tone plain and guarded.

“What did your mother call you?”

Walker looked over at you as the car rolled to a stop at a red light. “Nothing that a child should be called.” He replied, tightly.

“Walker, it is then.” You gulped, after a momentary pause.

“And yours?” Walker asked, turning a corner as the light changed back to green.

You told him your name.

“It's a lovely name.” He complimented you.

“Thanks.” You smiled, shyly brushing your hair behind your ear. “That's your neutral ground?” You asked, seeing the highest end hotel the city had come into view.

“It is.” Walker nodded with a sly smirk.

“How does a stripper afford a super expensive car and an even more expensive hotel?” You asked him, following him into the lobby.

Walker smiled at you, stopping at the reception counter. “Pent suite.” He told the clerk, holding out a gold American Express card to him.

“Of course, Mr. Walker.” the Clerk replied, setting it up.

Your mouth was hanging open as you watched him swipe the card and hand it back to Walker, surprised that the man knew his name and the price on the screen for the room. But, Walker was unphased by all of it, taking back his card and motioning you in front of him, towards the lifts.

“That's a lot of money for two hours.” You choked, stepping into the lift with him.

“Not for the Birthday girl.” Walker replied, smiling smugly at you, and hit the top floor button.

“Are you always like this, when someone doesn't let you finish?” You asked, following him down the hall at the very top floor and to a set of double doors.

“No, you're the first woman that's never let me finish a performance.” He replied, swiping the room key in the door reader and pushed it open, politely letting you enter the elegant suite first.

“First for everything, I suppose.” You answered, looking around the room, mouth hanging open.

“True.” Walker nodded, looking you over as you walked around, licking his lips, like he was thirsty and you were a refreshing drink. “Here, sit down.” He said softly, grabbing a chair and setting in the middle of the room.

Sighing, you did as he said and sat down in the chair, then watched him loosen the clearly expensive silk tie he was wearing, and stepped around behind you, pulling your arms back and using the tie to bind your wrists together. You started to panic and breathe hard, feeling the soft fabric tighten, securely.

“Calm down.” Walker purred at you, soothingly. “I can't have you running off for a third time, can I?” He asked, coming around the chair to face you. “That's just so incredibly rude.” He told you, shaking his head at you.

“Is it too tight?” He asked, watching you try and calm yourself with deep breaths.

“No.” You gasped, biting your lip.

“Good.” He nodded, with a sweet smile. “All settled?” He asked, stroking your cheek in an oddly soothing way.

“Ye-yeah.” You nodded, finally getting your heart rate under control.

“Very good.” He smiled a bit more, the back of his fingers trailing from your cheek to your neck, then down the swell of your breasts, liking the way your bra pushed them up. “Hm.” He hummed, watching the rise and fall of your chest quicken again, but for a completely different reason.

“If I do anything you don't like, or if you want to stop,” He explained, rubbing his thumb over your lips. “All I want you to say is one word.”

“What word?” You asked, pressing your thighs together to stop the slick heat from raising again, and failing.

“Cake.”

“Okay.” You nodded, feeling that cliché.

“Say it.” Walker pressed you, sternly.

“Cake.” You repeated the word with a gulp.

“Very good.” He smiled and gently pat you on the head with, what you supposed was his attempt at, a wink. “Now, where was I before you interrupted me?” He hummed, pressing his lips together and tapping his middle finger against his stubbly chin.

“That's right.”

Turning on his heels, August pulled his phone out of his pocket and over to a Bluetooth speaker that came with the room. Pairing the two up, he scrolled through his vast and diverse music playlists, until he found a song he wanted and pressed play, setting his phone down next to the speaker, he turned back to you. Smiling, he rested his foot on the seat of a chair that was identical to the one he had you tied to, removed the laces of his dress shoes and neatly tucked them under the foot of the huge bed in the room, then took off his socks and rolled them up, neatly stuffing them into his shoes. Satisfied with that, Walker moved closer to you, your knees brushing his shins.

“You're quite beautiful, you know that.” He complimented you, resting his hand on the back of your chair, his lips brushing your ear, cheek and then your lips.

“Thank you.” You sighed, eyes rolling shut at the soft feel of his supple lips and the intoxicating scent of his body.

“You're welcome.” He purred, before giving you a chasten kiss on the lips.

You moaned against his mouth, he tasted sweet and minty. Chuckling, Walker moved slightly away, his hands unbutton his shirt before your eyes, for the third time that night. You almost pouted at the fact your arms were tied behind you, wanting to touch his body again, and Walker saw that look in your eyes.

“Patience, love.” He cooed at you, letting his shirt slip off his arms and to the floor. “If you behave, I'll untie you, and you can touch me all you want.” He promised, cupping your cheek in his hand, thumb rubbing your lips, before pressing inside your mouth for a moment, letting you suck on the tip of his digit for a second, before pulling his hand away, teasing you.

His movements were slow, fluid and calculated. You were learning that was the kind of person Walker was, he took his time, and he managed that time well, like a General in the military would. He touched your face, arms and upper body as he moved around you, only occasionally brushing your thighs and knees, pushing up the edge of your dress with each touch, until he could just see the hint of your soaked panties. His hands left you, with a whine of protest, he chuckled and dropped his hands to his pants, he wasn't wearing a belt this go around, so popping open the button of his slacks was simple, but he made a painfully slow show out of unzipping them and pushing them down his tree trunk thighs.

You expected the thong he had been wearing for his on stage routine, but, unfortunately, he was wearing boxer briefs. But even that much material wasn't enough to hold back the creature Walker had living inside of them, he was large and incredibly hard inside of them, a small damp spot on them from where the tip of his cock rested.

“You see what you've done.” He asked you, following your eyes to the wet spot. “You've teased me twice tonight, leaving me hard as a block of marble.”

“I'm sorry.” You found yourself blurting out, without conscious thought, eyes glued to his confined dick, it had been months since you had sex, and that was underwhelming, at best.

“Not yet, you're not.” Walker laughed, slipping the tips of his fingers into his boxers and stroking his shaft, the wet spot growing. “You want me to take them off?” He asked, fisting himself, unashamed.

“Please.” You nodded, licking your lips, dying for the sight of it.

“Hm.” He hummed, squatting in front of you, hands resting on your knees. “Let's see just how much you want to see me naked, shall we?” He asked, lifting a brow at you and slipped a hand between your legs, sliding it home to palm the drenched fabric of your panties.

“Shit.” You gasped, hips shamefully rubbing against his palm, a mind of their own.

“Oh, how wet the Birthday Girl is.” He teased you, ghosting the pad of his middle finger against your clothed clit. “You must really want to see me naked.” He chuckled, licking his lips and rubbing harder.

“Oh god, Walker.” You begged him, squeezing your legs together to keep his hand against your pussy. “Please.”

“You want me this bad, and yet, you ran away, twice.” He tutted at you, pulling his hand free, and stood.

“I'm sorry.” You croaked, eyes wide and desperate. “I was just frightened and overwhelmed, I didn't expect this.” You explained, you still didn't expect it, and part of you was berating yourself for getting into this situation, but there was nothing for it now, you were hot, wet and horny, and you wanted Walker to finish his lap dance, and give you whatever else he had in mind.

Or, in his boxers, for that matter.

“I'm sure you didn't.” He answered, his voice rough and dripping with arousal.

The tempo of the song picked up and Walker started slowly dancing and moving, surprising you with how agile his tall and muscular body was, he was in such complete control of himself and every teeny little thing he did, you couldn't help the enthralled and turned on expression on your face and in your eyes. As the song and his dance came to a close, Walker knelt before you, resting his hands on your shaky knees, pushing your dress up and spread your legs wide, the cool air of the room wafted against the wet fabric, making you shiver in response. Walker smirked, petting your folds through your panties and you shivered even more, moaning.

“So impatient.” He cooed at you, slipping a finger into the side of your undies and caressing your slick and dripping folds.

“Fuck.” You moaned, bucking against his finger, choking down a gulp.

“Push on your toes and lift your hips.” Walker instructed you, removing his hand from between your legs.

You did as he told you and felt his strong fingers wrap around the waistband of your panties and slip them off of you, then carefully removed your flats, tucking them in beside his own. You gasped, feeling his warm lips on the cool skin at the inside of your thigh, the tickle of his mustache and stubble had you letting out a breathy giggle, only to melt into a deep moan, from Walker placing wet kisses, nibbles and love bites all over your thighs. You were starting to get impatient again, wanting his mouth on your pussy all ready, straining against the tie wrapped around your wrists, you were surprised by how well he bound and tied you.

“Ow!” You let out in a breathy yelp.

“Stop doing that.” He scolded you, feeling you fidget. “You'll cut off the circulation in your hands.”

“Well, if you stop fucking teasing me.” You retorted back.

“I'll tease you all I want.” Walker remarked with a sly smirk. “You're the one tied to the chair.” He reminded you, like you had forgotten.

You grinned back at him, cheeks warm and shaking your head.

Chuckling, Walker started all over again, and took even longer this time to reach your folds, leaving bite marks, hickies and beard burn behind. You opened your legs even wider, panting, as his warm breath tickled your wet folds, your head fell back as he gave your clit a sharp flick of his tongue, toes curling intp the short carpet under your feet. Walker pressed a lewd kiss to your pussy, suckling your clit with maddening expertise and leisure, his hands gripped your hips and pinned you to the chair, stopping your desperate wiggles to fuck his face. His licks grew more and more, until he was licking the full length of your pussy with his long and broad tongue, swirling it around your clit and delving into the weeping entrance of your core, collecting your juices on his tongue and swallowing with deep rumbles of satisfaction of how good you tasted.

“You definitely taste better than Birthday Cake.” He moaned, lapping at your pussy.

You laughed, nervously. “Th-thanks.” You whimpered, a complete mess under his skilled mouth.

“I'm still shocked.” He purred between licks. “You're so polite, yet, you're so willing to ditch someone just trying to do their job.” He laughed, then gave your pussy several long and firm lips, sending you skating over the edge.

“Fuck, Walker!” You cried out, twitching and straining against your bonds, leaving a sticky mess between your legs, his mouth and mustache, and all over the seat beneath you, your eyes fluttering shut.

“That is the best damn orgasm I have ever had.” You commented, after semi recovering yourself.

Walker chuckled, smugly proud of himself as he moved around you and tugged the knot of the tie free, your numb arms falling heavily to your sides, releasing the strain on your shoulders. Walker's broad hands rested on your shoulders and started massaging your tense muscles, working his thumbs up and down your neck and between your shoulder blades, kneading and making you feel even more like puddy under his attention. His hands moved away from you and you heard the rustle of clothing behind you and every hair on your body stood on end, seeing his boxers come flying over your head and land on the floor with his discard pants and shirt.

“Stand up.” He rasped directly into your ear.

You hesitated for a moment, unsure if you could stand up, your legs felt like weak water balloons, but you slowly rose to your feet and your chair was pulled farther back. You didn't turn around to face Walker, the last remnants of your shyness holding you back from seeing him fully naked. His hands suddenly appeared on your back again, grabbing the zipper to the back of your dress and pulling it down, then pushed the straps off your shoulders, the black material of your dress pooled at your feet, like a black hole; followed by your matching push up bra. You hugged your arms to your bare chest and gulped, Walker wrapped his arms around you and pressed an open mouthed kiss to your neck, hugging you back against him, allowing you to feel every square inch of his chiseled and naked body.

“You're even more beautiful naked.” He hummed against the skin of your neck and shoulder, then turned you to face him. “Don't be shy.” He chuckled, grabbing your wrists and gently pulled your arms away from your chest. “Nothing I haven't seen before.” He assured you, bending his head forward to press a kiss to each other of your breasts, reaffirming his words.

Wrapping your arms around his neck and resting his hands on your hips, Walker picked you up, your legs wrapping around his waist, and carefully turned, pressing your back against the wall beside you. Your ass rested right on top of his rock hard cock as he braced his knees against the wall and your eyes widened, 'fuck, he's huge'. You gulped, blinking at him. Walker smirked and wiggled his brows at you, his confidence was as palpable as the rest of his body, he reached beneath you and grasped his shaft and rubbed the tip against your sticky and still wet pussy, both of you moaning in unison. Chests heaving against each other, Walker slowly guided his uncut cock inside of your core, then let your body weight sink you the rest of the way on its own, wanting you to feel that slow stretch as his thick shaft opened you even wider, every long inch being molded to your core.

“You are perfectly snug around my cock.” He purred, biting into your neck and sucking hard. “Your sweet little pussy doesn't wanna let me go, does it.” He growled against your jugular, biting you even harder, you were shocked he didn't draw blood.

“No.” You moaned, shaking your head and hugging your arms tighter around his neck; you didn't want to let him go.

Walker bucked up into you, spearing into your cervix like a hot knife and had you calling out his name, not caring how loud you were and if any of the other suites on the floor heard. His thrusts were measured and rough, pulling you down as he drove himself up, the dresser along the table next to you rattled and the objects on top of it jumped with each thrust and clattered to the floor. The whole room was filled with sounds spilling out from you and Walker, slapping skin, shaking furniture and knocking over objects.

“Yes, yes.” You panted and cried, holding onto Walker and understanding why he was called the Hammer. “Fuck, Walker. Fill me, please, for fuck sake, fill me.” You begged him, racking your nails down his shoulders and sweaty back, drawing spots of blood.

Grunting and hammering you harder, Walker obliged your request and sent both of you spiraling into a tandem orgasm and miraculously not through the wall. His flushed face and sweaty forehead fell heavily to your shoulder, his huffing breath washing over the skin of your collarbone and breast. You rested your head back against the wall, trying to catch your own breath and settling your pounding and screaming heart rate, with a throb between your legs from Walker's furious thrusting. Breath caught, Walker pulled both of you off the wall and carried you, like a limp koala, into the huge bathroom suite, setting you down on the heated toilet seat, then turned to the deep soaking tub and spinning on the hot tap.

“If this is how you treat women that run out on your performances, then I might turn into a regular dance and dash customer of yours.” You chuckled, sinking into the warm and soapy water, feeling the jets massage your exhausted and drained body.

Walker chuckled, shaking his head at you and stepped out of the bathroom, picking up his discarded clothes, carefully folding them, and cleaned up the mess on the floor. He picked your dress up off the floor and felt the pocket vibrate. Frowning, he pulled the device out and the screen lit up, showing off a text from someone called Baeli and the notification of your location share.

“Smart girl.”

He chuckled, smirking, then turned the share off, before folding your dress and set it on the dresser with your ruined panties and bra, your phone on top of them. “Are you hungry?” Walker called out to you, opening the double doors of the private balcony the room had; but you didn't answer him.

Frowning, Walker stepped back into the bathroom and chuckled, shaking his head, seeing you had dozed off, while enjoying your nice, hot bath.

You hadn't realized you fell asleep, until you woke up an hour later, under a layer of blankets. But, that wasn't what had woken you, what woke you was the low murmur of a voice that sounded very angry. Walker's voice, with someone he was clearly on the phone with.

“I don't care.” Walker hissed between clenched teeth, as he stood on the balcony. “I fucking told you, Royce. I want the rest of the Apostles on this. If any, and I mean, any, of them fuck this up for me, I will kill them.” He growled, gripping the balcony railing to try and keep his voice and temper under control.

“Do you understand? I would do it myself, if the CIA didn't have me undercover.”

It seemed like the person Walker was talking to had promised to do what he expected of them, because he visibly relaxed.

“Good. Call me in the morning and tell me how it went.” Walker sighed, running a hand through his disheveled and wind swept curls.

You closed your eyes as he hung up and leaned against the railing, not wanting him to feel your eyes on him or to know you had woken up at an apparently important section of his phone call. Your stomach was in knots, who were the Apostles? Was he really an undercover CIA? Was being a stripper part of that cover, or just a side job he got a kick out of? That must have been why he had so much money. Your brain screamed for you to jump up right there, yank on your clothing and run like hell from this apparently more dangerous man than you thought he was, but your body was still heavy as a rock from all the drinks you consumed over the night of your birthday and the mind blowing sex, so you only ended up falling back to sleep, as Walker turned around and entered the room again, unaware of your being awake or knowing what you now knew.

Waking again a few hours later, it was early morning, but still dark outside, an arm slung over your waist, hugging you against the solid, breathing wall of Walker's chest. Biting your lip, you carefully wiggled out of Walker's arms and to the edge of the bed, before you risked sitting up and stood, turning around to face him. He was relaxed and softly snoring on his side, his handsome face so soft you finally noticed the dark circles under his long lashes, the thick muscles of his arms and chest slack, he didn't seem as dangerous as you thought as you fell back to sleep after his phone call on the balcony.

Maybe, you had just dreamt it.

He gave you no indication of wanting to hurt you, and he had plenty of opportunities to do so throughout the night. Walker had done quite the opposite, he had been gentle, careful and mindful of you. He could have forced himself on you in the private room at the Crimson Moon, he could have done anything to you when he showed up at Nathan's, obviously annoyed by you running off before your lap dance was done, and he could have seriously hurt you once he got you into this hotel room, but again did nothing you didn't want and was quite sweet by drawing you a bath and putting you to bed after you fell asleep.

Sighing, you moved to the dresser, where he had folded your clothes and slipped your bra and panties on, then stepped out onto the balcony, the doors still open and letting in the cool night air. Resting your forearms against the railing and leaning forward, you looked down the dizzying thirty floors to the street below, a trickle of cars slowly thickening as people got up and started their days, rushing off to work or wherever else, which reminded you, you had to get home and get ready for your shift in four hours. Huffing, you shook your head, 'fuck that', you'd just call in sick and take the day off.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Walker's voice rasped behind you.

You glanced at him over your shoulder, finding him standing, butt naked, at the threshold of the balcony. “Just thinking that I have work in four hours, and how I want to call in sick.” You replied, looking back over the skyline.

“Perhaps you should.” He commented, stepping out onto the balcony with you, his hands resting on your hips and kneading them. “You deserve it.” He whispered, rubbing his soft cock against your ass.

“Do I?” You snorted, shaking your head and pushing back against him.

“I think so.” He rasped, touching the side of his foot to the inside of yours and pushed your leg out, until your chest was pressed to the railing and you leaned over it, slightly.

“Walker.” You gasped, eyes wide as you got even more dizzy from the height.

“Hush.” He cooed, then promptly ripped your underwear off of you.

“Walker!” You barked, surprised and annoyed, you were starting to rethink his threat level, when he filled you up with his cock again.

“I'll replace them.” Walker laughed, wrapping your hair around one hand and pulled your head back. “I can afford something better for you to wear, anyway.” He whispered into your ear, and started thrusting into you, your hips rubbing harshly against the railing, and his strong fingers rubbing your still sore clit.

Afterwards, You let Walker carry you back to bed and melted into his big arms and broad chest. “Is your cover really going to be blown, August?” You asked, coming off the high that had started the afternoon before.

“So, you were awake.” August laughed, brushing his fingers through your hair. “But, no, love. My cover is just fine, like it always is. Some of the Apostles are just being idiots, but I've put them back in their rightful places.”

“Under your size eleven boot.” You laughed, tilting your head back to look up at your beloved boyfriend.

“Exactly, sweetheart.” He chuckled back, kissing the tip and bridge of your nose. “Did you have a good birthday?” He asked, stroking the side of your face.”

“Mission: Crimson Moon, was bloody fantastic.” You assured him, kissing his stubbly jawline. “You make a damn good stripper, by the way.” You added, trailing your fingertips up and down his torso.

“It's no wonder why Sloane put you undercover there.”

You and August had met, while both of you were on separate missions, three years before, that ended up colliding together and you and August became nearly inseparable. Where one of you was, the other wasn't long off or far from. August worked as the CIA's best assassin. You worked a bit more free lance, bouncing between the CIA and MI-6, or sometimes for a private sector or person, if the money paid well enough. After your first year of dating August, when he finally trusted you without condition, he let you in on his 'John Lark' secret, how he was moonlighting as the top leader to the Apostles, the group that formed after the fall of the Syndicate, with Solomon Lane.

You were shocked at first, but the more you thought about it, the more it really made sense, August was calculated in everything he did, from work life to private life, he was distant and cold, almost cruel, if you didn't have the pleasure of being in his trusted inner circle. He had feared, an extremely rare trait in August Walker's vocabulary, that once you found out about his true dealings, you would leave him, he didn't worry about you outing him and blowing his cover, he knew you wouldn't, no matter how hurt and shocked you were, you had your own secrets and knew the value of keeping them that way.

A secret.

But, you didn't leave him, you loved him; even his faults.

You made him promise to never talk about the Apostles' business around you, unless you asked him about it, the less you knew about his works as the Head Apostle, the less of it could be pulled out of you and used to harm him, should anyone decide to use you as a pawn against August. Which, you weren't worried about either, people, from high governments to the cockroaches knew better than to fuck with you, even more so knowing that if they did do something to hurt or compromise you, August would be at their doorstep a moment later.

“Well, the job there is almost done, then only you will be getting a lifetime membership to my lap dances.” He told you with a smug grin, rolling onto his back and pulling you on top of him.

“I better be, August Walker.” You told him, pushing yourself up to straddle his waist, hands braced on his chest. “I'm the only one, this Hammer gets to nail.” You laughed, rubbing against his flaccid cock, waking it up for another round.

[ponydoodles]

[ID: a textured digital drawing of Sketchy Idea, a pink Changeling with red eyes, mandibles, ladybug-like elytra, ear feathering, hooves, and general accents. She also has purple curly hair and a purple membrane tail. It’s looking off to the side with a happy expression while laying down on a pink-and-green rug with its front legs crossed. Her colors are in a row above her, as well as her name written above her, and the words MOD Cottonskittles are to the corner with the pronouns she/they/it/any neos written underneath. Filling up the empty space are the aroace, abro lesbian, archaine, genderfae, lesbian, aplatonic, and plural flag. There’s also a symbol for the reclaimed d-slur flag, and a horizigender symbol on the genderfae flag. Next to Sketchy is a plushie of her with extra arms and open wings. END ID.]

hi hi howdy. its been a looooong time since we first made our mod intro (over 4 years, in fact!) so here’s an update! it’s mostly just an art update so no fancy new post lol. same sona same mod name

- our system name is crittertales, though the main headmate who posts art for us is jordyn/ovis/mask/dy/whatever name you know her by! other headmates may make art but we dont tag individually. just use critter as a collective name if youre unsure, but using our mod name to refer to us is more proper for this blog lol

- collectively we use she/they/animal neos but ovis mainly uses the ones listed in the ref, she/they/it/any neos. collectively we identify as aspec, abro, and queer, and the identities ovis identifies as are listed in the image description! (mainly the Big Ones she uses, not all of them)

- our big favorite ponies are pinkie pie and rainbow dash (both g4) and we also really like the ship of the two! but we’ll draw anything that catches our interest when we have the motivation for it

- we don’t use social media much anymore but our main blog is @cottonskittles​. we’re much more active on discord both in terms of modding this blog/the server and in terms of socialization. feel free to drop by and say hi!

EDIT: [ID: A digital drawing of Sketchy idea, this time with more saturated colors. Her hair is more indigo, her stomach is cyan, her eyes, horns, and ear feathering are all purple, and she has purple and fuchsia claws alongside extra arms and pink sparkly wings with a pink membrane tail. Written in fuchsia above her is Sketch Idea [a misspelled version of her name] and Any Pronouns with a heart, and written in the corner is Mod CottonSkittles (with Mod bolded). The drawing is rather fuzzy overall. END ID.]

-A system! (Theatre System) -i draw stuff sorta weird but i will Try to stay at least canon-adjacent with my designs -gender is mogai hell (unironically, but in simple terms im genderfluid), im arospec n acespec, and as far as im concerned im a lesbian. -mixed (black/white) -pinkiedash and lovecore stan first, living being second -minor

hiya! call me whatever you like, but im mod cottonskittles (didnt want to be mod sketchy since theres a mod sketch), and if i stop talking about pinkiedash i die. i just rlly like making people happy for free and if you make something for me ill take a year to process it and cry. im terrible at decisions and always forget cishet people exist. (also im rd kin and love pinkie from the bottom of my heart and im so sorry if i did this wrong dhvbjd)

[ginnyzero]

Ginny O’s Method of Character Development

There is a lot of advice out there on how to create and develop a good character. There are no doubt entire chapters in writing books and I know I’ve run across blog posts on every type of social media account imaginable. And of course, a lot of it is no doubt contradictory. The best thing about advice is you don’t have to use it all or any of it. It’s simply advice, not a set guideline of how things have to be done. Find what methods of writing and development work for you.

As long as you have a character or set of characters that can carry through the story as you want to tell it. Then that’s all you need. (The same can be said of world building, plots, whatever, as long as you have enough to get through the story you want to tell and it’s not self-contradictory, then really, you’re golden.)

I am a character driven writer. Not to say that some of my plots aren’t action focused, but I love writing interactions between varying personalities and putting those personalities in ridiculous situations just to see what they’d do. Thus, for me, one of the first things I do after I come up with a concept for a story is to try to come up with some characters that I can really sink my teeth into. Some characters are going to end up being more developed than others. And that’s okay! There are main characters. There are secondary characters. There are those characters that reveal themselves over time. And there are characters who blind side you by coming out of nowhere.

I’ll use Heaven’s Heathens as an example. My idea, that squeaky of DOOM, was to take the Expendables, expand on the motorcycle club concept by adding Sons of Anarchy and add the supernatural (Twilight). But remember, vampires are/were passé. And I’d had that love of werewolf bikers kicking around my brain for a while. Here was a chance to use it!

The great thing about this concept was I could make a list of character positions that I’d need to fill up both the motorcycle club and a mercenary unit. As an eagle:beaver:koala/dolphin:otter personality, I love lists (and I love having fun, go figure.) I needed the four officers of the Club. I needed the old lady character in charge of social events, the Gemma character. Did these officers have wives? I needed a mechanic, a demolitions specialist, a sniper, a hand to hand person, a small arms marksman, a supply/procurement person, a medic or doctor. Then I asked the question. Did some of these roles double with the officers?

At this point, no one had names. No one even had gender. The first two people to get gender were Savannah and Gideon. They were also two of the first characters to get names. This happened because of the first story I wanted to tell and the way I wanted to portray the relationship of the main couple in my series. (Because I like writing couple stories. I like a bit of romance.) I wanted to write an adult couple in an adult relationship with adult problems that are slightly amplified by the physics of the world building. (I still want to use that story line, so pardon me if I stay mum.) Coming up with this story allowed me to assign both of them some roles in the story. What were their occupations and place in the Club hierarchy?

So, in the context of building my world and story, I’d created a list of roles in the story. I decided on two characters I wanted to focus on (at that moment.) I’d given them gender, names and then assigned them a role or a part.

Sometimes, this is where I get distracted and start trying to decide what they look like. Maybe I’ll hunt down an actor or actress that I like who I think could play the part. Or I look up hair styles and think about the clothes they’ll wear. This can give me more ideas on the type of character I’m making. Or just be a major distraction that I’ll need to come back to later in the process.

The next questions I wanted to answer were, what were their relationships to the other roles in the story, why were they in those roles and thus, where did they come from, what was their history?

Creating the Heathens was a very organic process. A lot of the characters development depended on other characters development. Some of the characters on my list were little more than “Hand to hand specialist,” or “bodyguard to other character, likes steampunk,” or the cryptic “Sniper.” Sometimes it came down to “what types of characters do I want to see in stories?”

Frankie is a good example of this. I had Savannah, whose role was pretty defined. She was the Vice President and heir apparent to the Club. She had a man, Gideon, who was originally an outsider, not born to the Club and its ways. Savannah, of all people in this universe, needed a best friend. And I really, really wanted to see a non-crazy River type character who ended somehow being slammed into Pinkie Pie. (I honestly cannot remember for the life of me how that exactly happened.) So, Frankie became Savannah’s best friend, the hand to hand combat specialist. Who, for some reason, guarded the sniper on Savannah’s mercenary team. Why was she guarding this sniper? Oh, the sniper was her older sister and has a lot of kids. Frankie is protecting her family.

At the same time, I was thinking about the Secretary of the Club. I wanted someone who looked relatively stupid but used big words at unexpected times. And as Secretary he had the responsibility to not only keep the Club’s books but also collect on debts. I thought it’d be interesting to be the type of guy who can’t really control himself in a fight or when violence gets involved and ends up shooting the hostages or putting the delinquent in the back of a car and doing donuts until the delinquent or informant or whatever was ready to talk. And wouldn’t be funny if this person was the father of Frankie and the sniper?

Yes, a lot of the time, my character list and development of relationships ended up being “That’s hysterical, yes, must include.”

For a while, the President of the Club was labelled Matriarch/Patriarch in my documents. I was developing a lot of the world building and researching wolves at the same time I was building my characters. I knew that it didn’t really matter wolf wise what gender ran the Club. I knew it was more important Motorcycle Club wise, especially Outlaw Club types that they are a ‘men only’ club. But I was throwing this into the hypothetical post World War 3 future, so why stick with typical gender roles. Especially, when I was trying use more real wolf science of wolves in the wild versus how humans think and act.

So, Brand didn’t really become Brand until I answered the questions of WHY was Savannah, someone who was very young by werewolf terms Vice President of the Club and what happened to make her Vice President. In order to answer these questions, I had to ask myself who the President was, was this President a parent or a grandparent? If a grandparent, where were Savannah’s parents? Why was Savannah willingly taking this responsibility? Answering these questions revealed a lot about Savannah’s past and her motivations and her moral character. (Read the books/short stories to find out why, I’m not going to tell you! YEESH.)

Making Brand male was a tough decision for me. I really hemmed and hawed over it. I wanted to show that females could lead Club charters, but at the same time, it might have taken away from Savannah’s story and her character plot line. She might be less important if Brand was say, Brandy. The story despite being set in the future still needs to have roots in the issues of our times. Females as elected national leaders, especially given the last couple of election cycles, is a huge issue of our day. The judgement based on appearance rather than record. The sexist attitudes that still pervade the media about what type of national leaders women would be despite people like Queen Elizabeth II or Margaret Thatcher.

Thus, Brand became male and the Gemma type character became female. Savannah’s past and Brand’s past were intertwined being that they were related. So, that revealed more of Brand’s character.

Usually, around this point is when I start giving the characters or noticing the characters have one or two personality traits. For instance with Brand, I’d been calling him the Patriarch for quite some time. This really helped define his role and his personality. Brand is the congenial nepotistic dictator that you don’t want to disappoint. He may be your dad like figure. He may want what’s best for you. He’s also the one ultimately in charge of the house and don’t forget it. He will protect the House from all threats and do his best to support it. In return, he demands your loyalty, respect and that you follow the rules of his house.

One of the best questions I think that a writer can answer when developing a character is, “When push comes to shove, how does the character react?” A character’s response to a stressful situation, reveals a lot about that character and where they are at in their personal lives. This is about the time I ask this question. Because, it helps a lot with the next bit.

It’s only after I assign a role, a name, a gender and a few personality types that I personally start digging into personality archetypes. Personality archetypes cover a broad range of different systems from different cultures. The most well-known personality types are the Western and Eastern Zodiac, and the Myers Briggs test. Depending on how important the character is, the more of these systems I’ll use to try and nail down a person rather than a stereotype.

Whether we like it or not as writers, readers like archetypes. Readers enjoy the comfort of the familiar in their characters. There is a reason why Star Wars is such a huge franchise. The archetypes of Star Wars are painted in huge brush strokes on the big screen and the plot is based upon the Heroes Journey, something that is older than dirt as it can be found in Ancient Greek plots!

Just because readers like archetypes, doesn’t mean our characters have to be stereotypes of these archetypes. A lot of the time I’ve noticed, especially when zodiac signs are turned into stereotypes, that the negative of the stereotype is emphasized rather than the positive. A Libra doesn’t have to be an indecisive shallow twit obsessed with the latest fashion trends. Libras are also excellent diplomats and mediators who make good companions and use their heads when taking action. (My little Encyclopedia of the zodiac has 16 good Libra traits listed versus 7 bad traits and I swear, every petty villain or unsympathetic main character becomes all 7 bad Libra traits.)

Feel free to use several different archetypes at once. Browse TvTropes and cherry pick traits you’d like to see together in one character. Mix DnD or World of Darkness character building with character blood type personalities. Pick a birthday and use Bad Birthdays or the Zodiac Guide to Birthdays. (I’m a Darkside Zodiac fan, so I like bad birthdays better.) Use playing cards, the tarot, or find spirit animals. Use the Elements of Harmony personality types! (Savannah is Twilight Sparkle/Applejack, Frankie is Pinkie Pie/Rarity.)

The most important thing I think I learned while developing these characters is that once I’ve developed them enough to get the story up and off the ground, the characters will develop more as I write. They’ll change. They’ll grow. As I write the story, I’ll learn more about them and their abilities and facets that can take the story places that I couldn’t even imagine back when I made a list of roles.

So, let me sum up. When I have an idea for a story, a concept, I sit down and I create a list of parts. (Sometimes this is easier than others.) Parts could be anything from occupation to ‘next door neighbor.’ Usually, the story idea will give me an indication of which casted roles are the most important. I’ll give the character gender and usually a name. I may try to figure out what they look like and how they dress to give me more ideas about where I’m taking the character. Then I try to build relationships with other characters on the list. These relationships can help me develop a character’s past, their motivations and emotional behaviors. I can start giving them or noting down specific traits that characters have, like they’re easy going or very organized or upbeat and bubbly.

From there, I can start researching different archetype systems, fleshing them out with the zodiac, Myers-Briggs types and others. From there I can start assigning them hobbies or quirks or personal preferences and fears. But those may not come out until I’m writing, delving into the story and trying to get inside the character’s head and making them more than a list of traits in a word file.

My method is just my way of doing things. Sometimes it works out and I get a fully developed idea out of it. Other times, it doesn’t and that’s just what happens. Use what works best for you.

[thegeneralsnotebook]

May Feature: Manes That Scale

The recent change to the Block structure is a meaningful change in a whole bunch of ways. Most immediately, it adds a whole set, and a very good set at that, to the developing metagame of the new Block. Defenders rightly contains some of the most powerful cards in the game today, and it shakes up what was Beyond Block in a big way.

But for me, the change has instead brought up thoughts of what you might call “New Core”. Officially, it’s unknown where exactly the next set boundary is going to be defined at. It could be between Set 10 and Set 11, and that would make some sense given the current structure of 4-3-3. Or it could come a bit later, if circumstances dictate otherwise. We simply don’t know at the moment. But it seems safe to say that it’s probably coming a lot sooner as a result of this change. The new Block would cause only the second set rotation that this game has ever had, as Equestrian Odysseys, High Magic, and Marks in Time would no longer be legal in the Core Format. It will be a brave new day, rife with experimentation and ready to be conquered anew by whichever deck fights its way to the top.

The most natural thing to do might be to prognosticate about what decks or cards those might be, but instead I want to use this opportunity to talk about a concept that the rotation could demonstrate well: some Manes scale, while some do not. In this case, when I say scaling, what I mean is that the value and viability of some Manes depend on having a diverse set of cards that they can synergize with. The more cards that they have to work with, the better those Manes tend to be. Thus, as sets get added to a format, the Manes get more and more viable over time. With a set rotation coming up, knowing which Manes scale and which ones are static becomes very important.

Scaling is Something All Cards Can Do

All cards can be placed on a continuum between those with values that are mostly static to those with a value that mostly scales based on the size of a certain card pool. The classic example of a scaling card, one that I keep coming back to over and over in this blog, was Eff Stop. Infamously, that card got better and better every set as the pool of Events grew larger and larger. Another great example is Interdimensional Portal, which was just fine when it first came out, but also scaled with Enters the Board triggers, and went on to be the poster child for a whole family of decks in what is now likely its final form.

But I don’t want you to come away with the impression that scaling is something that every good card needs to have built into it. The history of the game is filled with static cards that were just as great. Getting back to the topic of Manes, two of the most prolific ones in the game’s history were both static cards: DJ and Ambassador AJ. While Applejack certainly scaled in a rather literal sense, the fact that she didn’t scale with a larger card pool can be concluded from the observation that her deck didn’t really change as new sets came out. Similarly, while DJ has been used in almost every kind of deck under the sun, we can’t point to a card pool that made her better as it grew. Every deck that’s included her has done it for the same reason: exhaust to draw is really good.

So, with the set rotation probably just around the corner, identifying which Manes in the new Defenders Block mostly scale and which are mostly static carries with it some interesting information. This is because the scaling ones will probably be hurt when they lose access to three sets worth of card pool, while the static ones have the potential to keep on doing fine. Over the course of the new releases, though, it will be the scaling Manes to watch out for, as each new set offers them another chance to climb the ladder. So, let’s see what the Defenders Block Manes have to offer.

Blue

Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt -- Static

For the most part I’m not going to say all that much about the static cards, because it’s pretty self-evident why that’s the case. It always comes down to one question: is there a certain type of card that, should we have more of it, this Mane would get better? And with Rainbow here the answer is no. That’s not to say, by the way, that the Mane itself won’t fluctuate in popularity and viability as things change. New cards will impact the kind of decks that Wonderbolt will find itself in, but the card itself will not be seeing its value change.

Captain Celaeno, Swashbuckler -- Scaling

Remember what I said above, that static versus scaling goes on a continuum? To some extent almost all cards scale at least a little bit, in that you can usually name a card type that will help them out. For example, even Rainbow up above will scale based on Starting Problems that are easy to confront because that will make her early game easier. But I don’t find that particularly worth mentioning because it’s not a huge part of what makes the card tick. Celaeno is mostly the same, except for the fact that her whole viability right now rests on ways to flip her back to Start, and the existence of that pool will impact her a lot.

Gallus, Full of Surprises -- Scaling

Triggers are a fine place to start if you’re looking for cards that scale. A trigger necessarily scales with cards that can trigger it, and Gallus is no different. The size of the pool of Hasty Friends and Immediate-speed Events that he can draw on directly impact the value that this Mane can bring to the table.

Orange

Applejack, Tooled Up -- Static

While here we have an activated ability that can only come up in certain circumstances, I wouldn’t really say that Applejack scales based on the number of cards that can create those circumstances. The ability to start lots of faceoffs might make sure that you can use AJ’s ability every turn, but unless those faceoffs are important they probably won’t get you much.

Grubber, Royal Announcer -- Static

I can save some time here by saying that the Seaquestria Manes are by and large static purely by design. Each of them is predicated on the idea of getting a big effect once, and maybe once or twice more over the course of the game. There aren’t usually that many conditions or interactions necessary to get there. It’s true that this Mane recently got a big boost thanks to Fume, but a one-card interaction is a combo, not a scaling effect. We would literally need more Fumes for this card to scale on anything.

Smolder, Culture Shock -- Scaling

Smolder I’m willing to throw into the scaling category because hand attack is a real thing, and the fewer cards your opponent has in hand, the more her ability is going to hurt. Thus, like all scaling Manes, in New Core Smolder is going to care a lot about whether her hand attack cards from the old Block get replaced.

Pink

Pinkie Pie, Cruise Director -- Static Princess Skystar, Out of Her Shell -- Static Silverstream, Everything’s New! -- Static

We can actually make some interesting points by considering all of these cards together. Firstly that, as I mentioned above, being static versus being scaling isn’t a judgement about whether a card is good or bad. Within this list we have one Mane that’s great, one that’s terrible, and one that’s merely on the good side of average. And neither of those stands to change much as new cards get added, which is unfortunate for Pinkie, I suppose. Silverstream’s decks could stand to benefit a lot though, which goes to show that just because a Mane doesn’t scale doesn’t mean that it’s consigned to its initial spot in history. But even so, expect that if Silverstream does break into the really big time, she’ll still be doing the same thing that she is now. Because her value to her deck is not going to change.

Purple

Princess Twilight Sparkle, Professor Sparkle -- Scaling

Twilight lives and dies by her AT supply, so I couldn’t honestly say that she isn’t going to scale up and down as time goes on. If more sources of AT keep getting added to the game, then naturally Twilight is going to benefit from them.

Tempest Shadow, Storm Commander -- Scaling

Tempest is in a really strange position on here, because while purely based on design we can say that Tempest absolutely should scale, I can also say with a lot of confidence that she’s not going to scale. Tempest’s early game is almost certain to always look the same, and she scales based on how much value she can get out of her Troublemaker. Yet as we probably all suspect, Tempest and Grubber are going to be joined together at the hip until they both rotate out together. And honestly I think that’s a bit of a shame, because this card could have been really cool if the choice of which Troublemaker to pair with it had ever been a difficult one.

White

Rarity, Fashion Mogul -- Static

For some of these cards there isn’t all that much to say, and unfortunately for Rarity she’s one of them. To some extent, it’s possible that some of these static cards actually do scale, and it’s just that no one’s figured out how yet. But from a straightforward analysis it’s tough to see what sort of interaction this card is going to leverage if it’s going to get ahead. If there’s one thing we’ve learned, after all, it’s that there’s no accounting for what the opponent is going to do.

Capper Dapperpaws, Charmer -- Scaling

Capper better hope that there’s some scaling up in his future. For this Mane the math is pretty simple. As things currently stand about 58% of the cards in Core have even Power, and if that ratio keeps up this Mane’s absolute power is going to be related to the number of cards available on a fairly linear relationship. Yet there’s plenty of room above his current position, so I guess there’s gotta be hope, right?

Ocellus, Knowledge is Power -- Scaling

Ocellus is actually the Mane which inspired me to write this article in the first place, because while she’s not in a particularly great spot in the current Core metagame, this card scales hard. All it needs is cards that have higher Power than Cost, and nearly every set has some of that. It’s one of the reasons why I’ll always have this card in the back of my mind for New Core. It’s likely to get shellacked a bit on the rotation, but something tells me that a few Sets on Ocellus will certainly have her day.

Yellow

Fluttershy, Nurturing Nature -- Scaling

The fact that Fluttershy scales is actually kind of scary. You wouldn’t necessarily know it by lookingat what she’s been up to lately in constructed Core play. To some extent that’s because her pool of scaling cards is huge: there are Problems that are easy to confront and also cards that work to make her more powerful. Both of them are Yellow mainstays, so it seems safe to say that even if Fluttershy gets whacked a little by the rotation, she’ll be back with a vengeance soon enough, and it won’t be long before she’s all of the way back on the top.

Thorax, The Changed Changeling -- Scaling

Unlike Ambassador Applejack, Thorax is a great example of a card that scales both literally and figuratively. Like Fluttershy above, Thorax has a really large pool of cards to work with, just any card with printed Power of two or less will do. That pool is unavoidably going to grow larger as new sets get released, and isn’t likely to get reduced too far even after the rotation. Interestingly enough, Thorax doesn’t have a particularly high static value. His power comes almost entirely from synergizing with his scaling cards. But the vastness of that pool seems likely to turn him into a formidable force in New Core.

Queen Novo, Sea Sovereign -- Static

And unfortunately, we end off this list with something of an anticlimax. Novo really is more of the same Seaquestria territory trodden over again. It’s true that to some extent she’ll scale based on ‘on-move’ triggers, as those will make her flipping over into a much more impactful event. Already we’ve seen based on Beyond Block that flipping her early wasn’t a necessary course for a good game strategy. Yet I wouldn’t say that this modification will be enough to fundamentally change her value to the decks that might want to use her.

Conclusion

As I said at the top of the article, it’s still a mystery as to when exactly New Core is going to arrive. It could come as early as Set 11, or at the latest probably after Set 12. I can’t imagine it possibly lasting longer than that. Once that comes around, everything that we thought we knew about Core is going to change. Hopefully, by looking at this list and by how things develop with the new set, it will be easier for you to identify the dark horses, the Manes that might not stand out right away, but will surely gain in power and viability as the new rotation moves on.

[happypastelponies]

My Little Pony crossovers and collabs that I want to see happen- Part 1

(In no particular order)

Fashion

My Little Pony x Minori– this person is a revolutionary model who reinvented “Shironuri” (painted in white) street fashion in Harajuku, Japan. She has been featured in Vogue and has an international following. Moore often than not, her artistic outfits consist of soft and flowing pastels, which would work quite nicely with MLP’s image and pastel ponies. Ideally, the pony I would like to see utilized in this collaboration would be Rarity, who is also a fashionista and well versed in the art of style, but also Fluttershy, who has had her moment in the spotlight with modeling, but is also quite knowledgeable about sewing as well. Perhaps also to be considered is Celestia, as her color scheme would work nicely with the Shuronuri theme and iconic styles of Minori, who best utilizes the fashion; along with a possible dusting-off and reappearance of the g3 original character, Kimono in the style of g4 (or g5)- for obvious reasons.

My Little Pony x Moi-même-Moitié– this gothic lolita fashion brand is iconic in Japan, and was created by the visual kei gothic metal band, Malice Mizer/ Moi Dix Mois’ leader and guitarist, Mana. While the image of this brand doesn’t necessarily mesh with a bright and pastel little ponies, there are a few darker-themed lines of this popular toy brand that could work nicely with it; case in point, the Ponymania collection. While they seemed more like a mishmash of visual kei rock, gothic lolita, and sweet lolita all rolled into one, a second attempt at this Ponymania theme, in collaboration with Mana’s fashion brand, with Ponies such as Moonlight Raven, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, and Inky Rose would be perfect for this.

Music/ Vocals

My Little Pony x Yoshiki– a Japanese musician, songwriter, composer, record producer, and co-founder of the heavy metal visual kei band, X Japan. This guy is pretty major, as he was requested by the Japanese government to compose and perform a song for the Emperor’s coronation, has a radio station named after him, collabed with American comic book legends like Stan Lee and Todd McFarlane (as well as a guest of honor at Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo), along with music legends like KISS, designed theme songs for the Golden Globe Awards, played a concert in Madiison Square Garden, has a hologram of himself, and so many more monumental achievements. As to why I think MLP should collab with him, he is a phenomenal musician and songwriter. If he were to work with Daniel Ingram or just standalone, I suspect that future songs for any reboot series for MLP would be equally exquisite.

Animation and Story Direction

My Little Pony x Hayao Miyazaki– One of Japan’s highly respected and most prominent film directors/ producer/screenwriter/ animator/ author, manga artist/ co-founder of studio Ghibli who is responsible for a laundry list of amazing animated films like Spirited Away (which won an Acadamy Award for best Animated Film (making it the only hand drawn animated film and non-English-language animated film to win that award), and was the highest-grossing animated film in Japanese history, and overtook Titanic, at the time, as highest-grossing film worldwide). A collab with this man would be refreshing, as like MLP, many of his works are characterized by themes such as environmentalism (humanity’s relationship with nature and technology), pacifism (the difficulty of maintaining a pacifist ethic in a violent world), feminism, love, and family. In addition, The protagonists of his films are often strong girls or young women. Miyazaki has described his female characters as “brave, self-sufficient girls that don’t think twice about fighting for what they believe in with all their heart”, stating that they may “need a friend, or a supporter, but never a saviour” and that “any woman is just as capable of being a hero as any man” For a show about ponies that promote love and friendship, a collab with a person such as this seems ideal.

Anime (Animation)/ Manga

My Little Pony x Cardcaptor Sakura– this is a crossover that I’ve expressed a desire to see made possible before. Read it in my blog here: https://happypastelponies.tumblr.com/post/170326310843/why-mlp-fim-should-crossover-with-cardcaptor

My Little Pony x Care Bears– this is a crossover that I’ve expressed a desire to see made possible before. Read it in my blog here: https://happypastelponies.tumblr.com/post/171670025613/are-my-little-pony-care-bears-related-theory

My Little Pony x Star Darlings– This would be an ideal collab to make a reality in order to promote Hasbro’s IP: Namely, through the production and promotion line of a g1 (perhaps anniversary related) spinoff that would allow them to finally produce a group of long-time prototype ponies called the “celestial ponies”/ “Fancy Swirl” ponies, especially since there has been a bit of hype amid the Gen 1 community of pony collectors, which they’ve been trying to get noticed and made by a company called Bridge Direct/ Basic Fun. With their celestial theme, they would pair and play nicely with the Disney Star Darling franchise in collaboration, whose characters are based off the 12 astrological symbols and live in a setting called Starland, in the celestial skies.

Voice Acting & Series Appearances

My Little Pony x Wanda Sykes– An American voice actor, comedian, and writer. This is one person who has quite a distinctive voice and plays in a number of comedic roles, such as “Granny Sloth” in “Ice Age”, “Stella the Skunk” in “Over the Hedge”, and “Barb Baran” in “The New Adventures of Old Christine”. She was also named one of the top 25 funniest people in America by Entertainment Weekly. There’s no doubt her memorable voice acting could bring a fresh dose of comedic relief on MLP, especially in union with Pinkie Pie.

My Little Pony x Whoopi Goldberg– An American actress, comedian, author, and tv host. She is one of the few people to have won an Oscar, a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Award. Her voice is also iconic, and she has had many roles in films and series such as “Star Trek- the Next Generation”, “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”, “The Color Purple”, and “Sister Act”; while also VA’ing a character, “Shenzi the Hyena” in “The Lion King”. Due to her comedic and Voice acting background, she could also bring a hint of comedy and acting talents to the MLP series.

Other:

Moon Dreamers x Star Darlings– While not necessarily a My Little Pony related crossover, it is one with another one of Hasbro’s Intellectual Properties, “Moon Dreamers”. This would provide a good opportunity for Hasbro to dust off one of its older IP’s and revitalize a long dead toyline from the 80’s.

With Moon Dreamers, they are insanely similar to a more recent IP made by Disney, called “Star Darlings”. One IP’s characters works with dreams, while the other series’ characters works with wishes, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but those are both really identical professions. Especially where Disney is concerned, apparently. The lyrics of a classic song “when you wish upon a star” has verses that say the following: “A Dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep”. The only difference is that while Moon Dreamers work in the world of slumber to grant kids their wishes/ dreams, Star Darlings work in the waking world to do the same. And Hasbro is no stranger to collaborating with Disney.

[symbianosgames]

By Jamey Pittman

[What design and AI lessons can we learn from Namco's seminal Pac-Man? From history through behavior, Gamasutra presents a comprehensive Jamey Pittman-authored guide to the classic game.]

In 1999, Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida became the first person to obtain a perfect score of 3,333,360 at Pac-Man, eating every possible dot, energizer, ghost, and bonus on every level without losing a single life in the process.

But perhaps what is most amazing is the fact he can play without using any memorized routines widely known as "patterns".

Instead, he relies on his familiarity with how each ghost behaves as it moves through the maze, using that knowledge to keep Pac-Man one step ahead of his enemies at all times.

Unlike Mitchell, most players are only able to rack up high scores with the aid of multiple patterns that take advantage of the game's deterministic nature.

These patterns require perfect memorization and recall to be of any real use - a single hesitation or wrong turn during execution can make the remainder of a pattern useless.

Not surprisingly, an over-reliance on these routines leaves many a player clueless as to how to effectively avoid the ghosts and finish off the remaining dots in the higher levels once a mistake occurs.

Most Pac-Man strategy guides available on the internets today are very similar in content to the books that used to be sold back in the early 80s

A summary of gameplay and scoring is provided first, followed by a list of patterns to be memorized by the reader, but very little insight is offered on how the game works or how the ghosts make decisions.

Therefore, the purpose of this guide is to give the player and game designers a better design understanding of Pac-Man by taking a closer look at gameplay, maze logic, ghost personalities, and the mysterious "split screen" level.

All information provided has been extracted from or verified with the disassembly output from the Midway Pac-Man arcade ROMs along with controlled observations of actual gameplay. As such, I have a high confidence in its accuracy.

That said, if you notice an error or omission, please contact me so it can be corrected as soon as possible. I hope you find the information just as interesting and useful as I did for gaining a better understanding of this classic game.

Special thanks to Don Hodges (www.donhodges.com) whose invaluable contributions to this guide can be found in every chapter.

"I don't have any particular interest in [computers]. I'm interested in creating images that communicate with people. A computer is not the only medium that uses images; I could use the movies or television or any other visual medium. It just so happens I use the computer."-Toru Iwatani

It was 1977 when a self-taught, capable young man named Toru Iwatani came to work for Namco Limited, a Tokyo-based amusement manufacturer whose main product lines at the time were projection-based amusement rides and light gun shooting galleries.

He was just 22 years old with no formal training in computers, visual arts, or graphic design, but his creativity and aptitude for game design were obvious to the Namco executives that met with Iwatani. They offered to hire him-with assurances they would find a place for him in the company-and he accepted.

Iwatani eventually found his place designing titles for Namco's new video games division. His limited computer skills necessitated his being paired with a programmer who would write the actual code while Iwatani took on the role of game designer for the project.

This was a new job for the game industry in 1977 when most games were designed by the programmers who coded them. In addition to a programmer, Iwatani's team would usually include a hardware engineer to develop the various devices and components, a graphic artist to realize his visual ideas, and a music composer for any music and sound effects needed in the game.

Iwatani had initially wanted to work on pinball machines, but Namco had no interest in the pinball business. Perhaps as a concession, his first game design, called Gee Bee, was a paddle game similar to Atari's Breakout but with a decidedly pinball-inspired slant to the gameplay.

Released in 1978, it was Namco's first original video game-they had only ported existing Atari games to the Japanese market up to this point-and it enjoyed moderate success in the arcades.

But the paddle games were losing ground fast to a new genre. The unprecedented success of Taito's Space Invaders in 1978 caused an industry-wide shift toward space-themed, shoot-'em-up games (as well as a national coin shortage in Japan).

Game manufacturers scrambled to match Taito's success with space shooters of their own. Namco was quick to follow suit, assigning a team to start work on a Space Invaders clone at once. It was around this time that Toru Iwatani began thinking about designing a different kind of game. He felt the shoot-'em-up craze was destined to fade away like the paddle games before them.

Rather than make another space shooter, Toru wanted to take his game design in a completely new direction that did not focus on violence or conflict, and would appeal to both male and female audiences.

He took inspiration from a children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by eating them. One of Iwatani's design methods included taking key words associated with a story to aid in developing his ideas. The kanji word taberu ("to eat"), became the premise for the game.

The word kuchi ("mouth") has a square shape for its kanji symbol and provided the inspiration for the game's main character-the better-known legend of Iwatani receiving his inspiration from a pizza pie with a slice missing was, by his own admission, not entirely correct:

"Well, it's half true. In Japanese the character for mouth (kuchi) is a square shape. It's not circular like the pizza, but I decided to round it out. There was the temptation to make the Pac-Man shape less simple. While I was designing this game, someone suggested we add eyes. But we eventually discarded that idea because once we added eyes, we would want to add glasses and maybe a moustache. There would just be no end to it.

Food is the other part of the basic concept. In my initial design, I had put the player in the midst of food all over the screen. As I thought about it, I realized the player wouldn't know exactly what to do: the purpose of the game would be obscure. So I created a maze and put the food in it. Then whoever played the game would have some structure by moving through the maze.

The Japanese have a slang word-paku paku-they use to describe the motion of the mouth opening and closing while one eats. The name Puck-Man came from that word."

-Toru Iwatani

The monsters from the children's story were included as four ghosts that chase the player through the maze, providing an element of tension. Attacks on the player were designed to come in waves (similar to Space Invaders) as opposed to an endless assault, and each ghost was given an unique personality and character.

The children's story also included the concept of kokoro ("spirit") or a life force used by the creature that allowed him to eat the monsters. Toru incorporated this aspect of the story as four edible power pellets in the maze that turn the tables on the ghosts, making them vulnerable to being eaten by the player.

With a name and a basic design in place, Iwatani was ready to begin work. The team Namco assigned Iwatani to bring Puck-Man to life included a programmer (Shigeo Funaki), a hardware engineer, a cabinet designer, and a music composer (Toshio Kai).

Development got underway in early 1979. In the course of that year, two new pinball-themed designs from Iwatani-Bomb Bee and Cutie Q-were both released during Puck-Man's development cycle. Both games were similar to Gee Bee but with stronger gameplay and improved visuals.

The Namco team working on the Space Invaders clone for the past several months had just achieved a technological coup for Namco: the first game to use a true, multi-colored, RGB display instead of the monochrome monitors with colored cellophane tape so prevalent at the time.

Thanks to the breakthrough of the other team, Iwatani now had the new promise of color to enhance his design. Mindful that he wanted the game to appeal to women, he immediately decided to use it on the ghosts, choosing pastel shades for the bodies and adding expressive, blue eyes. Dark blue was used for the maze itself, while Puck-Man was drenched in a brilliant yellow.

The look and feel of Puck-Man continued to evolve for over a year. A large amount of time and effort was put into developing the ghosts unique movement patterns through the maze and tweaking the game difficulty variables as boards were cleared.

Bonus symbols (including the Galaxian flagship) were added into the mix at some point, and the ghosts were finally given names: Akabei, Pinky, Aosuke, and Guzuta. Sound effects and music were some of the final touches added as development neared an end along with constant tweaking of the ghosts' behavior.

Puck-Man's creation was a year and five months in the making-the longest ever for a video game to that point. Finally, on May 22nd, 1980, it was released to arcades in Japan. Initially, the game did moderately well, but was no overnight sensation.

In fact, Namco's multi-colored Space Invaders clone, called Galaxian, was much more popular with the gaming public-the predominately male, game-playing audience in Japan was unsure what to make of Puck-Man with its cartoon-like characters, maze, and pastel colors, whereas Galaxian was more immediately familiar to them with its shoot-'em-up space theme.

Midway was a distributor of coin-operated video games in the U.S. that was always looking for the next big hit from Japan to license and bring to America. They opted for both Puck-Man and Galaxian, modifying the cabinets and artwork to make them easier to manufacture as well as providing a more American look and feel.

Puck-Man went through the majority of the changes: the cabinet was modified slightly, changing the color from white to a bright yellow to make it stand out in the arcade. The detailed, multi-colored cabinet artwork was replaced with cheaper-to-produce, three-color artwork illustrating an iconic representation of Puck-Man (now drawn with eyes and feet) and one blue ghost.

English names were given to the ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde), and the Namco title was changed to Midway. The most significant change to Puck-Man was the name. Midway feared it would be too easy for nasty-minded vandals to change the P in Puck-Man to an F, creating an unsavory epithet.

Not wanting their product associated with this word, Midway renamed the game Pac-Man before releasing it to American arcades in October 1980.

But the situation in America was reversed from Japan for these two titles. Galaxian got lost in the shuffle of the shoot-'em-up craze that blanketed America's arcades and, by the fall of 1980, it was already competing with more advanced video games like Defender.

In the end, Galaxian enjoyed moderate success in America and in Japan, but was never the smash hit the original Space Invaders was. Pac-Man was another story. There were no games to compare it to-it was in a genre all by itself. The bright yellow cabinet, visuals, and sounds drew a great deal of attention. No one had seen a game quite like this before.

The addictive gameplay and challenge of increasing levels of difficulty kept the die-hard gamers more than happy, while the simplicity of the game appealed to younger children. The lack of war-like motifs and violence did as Iwatani had hoped and attracted a sizable female audience-a first for a video game. Even the parents wary of the violence-themed arcade games had no problem with their kids playing as cute and innocuous a game as Pac-Man.

Pac-Man went on to capture the world's imagination like nothing before or since. It was a genuine phenomenon on a global scale, selling over 100,000 machines in its first year alone. Easy to learn but notoriously difficult to master, everyone from school children to Wall Street executives dropped quarter after quarter into an ever-increasing number of waiting Pac-Man machines.

By 1982, Pac-Man merchandise was literally everywhere: t-shirts, hats, keychains, wrist bands, bedsheets, air fresheners, wall clocks, drinking glasses, trading cards, stickers, cereal boxes, comic books-even a Saturday morning cartoon.

A novelty song called "Pac-Man Fever" received significant radio play, reaching number nine on the U.S. Billboard charts. Many books were written offering tips and tricks used by the best players to achieve high scores-the first-ever strategy guides published for a video game.

Fast-forward to nearly thirty years later: Pac-Man remains the best-selling coin-operated video game in history. Still considered the most widely-recognized video game character in the U.S., his likeness has been licensed to over 250 companies for over 400 products.

His namesake has been adopted by the business world to describe a way to defend against a hostile takeover (the defending company swallows up the larger company instead in a move known as the "Pac-Man defense"). There is even an upright Pac-Man machine on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Unlike the majority of his early-80s contemporaries, new Pac-Man games are still in development today. Most recently, Pac-Man Championship Edition was released in 2007 for the X-Box 360 console with the aid of Namco game designer Toru Iwatani.

Interest in the original coin-op title has never completely faded, thankfully. Thanks to Namco's re-release of Pac-Man and other arcade classics for modern home consoles, new generations of Pac-addicts have worn their hands out playing a game often older than themselves.

Many classic titles are also kept alive thanks to the advent of high-quality arcade emulators available for the home computer (like MAME) that use a software copy of the arcade ROM chips to recreate the game with 100% accuracy. Several web pages with information about the original Pac-Man arcade game can be found online including Wikipedia and the Killer List Of Video Games.

"As Pac-Man was originally conceived to appeal to women players, it is a very easy and approachable game. I believe that is an ingredient in the longevity of the game."-Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man

The Basics

The premise of Pac-Man is delightfully simple: using a four-way joystick, the player guides Pac-Man-up, down, left, and right-through a maze filled with dots for him to gobble up. Four ghost monsters are also in the maze and chase after our hero, trying to capture and kill him.

The goal is to clear the maze of dots while avoiding the deadly ghosts. Each round starts with the ghosts in the "monster pen" at the center of the maze, emerging from it to join in the chase.

If Pac-Man is captured by a ghost, a life is lost, the ghosts are returned to their pen, and a new Pac-Man is placed at the starting position before play continues. When the maze is cleared of all dots, the board is reset, and a new round begins. If Pac-Man gets caught by a ghost when he has no extra lives, the game is over.

There are 244 dots in the maze, and Pac-Man must eat them all in order to proceed to the next round. The 240 small dots are worth ten points each, and the four large, flashing dots - best known as energizers - are worth 50 points each.

This yields a total of 2,600 points for clearing the maze of dots each round. Players have two ways to increase their score beyond what is earned from eating dots:

The first way to increase your score each round is by turning the tables on your enemies by making them your prey. Whenever Pac-Man eats one of the four energizer dots located in the corners of the maze, the ghosts reverse their direction and, in early levels, turn the same shade of blue for a short period of time before returning to normal.

While blue, they are vulnerable to Pac-Man and can be gobbled up for extra points providing they are caught before the time expires. After being eaten, a ghost's eyes will return to the monster pen where it is resurrected, exiting to chase Pac-Man once again.

The first ghost captured after an energizer has been eaten is always worth 200 points. Each additional ghost captured from the same energizer will then be worth twice as many points as the one before it-400, 800, and 1,600 points, respectively. If all four ghosts are captured at all four energizers, an additional 12,000 points can be earned on these earlier levels. This should not prove too terribly difficult to achieve for the first few rounds as the ghosts initially remain blue for several seconds.

Soon after, however, the ghosts' "blue time" will get reduced to one or two seconds at the most, making it much more problematic to capture all four before time runs out on these boards. By level 19, the ghosts stop turning blue altogether and can no longer be eaten for additional points.

The second way to increase your score each round is by eating the bonus symbols (commonly known as fruit) that appear directly below the monster pen twice each round for additional points. The first bonus fruit appears after 70 dots have been cleared from the maze; the second one appears after 170 dots are cleared.

Each fruit is worth anywhere from 100 to 5,000 points, depending on what level the player is currently on. Whenever a fruit appears, the amount of time it stays on the screen before disappearing is always between nine and ten seconds. The exact duration (i.e., 9.3333 seconds, 10.0 seconds, 9.75 seconds, etc.) is variable and does not become predictable with the use of patterns. In other words, executing the same pattern on the same level twice is no guarantee for how long the bonus fruit will stay onscreen each time.

This usually goes unnoticed given that the majority of patterns are designed to eat the bonus fruit as quickly as possible after it has been triggered to appear. The symbols used for the last six rounds completed, plus the current round are also shown along the bottom edge of the screen (often called the fruit counter or level counter). See Table A.1 in the appendices for all bonus fruit and scoring values, per level.

Ghosts have three mutually-exclusive modes of behavior they can be in during play: chase, scatter, and frightened. Each mode has a different objective/goal to be carried out:

CHASE - A ghost's objective in chase mode is to find and capture Pac-Man by hunting him down through the maze. Each ghost exhibits unique behavior when chasing Pac-Man, giving them their different personalities: Blinky (red) is very aggressive and hard to shake once he gets behind you, Pinky (pink) tends to get in front of you and cut you off, Inky (light blue) is the least predictable of the bunch, and Clyde (orange) seems to do his own thing and stay out of the way.

SCATTER - In scatter mode, the ghosts give up the chase for a few seconds and head for their respective home corners. It is a welcome but brief rest-soon enough, they will revert to chase mode and be after Pac-Man again.

FRIGHTENED - Ghosts enter frightened mode whenever Pac-Man eats one of the four energizers located in the far corners of the maze. During the early levels, the ghosts will all turn dark blue (meaning they are vulnerable) and aimlessly wander the maze for a few seconds. They will flash moments before returning to their previous mode of behavior.

Reversal Of Fortune

In all three modes of behavior, the ghosts are prohibited from reversing their direction of travel. As such, they can only choose between continuing on their current course or turning off to one side or the other at the next intersection. Thus, once a ghost chooses which way to go at a maze intersection, it has no option but to continue forward on that path until the next intersection is reached.

Of course, if you've spent any time playing Pac-Man, you already know the ghosts will reverse direction at certain times. But how can this be if they are expressly prohibited from doing so on their own? The answer is: when changing modes, the system can override the ghosts' normal behavior, forcing them to go the opposite way. Whenever this happens, it is a visual indicator of their behavior changing from one mode to another.

Ghosts are forced to reverse direction by the system anytime the mode changes from: chase-to-scatter, chase-to-frightened, scatter-to-chase, and scatter-to-frightened. Ghosts do not reverse direction when changing back from frightened to chase or scatter modes.

When the system forces the ghosts to reverse course, they do not necessarily change direction simultaneously; some ghosts may continue forward for a fraction of a second before turning around.

The delay between when the system signals a reversal and when a ghost actually responds depends on how long it takes the ghost to enter the next game tile along its present course after the reversal signal is given (more on tiles in Chapter 3). Once the ghost enters a new tile, it will obey the reversal signal and turn around.

Scatter, Chase, Repeat...

Ghosts alternate between scatter and chase modes during gameplay at predetermined intervals. These mode changes are easy to spot as the ghosts simultaneously reverse direction when they occur. Scatter modes happen four times per level before the ghosts stay in chase mode indefinitely.

Good players will take full advantage of the scatter periods by using the brief moment when the ghosts are not chasing Pac-Man to clear dots from the more dangerous areas of the maze. The scatter/chase timer gets reset whenever a life is lost or a level is completed. At the start of a level or after losing a life, ghosts emerge from the ghost pen already in the first of the four scatter modes.

For the first four levels, the first two scatter periods last for seven seconds each. They change to five seconds each for level five and beyond. The third scatter mode is always set to five seconds. The fourth scatter period lasts for five seconds on level one, but then is only 1/60th of a second for the rest of play. When this occurs, it appears as a simple reversal of direction by the ghosts.

The first and second chase periods last for 20 seconds each. The third chase period is 20 seconds on level one but then balloons to 1,033 seconds for levels two through four, and 1,037 seconds for all levels beyond-lasting over 17 minutes! If the ghosts enter frightened mode, the scatter/chase timer is paused.

When time runs out, they return to the mode they were in before being frightened and the scatter/chase timer resumes. This information is summarized in the following table (all values are in seconds):

Mode

Level 1

Levels 2-4

Levels 5+

Scatter

7

7

5

Chase

20

20

20

Scatter

7

7

5

Chase

20

20

20

Scatter

5

5

5

Chase

20

1033

1037

Scatter

5

1/60

1/60

Chase

indefinite

indefinite

indefinite

Frightening Behavior

Anytime Pac-Man eats one of the four energizers on the level, the ghosts reverse direction and, on earlier levels, go into frightened mode. Frightened ghosts turn dark blue and wander about the maze for a few moments, flashing briefly as a warning before returning to normal. Ghosts use a pseudo-random number generator (PRNG) to pick a way to turn at each intersection when frightened.

The PRNG generates an pseudo-random memory address to read the last few bits from. These bits are translated into the direction a frightened ghost must first try. If a wall blocks the chosen direction, the ghost then attempts the remaining directions in this order: up, left, down, and right, until a passable direction is found. The PRNG gets reset with an identical seed value every new level and every new life, causing predictable results.

This is why the frightened ghosts' movements are repeatable in the context of a memorized pattern or sequence. As the levels progress, the time ghosts spend in frightened mode grows shorter until eventually they no longer turn blue at all (they still reverse direction). Refer to Table A.1 in the appendices for the frightened time in seconds and number of flashes, per level.

Speed

The game starts with Pac-Man at 80% of his maximum speed. By the fifth level, Pac-Man is moving at full speed and will continue to do so until the 21st level. At that point, he slows back down to 90% and holds this speed for the remainder of the game. Every time Pac-Man eats a regular dot, he stops moving for one frame (1/60th of a second), slowing his progress by roughly ten percent-just enough for a following ghost to overtake him.

Eating an energizer dot causes Pac-Man to stop moving for three frames. The normal speed maintained by the ghosts is a little slower than Pac-Man's until the 21st level when they start moving faster than he does. If a ghost enters a side tunnel, however, its speed is cut nearly in half.

When frightened, ghosts move at a much slower rate of speed than normal and, for levels one through four, Pac-Man also speeds up. The table below summarizes the speed data for both Pac-Man and the ghosts, per level. This information is also contained in Table A.1 in the appendices.

  PAC-MAN SPEED

GHOST SPEED

LEVEL

NORM

NORM DOTS

FRIGHT

FRIGHT DOTS

NORM

FRIGHT

TUNNEL

1

80%

71%

90%

79%

75%

50%

40%

2 - 4

90%

79%

95%

83%

85%

55%

45%

5 - 20

100%

87%

100%

87%

95%

60%

50%

21+

90%

79%

-

-

95%

-

50%

Cornering

Pac-Man is able to navigate the turns in the maze faster than his enemies. He does not have to wait until he reaches the middle of a turn to change direction as the ghosts do (see picture below). Instead, he may start turning several pixels before he reaches the center of a turn and for several pixels after passing it.

Turns taken one or more pixels before reaching the center are "pre-turns"; turns taken one or more pixels after are "post-turns". Players learn to consistently move the joystick in the direction Pac-Man should go well before arriving at the center of a turn, ensuring each pre-turn is started as many pixels away from center as possible.

This technique is known as cornering and is one of the first skills a new Pac-Man player should master. For every successful pre-turn maneuver, Pac-Man puts a little more distance between himself and any ghosts following close behind.

Such a small gain in distance may not seem terribly significant at first, but cornering through a quick series of turns will shake off even the most determined pursuer. It is a vital tool for survival in the higher levels of the game.

Whenever Pac-Man makes a pre-turn or post-turn, his orientation changes, and he starts to move one pixel in his new direction for every pixel traveled in his old direction, effectively doubling his speed as he moves at a 45 degree angle. Once he reaches the centerline of the new direction's path, he starts moving purely in that direction and his speed returns to normal.

The greatest distance advantage is thereby gained by making the earliest pre-turn possible. The illustration below shows the layout of pre-turn pixels (shown in green), center point pixels (shown in yellow), and post-turn pixels (shown in red) for each of the four possible directions a turn can be approached. Each example shows Pac-Man entering the same four-way intersection from a different direction.

When entering from the left, there are three pre-turn pixels before the center of the turn, and four post-turn pixels. Conversely, entering the same intersection from the right yields four pre-turn pixels and three post-turn ones. Entering from the top as opposed to the bottom exhibits the same property.

For any turn that is made later than the earliest possible pre-turn, Pac-Man will be one frame behind where he would be for every pixel of "lateness" in the turn. Basically, it pays to move the joystick well before reaching a turn to maximize your speed.

(click image for full size)

Turning at the earliest pre-turns possible is also required to successfully execute most any pattern. Patterns are meant to be played with perfect cornering because it removes the human element of uncertainty as to when Pac-Man will turn. Without cornering, it would be nigh-impossible to reproduce the exact timing of every turn as made by the pattern's author, thereby increasing the possibility of unpredictable ghost behavior due to Pac-Man not being in the exact same tile at the exact same time anymore.

Typically, the most popular patterns have been those that tend to "hold together" well when small input timing flaws occur (turning three pixels away from center instead of four when approaching a turn from the right is a timing flaw, for example). Other patterns-especially those that bring Pac-Man very close to the ghosts late in the sequence-tend to "fall apart" unless every turn is perfectly cornered.

During a long Pac-Man session, even the best players will make occasional timing mistakes during a fast series of turns and have to deal with the possible consequences. As such, one should aim for perfect cornering at all times but remain alert for unexpected ghost behavior from subtle input timing flaws creeping into the pattern.

Home Sweet Home

Commonly referred to as the ghost house or monster pen, this cordoned-off area in the center of the maze is the domain of the four ghosts and off-limits to Pac-Man.

Whenever a level is completed or a life is lost, the ghosts are returned to their starting positions in and around the ghost house before play continues-Blinky is always located just above and outside, while the other three are placed inside: Inky on the left, Pinky in the middle, and Clyde on the right.

The pink door on top is used by the ghosts to enter or exit the house. Once a ghost leaves, however, it cannot reenter unless it is first captured by Pac-Man-then the disembodied eyes can return home to be revived. Since Blinky is already on the outside after a level is completed or a life is lost, the only time he can get inside the ghost house is after Pac-Man captures him, and he immediately turns around to leave once revived.

That's about all there is to know about Blinky's behavior in terms of the ghost house, but determining when the other three ghosts leave home is an involved process based on several variables and conditions. The rest of this section will deal with them exclusively. Accordingly, any mention of "the ghosts" below refers to Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, but not Blinky.

The first control used to evaluate when the ghosts leave home is a personal counter each ghost retains for tracking the number of dots Pac-Man eats. Each ghost's "dot counter" is reset to zero when a level begins and can only be active when inside the ghost house, but only one ghost's counter can be active at any given time regardless of how many ghosts are inside.

The order of preference for choosing which ghost's counter to activate is: Pinky, then Inky, and then Clyde. For every dot Pac-Man eats, the preferred ghost in the house (if any) gets its dot counter increased by one. Each ghost also has a "dot limit" associated with his counter, per level.

If the preferred ghost reaches or exceeds his dot limit, it immediately exits the house and its dot counter is deactivated (but not reset). The most-preferred ghost still waiting inside the house (if any) activates its timer at this point and begins counting dots.

Pinky's dot limit is always set to zero, causing him to leave home immediately when every level begins. For the first level, Inky has a limit of 30 dots, and Clyde has a limit of 60. This results in Pinky exiting immediately which, in turn, activates Inky's dot counter. His counter must then reach or exceed 30 dots before he can leave the house.

Once Inky starts to leave, Clyde's counter (which is still at zero) is activated and starts counting dots. When his counter reaches or exceeds 60, he may exit. On the second level, Inky's dot limit is changed from 30 to zero, while Clyde's is changed from 60 to 50. Inky will exit the house as soon as the level begins from now on.

Starting at level three, all the ghosts have a dot limit of zero for the remainder of the game and will leave the ghost house immediately at the start of every level.

Whenever a life is lost, the system disables (but does not reset) the ghosts' individual dot counters and uses a global dot counter instead. This counter is enabled and reset to zero after a life is lost, counting the number of dots eaten from that point forward.

The three ghosts inside the house must wait for this special counter to tell them when to leave. Pinky is released when the counter value is equal to 7 and Inky is released when it equals 17. The only way to deactivate the counter is for Clyde to be inside the house when the counter equals 32; otherwise, it will keep counting dots even after the ghost house is empty.

If Clyde is present at the appropriate time, the global counter is reset to zero and deactivated, and the ghosts' personal dot limits are re-enabled and used as before for determining when to leave the house (including Clyde who is still in the house at this time).

If dot counters were the only control, Pac-Man could simply stop eating dots early on and keep the ghosts trapped inside the house forever. Consequently, a separate timer control was implemented to handle this case by tracking the amount of time elapsed since Pac-Man has last eaten a dot. This timer is always running but gets reset to zero each time a dot is eaten.

Anytime Pac-Man avoids eating dots long enough for the timer to reach its limit, the most-preferred ghost waiting in the ghost house (if any) is forced to leave immediately, and the timer is reset to zero. The same order of preference described above is used by this control as well. The game begins with an initial timer limit of four seconds, but lowers to it to three seconds starting with level five.

The more astute reader may have already noticed there is subtle flaw in this system resulting in a way to keep Pinky, Inky, and Clyde inside the ghost house for a very long time after eating them. The trick involves having to sacrifice a life in order to reset and enable the global dot counter, and then making sure Clyde exits the house before that counter is equal to 32.

This is accomplished by avoiding eating dots and waiting for the timer limit to force Clyde out. Once Clyde is moving for the exit, start eating dots again until at least 32 dots have been consumed since the life was lost. Now head for an energizer and gobble up some ghosts. Blinky will leave the house immediately as usual, but the other three ghosts will remain "stuck" inside as long as Pac-Man continues eating dots with sufficient frequency as not to trigger the control timer.

Why does this happen? The key lies in how the global dot counter works-it cannot be deactivated if Clyde is outside the house when the counter has a value of 32. By letting the timer force Clyde out before 32 dots are eaten, the global dot counter will keep counting dots instead of deactivating when it reaches 32. Now when the ghosts are eaten by Pac-Man and return home, they will still be using the global dot counter to determine when to leave.

As previously described, however, this counter's logic only checks for three values: 7, 17, and 32, and once those numbers are exceeded, the counter has no way to release the ghosts associated with them. The only control left to release the ghosts is the timer which can be easily avoided by eating a dot every so often to reset it. Click on the YouTube video below to see a demonstration of this curious behavior:

The last thing to mention about the ghost house is how to determine whether a ghost will move right or left after exiting the home. Ghosts typically move to the left once they get outside, but if the system changes modes one or more times when a ghost is inside, that ghost will move to the right instead of the left upon leaving the house.

Areas To Exploit

The illustration above highlights four special "zones" in the maze where ghost behavior is limited by certain conditions which can be exploited to the player's advantage. The two red zones represent the areas where ghosts are forbidden to make upward turns. Once a ghost enters either of these two zones, it may only travel from right-to-left or left-to-right until exiting the area.

Thus, only Pac-Man has access to these four, upward-facing tunnel entrances. It will serve the player well to remember the ghosts can still access these tunnels from the other end! The red zone restrictions are enforced during both scatter and chase modes, but in frightened mode the red zones are ignored temporarily, allowing the ghosts to turn upwards if they so choose.

The pink zones are in the two halves of the connecting side-tunnel. As mentioned previously, any ghost that enters the tunnel will suffer an immediate speed penalty until leaving the zone. This slow-down rule is always enforced and applies to ghosts only-Pac-Man is immune.

We need to take a look at how ghosts are able to move through the maze in pursuit of a goal. All pathfinding logic described in this chapter is shared by the four ghosts - it is important to understand what they have in common before we get into what makes them different.

Before we proceed, let's see how the game tracks the location of Pac-Man and the four ghosts (herein referred to as actors for brevity's sake). The visible game screen should be thought of as a regular grid of tiles, each eight pixels square.

The actual pixel dimensions of the screen are 224 x 288, so dividing each value by eight yields a grid that is 28 x 36 tiles in size.

Each tile is either in legal space or dead space. In the picture above, legal space is shown as the gray-colored tiles; all other tiles are considered dead space.

Actors only travel between the tiles in legal space. Each dot sits in the center of a tile, meaning they are exactly eight pixels (one tile) apart-this is useful for estimating distances during gameplay:

What Tile Am I In?

As the actors move through the maze, the game keeps track of the tile each one occupies. An actor is only associated with a single tile at a time, although its graphic will overlap into the surrounding tiles. The location of the actor's center point is what determines the tile it occupies at any given time. As the actors can move at pixel-level precision, they are often not centered directly on top of the tile they are in. Consider the following example:

(click image for full size)

The transparent red ghost is moving left-to-right across a row of tiles in legal space. In frame one, its occupied tile (shown in bright red) is near the left side of the picture. It does not matter that some of the ghost's graphic is not in the tile-what matters is that the ghost's center point is in the tile.

By frame two, it has moved far enough for its center point to be in the adjacent tile to the right and its occupied tile is updated accordingly. The ghost continues to be associated with the same tile until frame six where its center point has now crossed over into the next one.

The underlying concept of tiles is essential for understanding the ghosts' pathfinding logic as it only cares about the tile an actor occupies-not its per-pixel location within that tile. To the logic routines, the five actors look very much like the picture below.

Each actor is defined by the tile it presently occupies along with its current direction of travel. Distances between actors are also measured in tiles (the pink ghost is five tiles away from Pac-Man horizontally and one tile away vertically, for example).

Just Passing Through

It wasn't too long after the release of Pac-Man when word began to spread of players occasionally passing straight through a ghost unharmed, seemingly at random. This rumor turned out to be completely true as most die-hard Pac-Man players can attest.

If you play the game long enough, you will eventually see Pac-Man run into one of the ghosts and come out unscathed on the other side-it doesn't happen very often so enjoy it when it does! Some players have even gone so far as to incorporate this mysterious pass-through oddity into their patterns.

The root cause of this elusive peculiarity lies in the way the game detects collisions between Pac-Man and the four ghosts. Any time Pac-Man occupies the same tile as a ghost, he is considered to have collided with that ghost and a life is lost.

It is irrelevant whether the ghost moved into Pac-Man's tile or Pac-Man into the ghost's-the result is the same either way. This logic proves sufficient for handling collisions more than 99% of the time during gameplay, but does not account for one very special case:

The above picture illustrates the conditions necessary to produce this curious behavior. There are five consecutive frames showing Blinky and Pac-Man passing through each other. Below each frame is the same scene represented by the tiles they currently occupy and the per-pixel location of their center points. Pac-Man and Blinky are at just the right position and speed relative to one another to cause them to swap tiles with each other simultaneously.

In other words, Pac-Man's center point moves upwards into Blinky's tile in the same 1/60th of a second that Blinky's center point moves downwards into Pac-Man's tile, resulting in them moving past each other without colliding. Note that Pac-Man's origin point is centered on the top edge of his tile in frame four; this is still considered to be inside the bottom tile, but moving up one more pixel will push him over the edge into the next one.

Pac-Man and Blinky have now swapped tiles with each other in frame five, and Pac-Man can go on his merry way because he never "collided" (i.e., shared the same tile) with Blinky at all! Click on the YouTube video below to see an example of the pass-through bug (it happens 40 seconds after playback begins):

Target Tiles

Whenever a ghost is in chase or scatter mode, it is trying to reach a target tile somewhere on (or off) the screen. A target tile is merely a way to describe the tile a ghost would like to occupy at any given moment.

This tile can be fixed in place or change location frequently. Whenever the ghosts scatter to the corners of the maze, for example, each ghost is striving to reach a fixed target tile located somewhere near its home corner.

In chase mode, the target tile is usually (but not always) related to Pac-Man's current tile which changes often. Although it may not be obvious at first, the only difference between chase and scatter mode to a ghost is where its target tile is located. The same pathfinding logic applies in either case.

Looking Ahead

Ghosts are always thinking one step into the future as they move through the maze. Whenever a ghost enters a new tile, it looks ahead to the next tile along its current direction of travel and decides which way it will go when it gets there.

When it eventually reaches that tile, it will change its direction of travel to whatever it had decided on a tile beforehand. The process is then repeated, looking ahead into the next tile along its new direction of travel and making its next decision on which way to go.

When a ghost looks ahead into the upcoming tile, it must examine the possible exits from that tile to determine a way to proceed. In the picture below, the red ghost has just arrived at tile A and is moving right-to-left. It immediately looks ahead to tile B (the next tile along its direction of travel).

Each tile has four potential exits to be considered: right, left, up, and down. In the case of tile B, the up and down exits are blocked by walls and must be discarded as potential candidates. The right exit is also discounted because it would only take the ghost back to tile A again, and ghosts never voluntarily reverse direction. With three of the four possible exits eliminated from tile B, moving left is the only remaining choice.

This example is the most simple to explain as the ghost has but one way it can legally move. As such, we did not have to worry about where its target tile was located. The majority of game tiles in legal space are similar to this one, but things get more interesting when a ghost approaches a tile with more potential exits to choose from.

Intersections

When a ghost arrives one tile away from an upcoming intersection, it must choose between several possible directions in which to proceed. Consider the following example:

(click image for full size)

In the first picture, the red ghost has just reached tile A and is seeking its target (shown as the green tile). It immediately looks ahead to the subsequent tile along its present direction of travel (up). In this case, that tile is a four-way intersection. As this intersection tile has no walls blocking off any of the exits, the ghost can only discard his reverse direction (down), leaving three exits open for travel.

It looks one tile beyond the intersection in each of the three remaining directions, collecting "test tiles" (shown as the tiles with dashed, white lines). In the middle picture, the ghost triangulates the distance from each of these test tiles to its target tile.

Whichever direction's test tile has the shortest distance to the target becomes the direction the ghost will take upon reaching the intersection tile. In this case, the right test tile has the shortest distance to the target, and the ghost updates its chosen direction for the intersection tile accordingly.

Sometimes a ghost is presented with two or more test tiles that have the same distance to the target tile. In the example below, the red ghost must choose between moving down or left at the upcoming intersection tile. Unfortunately, both test tiles have the same distance to the target (bottom left).

To break the tie, the ghost prefers directions in this order: up, left, down, right. Up is the most preferred direction; right is the least. Therefore, the ghost chooses to go left at the intersection because left precedes down in the preference list. Although it may seem obvious to a person that going down was the better choice to reach the target, ghosts are not that smart. They cannot see more than a few tiles ahead and, as a consequence, cannot recognize the disparity between these two options.

Scatter Targets

As mentioned before, each ghost has a fixed target tile it is trying to reach in scatter mode. The picture below shows the actual tile used by each ghost. Notice each target tile is in dead space on either the top or bottom edge of the screen. As such, the ghosts will never be able to reach them.

Luckily, a ghost does not care if its goal is attainable or not-the A.I. routines are very short-sighted. All a ghost cares about is following the pathfinding logic described above to make the best choice it can on which way to turn at the next tile.

As a result, it will simply make circles in the area of the maze nearest its target tile until the target is set to some other location. That's all scatter mode really is. The only reason a ghost has a "favorite corner" of the maze at all is due to the location of a target tile it will never reach.

"First, you've got to learn how to control the monsters. See how the red, pink and blue are grouped together? It's easier to control two monsters than four."-Billy Mitchell, champion Pac-Man player

In the last chapter, we learned how a ghost follows a target tile through the maze. Now we will take a closer look at Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde to better understand why they behave so differently when in chase mode. They all share the same pathfinding logic for chasing a target tile, so how is it each one behaves differently when following Pac-Man?

The answer is delightfully simple: Pac-Man's tile is not always the target. Every ghost has a distinct method for calculating its target tile in chase mode, resulting in their unique personalities. Some of the ghosts use Pac-Man's actual tile as the target; others only use it as an intermediate step to find another tile.

Sometimes a ghost is targeting a tile that has absolutely nothing to do with Pac-Man at all! Regardless of where a ghost's target tile is at the time, Pac-Man will still be killed if he gets in that ghost's way.

Rumor has it Toru Iwatani and his team spent months doing nothing but tweaking and refining the ghost A.I. routines before releasing Pac-Man to the world. Their efforts show in the final product: Itawani's team created the illusion of complex pathfinding by using very simple logic and very little code.

Blinky: The red ghost's character is aptly described as that of a shadow and is best-known as "Blinky". In Japan, his character is represented by the word oikake, which means "to run down or pursue". Blinky seems to always be the first of the ghosts to track Pac-Man down in the maze. He is by far the most aggressive of the four and will doggedly pursue Pac-Man once behind him.

Of all the ghosts' targeting schemes for chase mode, Blinky's is the most simple and direct, using Pac-Man's current tile as his target. In the pictures above, we can see Blinky's target tile is the same as Pac-Man's currently occupied tile. Targeting Pac-Man directly in this way results in a very determined and tenacious ghost who is tough to shake when he's right behind you.

All ghosts move at the same rate of speed when a level begins, but Blinky will increase his rate of speed twice each round based on the number of dots remaining in the maze. While in this accelerated state, Blinky is commonly called "Cruise Elroy", yet no one seems to know where this custom was originated or what it means.

On the first level, for example, Blinky becomes Elroy when there are 20 dots remaining in the maze, accelerating to be at least as fast as Pac-Man. More importantly, his scatter mode behavior is also modified to target Pac-Man's tile in lieu of his typical fixed target tile for any remaining scatter periods in the level.

This causes Elroy to chase Pac-Man while the other three ghosts continue to scatter as normal. As if that weren't bad enough, when only 10 dots remain, Elroy speeds up again to the point where he is now perceptibly faster than Pac-Man.

If a life is lost any time after Blinky has become Elroy, he will revert back to his normal behavior and speed when play resumes, heading for his home corner during the initial scatter period. But once the last ghost (Clyde) has left the ghost house in the middle of the board, he will turn back into Elroy again.

Keep in mind: he is still in scatter mode the entire time. All that has changed is the target tile-he will still reverse direction when entering and exiting scatter mode as before. As the levels progress, Blinky will turn into Elroy with more dots remaining in the maze than in previous rounds. Refer to Table A.1 in the appendices for dot counts and speeds for both Elroy changes, per level.

Pinky: Nicknamed "Pinky", the pink ghost's character is described as one who is speedy. In Japan, he is characterized as machibuse, meaning "to perform an ambush", perhaps because Pinky always seems to be able to get ahead of you and cut you off when you least expect it.

He always moves at the same speed as Inky and Clyde, however, which suggests speedy is a poor translation of the more appropriate machibuse. Pinky and Blinky often seem to be working in concert to box Pac-Man in, leaving him with nowhere to run.

In chase mode, Pinky behaves as he does because he does not target Pac-Man's tile directly. Instead, he selects an offset four tiles away from Pac-Man in the direction Pac-Man is currently moving (with one exception). The pictures below illustrate the four possible offsets Pinky will use to determine his target tile based on Pac-Man's orientation:

If Pac-Man is moving left, Pinky's target tile will be four game tiles to the left of Pac-Man's current tile. If Pac-Man is moving right, Pinky's tile will be four tiles to the right. If Pac-Man is moving down, Pinky's target is four tiles below.

Finally, if Pac-Man is moving up, Pinky's target tile will be four tiles up and four tiles to the left. This interesting outcome is due to a subtle error in the logic code that calculates Pinky's offset from Pac-Man. This piece of code works properly for the other three cases but, when Pac-Man is moving upwards, triggers an overflow bug that mistakenly includes a left offset equal in distance to the expected up offset (we will see this same issue in Inky's logic later).

Don Hodges' website has an excellent article giving a thorough, code-level analysis of this bug, including the source code and a proposed fix-click here to go there now.

Pinky is the easiest ghost to exert control over thanks to his targeting scheme. By changing direction, you can dictate where Pinky will turn next when he is nearby (see above picture). If you are facing off closely with Pinky, he will turn before he reaches you if he can. This happens due to the fact Pac-Man has come close enough to Pinky for Pinky's target tile to now be behind him.

In the picture above, Pinky chooses to turn up at the intersection because moving left would have taken him further away from his target tile. The longest-lived example of this is the technique known as "head faking". This is where the player shakes the joystick to cause Pac-Man to rapidly change direction back and forth, hopefully causing a ghost to change course in the process.

As it turns out, the shaking is not necessary-one well-timed, quick reversal of direction towards Pinky just before he decides what to do at an upcoming intersection is all that is needed to get him off your tail.

Inky: The light-blue ghost is nicknamed "Inky" and his character is described as one who is bashful. In Japan, he is portrayed as kimagure, meaning "a fickle, moody, or uneven temper". Perhaps not surprisingly, Inky is the least predictable of the ghosts.

Sometimes he chases Pac-Man aggressively like Blinky; other times he jumps ahead of Pac-Man as Pinky would. He might even wander off like Clyde on occasion!

In fact, Inky may be the most dangerous ghost of all due to his erratic behavior. Bashful is not a very good translation of kimagure, and misleads the player to assume Inky will shy away from Pac-Man when he gets close which is not always the case.

Inky uses the most complex targeting scheme of the four ghosts in chase mode. He needs Pac-Man's current tile/orientation and Blinky's current tile to calculate his final target. To envision Inky's target, imagine an intermediate offset two tiles away from Pac-Man's tile in the direction Pac-Man is moving (shown as the dashed, green tile in the picture above), then draw a line from Blinky's tile to that offset. Now double the line length by extending the line out just as far again, and you will have Inky's target tile as shown above.

For the same reasons already discussed in Pinky's case, Inky's offset calculation from Pac-Man is two tiles up and two tiles left when Pac-Man is moving up (shown above). The other three orientations have the expected offset of two tiles in the direction Pac-Man is moving.

Inky's targeting logic will keep him away from Pac-Man when Blinky is far away from Pac-Man, but as Blinky draws closer, so will Inky's target tile. This explains why Inky's behavior seems more variable as Pac-Man moves away from Blinky. Like Pinky, Inky's course can often be altered by Pac-Man changing direction or "head-faking". How much or how little effect this will have on Inky's decisions is directly related to where Blinky is at the time.

Clyde: The orange ghost is nicknamed "Clyde" and is characterized as one who is pokey. In Japan, his character is described as otoboke, meaning "pretending ignorance", and his nickname is "Guzuta", meaning "one who lags behind".

In reality, Clyde moves at the same speed as Inky and Pinky so his character description is a bit misleading. Clyde is the last ghost to leave the pen and tends to separate himself from the other ghosts by shying away from Pac-Man and doing his own thing when he isn't patrolling his corner of the maze.

Although not nearly as dangerous as the other three ghosts, his behavior can seem unpredictable at times and should still be considered a threat.

In chase mode, Clyde's target differs based on his proximity to Pac-Man. When more than eight tiles away, he uses Pac-Man's tile as his target (shown as the yellow target above). If Clyde is closer than eight tiles away, he switches to his scatter mode target instead, and starts heading for his corner until he is far enough away to target Pac-Man again.

In the picture above, Clyde is stuck in an endless loop thanks to his targeting scheme. Outside of the dashed area, Clyde acts exactly as Blinky would, heading straight for Pac-Man, but upon entering the dashed area, Clyde will change his mind and head for his scatter target instead.

Leaving the eight tile perimeter surrounding Pac-Man causes his target to change back to Pac-Man's tile and results in Clyde circling the island indefinitely until Pac-Man moves elsewhere or a mode change occurs.

Clyde's targeting method results in him not being particularly dangerous unless you get in his way as he runs back to his corner or before he can reach an intersection to turn away. Extra care should be taken when Pac-Man is in Clyde's home corner as Clyde is less likely to get out of the way.

"This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but with a whimper." —T. S. Eliot

On The Edge Of Forever

Pac-Man was always meant to be a game with no ending. The developers at Namco mistakenly assumed the game's increasing difficulty was sufficient to prevent anyone from playing indefinitely. Of course, within a few years of Pac-Man's release, players had discovered that every level beyond the 21st was identical.

Patterns were quickly created to exploit this fact and, for any player able to get past the first 20 levels, the game now became a test of endurance to see how many points you could rack up before losing focus and making a mistake. High scores soared into the millions and most players agreed the game simply went on forever.

Eventually, a few highly-skilled players were able to complete 255 consecutive levels of play (scoring over three million points and taking several hours to accomplish) and found a surprise waiting for them on level 256. It was a surprise no one knew about-not even the developers at Namco.

The 256th level displays the left half of the maze correctly, but the right half is a jumbled mess of randomly colored letters, numbers, and symbols. Notice the bonus counter in the lower-right of the screen is also malfunctioning.

The left side of the maze plays normally, but the right side is a different story. Although both the player and the ghosts can navigate through the right half of the screen, the original maze walls no longer apply.

Instead, Pac-Man must be guided through a confusing series of open areas, tunnels, one-way intersections, lone walls, and pass-throughs-all invisible to the player-while four ghosts are in hot pursuit.

Why does this broken level happen in the first place? The culprit is the routine responsible for drawing the bonus symbols along the bottom edge of the screen. Here's what happens: when level 256 is reached, the internal level counter is incremented to 255 (the level counter starts at zero - not one) and the routine for drawing the bonus symbols is called.

The routine loads the current level counter value (255) into a CPU register and increments that register by one. Unfortunately, 255 is the largest number that can fit in a single byte which is the size of the Z-80 CPU registers, so when the value is incremented the overflow is discarded leaving a zero in the register instead of the expected value of 256. This zero value leads the routine to believe this is an early level since its value is less than seven.

The routine starts drawing bonus symbols using the confused register as a counter. At the end of every drawing loop, the register is decreased by one and then checked to see if it is zero (the signal for the routine to stop drawing symbols). Since the register already has a zero in it to start, the first decrement will roll the value back to 255. It will keep decrementing the register and drawing symbols until the register is reduced to zero again, causing the loop to run a total of 256 times.

This means that memory locations outside the bounds of the bonus symbol table are drawn to the screen at increasing locations in video memory. This half-broken level was named the "split screen" by players; developers refer to it as a "kill screen".

Playing The Level

There are 114 dots on the left half of the screen, nine dots on the right, and one bonus key, totaling 6,310 points. When all of the dots have been cleared, nothing happens. The game does not consider a level to be completed until 244 dots have been eaten, so there is nothing left to do but sacrifice Pac-Man to a hungry ghost.

Interestingly, every time a life is lost, the nine dots on the right half of the screen get reset and can be eaten again, resulting in an additional 90 points per extra man. In the best-case scenario (five extra men), 6,760 points is the maximum score possible, but only 168 dots can be harvested-not enough to change levels-so we are stuck. There are no more dots to gobble or energizers to eat.

There is no final victory waiting for Pac-Man, only an empty half-maze full of ghosts. The game has an ending after all-just not a very happy or exciting one.

Four of the nine dots on the right half of the screen are invisible, but can be heard when eaten. The picture on the left shows all nine dot locations. Dots 1, 5, 6, and 9 are invisible; the rest can be seen but some are a different color than normal.

Anyone reaching this level quickly realized: to safely map out the right side of the screen something had to be done about the ghosts. After much tinkering, it was discovered that a ghost would get "trapped" on the right edge of the screen if he got too close to it.

Once trapped, a ghost can only move up or down but never right or left again. By leading ghosts near the edge of the screen, a skilled player could eventually get the ghosts out of the way and concentrate on exploring the right half of the maze and collecting the dots.

There are many methods for trapping the ghosts. One of the easiest ways to trap the three important ghosts is shown in the picture to the right. The yellow line shows Pac-Man's path from the start of the level to a spot near the bottom-right.

The exact instructions are as follows: begin by going right until you reach a blue letter 'N', then go down. Keep going down until you reach a blue letter 'F', then go right. Keep going right until you reach a yellow 'B', then go down again. When executed properly, Pac-Man will hit an invisible wall almost immediately after the last turn is made. Now we wait.

The red ghost will get stuck first. The pink ghost follows a few seconds later. The blue ghost will continue to move freely for several moments until the next scatter mode occurs. At that point, it will try to reach some location near the right edge of the screen and get stuck with the pink and red ghost instead.

Now the orange ghost is the only one still on the loose (bottom-right). Clyde is no real threat, however, since he runs to his corner whenever Pac-Man gets close (see Chapter 4), making it relatively easy to clean up all the dots. Be sure to take care around the lower-left corner of the maze-the orange ghost will have nowhere left to run to and will be much more aggressive.

Click on the YouTube video below to watch this ghost-trapping method in action:

Believe It Or Not

Some versions of the Pac-Man ROMs have a "rack test" feature, allowing the cabinet owner to skip ahead to the next level of play whenever they want. To date, the only known way to legitimately get past level 256 is by using the rack test switch inside these machines.

The result is that the game loops back around to the first board, but with the score intact and the ghosts still behaving as though it were level 21 or above. Many of the Pac-Man ROMs available for use with the MAME emulator also have this rack test feature, making it relatively easy for those without an arcade version handy to quickly get to the split-screen and beyond.

For decades, Pac-Man enthusiasts worldwide have heard the whispers about a "secret trick" allowing a player to get past level 256 and continue playing without using the aforementioned rack test. Several players have boasted having acquired this holy grail of Pac-Man knowledge over the years, but no one has been able to make good on their claims by actually proving it.

This topic became so hotly debated in the upper echelons of the arcade gaming community that Billy Mitchell-who was convinced it was impossible-offered a $100,000 cash prize to the first player to prove they could legitimately get past level 256, leaving the challenge open for a full year. The prize money went unclaimed.

In spite of the evidence against there being a way to get past level 256, rumors still persist and can occasionally be found in classic gaming forums online, yet no one has been able to back up their words with indisputable proof. It's hard to imagine why anyone who could legitimately get past the level did not collect Mr. Mitchell's prize money to be sure.

Still the occasional whispers can be heard. Perhaps it is simply natural for people to want to believe in the possibility as opposed to not-like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Then again, maybe there is some middle-aged Pac-Man junkie out there who is withholding secrets to a 30 year-old amusement device for his or her own unfathomable reasons. Stranger things have happened. You be the judge.

Splitting Apart The Split Screen, Don Hodges

Pac-Man's Ghost Behavior Analyzed And Fixed, Don Hodges

Pac-Man Source Code With Comments, Chris Lomont

Pac-Man Emulation Guide, Chris Lomont

The Virtual Pac-Man Museum, Chuck and Vicki Gill

Pacman: The Phenomenon - Part 1, Marty Goldberg

The History of Pac-Man, Doug Trueman

Pac-Man Entry At Arcade History, Alexis Bousiges

Pac-Man ghost behavior revealed, Twin Galaxies forum topic

Pac-Man ghost AI question, AtariAge forum topic

Reawakening The Sleeping Giant: The Pac-Man CE Interview, Christian Nutt

(click image for full size)

Table A.2 - Difficulty Specifications

There is a small spot on the Pac-Man PCB where you can solder two pads together to set the game to "hard" difficulty. The only difference in hard difficulty is that five of the levels (1, 3, 6, 19, and 20) are eliminated from play. The system does not eliminate any of the bonus symbols, however, causing much confusion as to what level you're really playing.

Level two is the first board in hard difficulty for example, but the cherry symbol is used instead of the strawberry. It's still level two in terms of gameplay, but with cherry symbols in place of the usual strawberries. Also, the bonus point values are changed to match the current symbol being used. You can determine the difficulty setting of a machine by observing which ghost kills Pac-Man during the attract mode demo game.

In normal difficulty, Pac-Man gets captured by Inky in the lower-left area of the maze. If the difficulty jumper has been connected, however, he is captured by Clyde near the same location.

Normal

Normal Bonus

Hard

Hard Bonus

1

Cherries

-

-

2

Strawberry

2

Cherries

3

Peach 1

-

-

4

Peach 2

4

Strawberry

5

Apple 1

5

Peach 1

6

Apple 2

-

-

7

Grapes 1

7

Peach 2

8

Grapes 2

8

Apple 1

9

Galaxian 1

9

Apple 2

10

Galaxian 2

10

Grapes 1

11

Bell 1

11

Grapes 2

12

Bell 2

12

Galaxian 1

13

Key 1

13

Galaxian 2

14

Key 2

14

Bell 1

15

Key 3

15

Bell 2

16

Key 4

16

Key 1

17

Key 5

17

Key 2

18

Key 6

18

Key 3

19

Key 7

-

-

20

Key 8

-

-

21+

Key 9

21+

Key 4+

This section is meant to contain not only the easter egg below, but also tricks-interesting ways players have found to create unexpected behavior in Pac-Man. I have seen a few of these curious abuses of a Pac-Man machine before, but I don't know how to recreate them.

As such, I am asking for any help the readers of this guide can provide towards expanding this section. Please send any Pac-Man tricks you may know me for inclusion in the guide; full credit will be given for your altruism and ingenuity.

NAMCO Easter Egg

There is a secret message hidden in Pac-Man by the developers at Namco. To see it, put the machine into service mode and wait for the settings screen to appear. Now quickly toggle service mode off and on (an alignment grid will appear on the screen).

While holding down the player 1 and player 2 buttons, toggle service mode off and on again very quickly (if done properly, the grid will stay on the screen), and then push the joystick in the following directions: UP x 4, LEFT x 4, RIGHT x 4, DOWN x 4. The message "MADE BY NAMCO" will appear sideways on the screen, spelled out using energizers.

Specifications:

Platform - NAMCO 8-bit PCB

CPU - Z80A at 3.072 MHz

ROM - 16K in four, 4K chips

RAM - Almost 2K

Display - Raster

Orientation - Vertical

Resolution - 224x288

Colors - 16

Attributes - Eight 16x16 hardware sprites

Refresh rate - 60.61 Hz

Sound - Custom monophonic 3-voice waveform sound generator chip

Controls - One 4-way leaf joystick, 1P/2P buttons

Models - Upright, Mini, and Cocktail

Midway Operator's Reference Books:

apple: The bonus symbol for levels five and six. Worth 700 points.

bell: The bonus symbol for levels eleven and twelve. Worth 3,000 points.

Blinky: The red ghost. Also known as “Akabei” or “Macky” in Puck-Man.

bonus symbol: The often fruit-related symbol that appears twice per level below the ghost house and can be eaten for additional scoring. The point-value depends on the specific symbol and can range anywhere from 100 to 5,000 points each. Also known as fruit.

cherries: The bonus symbol for the first round of play. Worth 100 points.

Clyde: The orange ghost. Also known as “Guzuta” or “Mocky” in Puck-Man.

cornering: The technique of moving the joystick in the direction one wishes to go well before reaching the center of a turn, ensuring Pac-Man will take the turn as quickly as possible.

Cruise Elroy: When a certain number of dots are all that remain in a level, Blinky (red ghost) will change “gears”, speeding up as well as chasing Pac-Man even in scatter mode. He speeds up yet again when half the dots remain from the first change.

dots: The 244 objects in the maze Pac-Man must eat to move on to the next round. There are 240 small dots worth 10 points each, and 4 energizer dots worth 50 points each. Also known as pills.

energizer: One of four, large, flashing dots located near the corners of the maze worth 50 points each. When Pac-Man eats an energizer, the ghosts simultaneously reverse direction and, on earlier levels, turn dark blue. Pac-Man can then eat the blue ghosts for additional points, scoring more for each consecutive ghost eaten from one energizer: 200, 400, 800, and 1,600 points respectively. Also known as a power pills, fuel tanks, and vitamins.

flipping: “Flipping the machine” refers to when a player earns one million points. The game is unable to display a score larger than 999,999, so the score readout “flips” over to zero and keeps counting. Also known as rolling the machine.

fruit: See bonus symbol.

galaxian: The bonus symbol for levels nine and ten. Also known as a tulip or a thunderbird. Worth 2,000 points.

ghost house: The rectangular area in the middle of the maze where the ghosts start each new level and new life, returning to the house whenever they are captured by Pac-Man. Also known as the monster pen.

ghosts: Pac-Man's four enemies in the maze are typically referred to as ghosts or monsters.

grapes: The bonus symbol for levels seven and eight. Also known as a grenade. Worth 1,000 points.

grenade: See grapes.

head faking: Changing Pac-Man's direction back and forth in quick succession in an attempt to affect the turning logic of one or more ghosts in play. Blinky and Clyde do not use Pac-Man's current direction in their chase logic, so they are unaffected by head faking.

Inky: The blue ghost. Also known as “Aosuke” or “Mucky” in Puck-Man.

intersection: Anywhere pathways in the maze intersect, yielding more than one option on which way to proceed.

key: The bonus symbol for levels 13 and above. Worth 5,000 points.

monster pen: See ghost house.

monsters: See ghosts.

orange: See peach.

pattern: A memorized series of turns associated with a particular level or levels that, when repeated, clears the maze of dots without getting Pac-Man captured by any of the ghosts. Also known as a routine.

peach: The bonus symbol for levels three and four. Also known as an orange. Worth 500 points.

pills: See dots.

Pinky: The pink ghost. Also known as “Micky” in Puck-Man.

power pill: See energizer.

routine: See pattern.

side tunnel: The connecting tunnel between the right and left edges of the screen. Entering this tunnel will “wrap” the player around to the other side of the screen. The monsters always suffer a speed penalty while in the tunnel while Pac-Man does not. Also known as The Tube, The Time Warp, and The Scoot.

split screen: The 256th level of the game, where the right half of the screen is filled with garbage instead of the usual maze.

strawberry: The bonus symbol for level two. Worth 300 points.

thunderbird: See galaxian.

tulip: See galaxian.

Q: How do I get past the split screen?

A: The only known way to get past the split screen is via the “rack test” feature available on some Pac-Man ROMs (see Chapter 5).

Q: What is a “perfect score”?

A: A perfect score in Pac-Man is 3,333,360 points, which can only be attained by playing a perfect game. This requires catching all four ghosts at every energizer, gobbling down every bonus fruit, and never once losing a life for 256 consectutive levels of play.

All extra lives are needed once the split screen is reached to eat the nine dots hidden on the right side of the screen the maximum number of times—they respawn every time a life is lost. This was first achieved by Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida in 1999.

Q: Is it true that some of the ghost A.I. routines examine the joystick directly to make decisions?

A: This is false. The memory-mapped IN0 joystick port is completely removed from the pathfinding and logic routines in the code.

Q: What other games from the Pac-Man family will this ghost logic work with?

A: Pac-Man Plus and Ms. Pac-Man both use the same basic pathfinding/targeting logic as the original Pac-Man. Many popular bootleg ROMs like the Atlantic City Chip and Hanglyman also use this logic.

Q: Why are all of the bonus symbols food-related except for the galaxian, the bell, and the key?

A: The galaxian was added as a nod to the Namco space-shooter title, Galaxian, which was under development at the same time as Pac-Man. No one knows why Toru Iwatani chose a bell and a key for the final two bonus symbols.

It has been theorized the bell may actually be some sort of food like an Asian cashew or even a blancmange dessert, which would make it consistent with the food theme. The bell at least has the possibility of being something else—no one has any theories on the key being anything but ... well ... a key.

Q: Why are some members of the NAMCO development team listed by name but not others in Chapter 1?

A: I have not been able to find out these persons' names—I'm sure they are documented somewhere but I have yet to find that information. If you know of any reliable sources for the names of the full NAMCO development team, please let me know (jamey.pittman@yahoo.com).

[NOTE: The latest version of the Pac-Man Dossier is available at Jamey Pittman's website, and he can be contacted at jamey.pittman@yahoo.com with questions, comments, and updates. Gamasutra will be working with Jamey on new dossiers for other games to be published in the future.]

Return to the full version of this article Copyright © UBM Tech, All rights reserved