I think Pac-Mania was one of the earliest manias I gave myself over to. The others that may have been as all-consuming in scale for a younger bava would’ve been some collecting Smurfs and all-things Star Wars. Also, a bit later, in 1981, there would be an acute affliction of a Raiders of the Lost Ark mania. There are probably a few other object-orientated obsessions I’m neglecting from my childhood, but I think this does a nice job covering the major ones between the ages of 7 and 11 years old. 7-11?! All my pretty ones? Hellkite!
Anyway, I’ve been coming up with a plan to try and get better at all of my 1980s video game cabinets. This is a project that has to be taken in pieces, so the plan is to spend a full week (at least an hour a day) playing one of them intensely. Pac-man is my favorite for all kinds of deeply psychological boyhood reasons, so it’s natural to start there. My current high score on the turbo version of Pac-man is 420,000. I hit that a couple of years ago, and then stopped playing it consistently. I made the switch from slow Pac-man after I realized how painstakingly slow the original is. Games were taking me 30-45 minutes at least. With turbo Pac-man I’m down to 15-20 minutes a game, which is a real consideration given I never have as much time for games as I would like.*
Beyond playing the game for at least an hour a day, I also promised myself that I would do the extra research online to figure out how to get better. In the world of Pac-man this means learning the tried and true patterns that ensure you get as many points as possible without dying. I found all kinds of resources for the original, slower Pac-man. Here’s an example of play-through video from Biff’s Gaming Videos channel that demonstrates how to get a perfect score on level 19, or the eight key. This is not easy to do, and pretty fun to watch (at least for a Pac-man nerd like myself):
Anyway, I couldn’t really find any resources for turbo Pac-man patterns. I’ve started to figure out a few of my own patterns for turbo that work pretty well for me. That said, nothing that gets me perfect levels every time, so that pretty much makes them uninteresting to most Pac-man enthusiasts. Another part of me struggles with whether or not I should succumb to patterns at all, there’s some rough structure to my best games but I inevitably go off-script and that’s when it’s most dangerous, and as a result most fun. But fun aside, I’m pretty much plateauing between around 350,000 to 400,000 points for a while now, so I need something to push my game forward.
One of the things I really enjoy about the1982 Pac-Mania booklet is the various strategies it provides to up your game. In particular, they map out patterns in print—which are ridiculously difficult to follow along with. I remember 11 year-old me studying this book trying to figure out where that green arrow was leading me—I finally gave up
The other vague memory I have was how I was of the Mike Weiner figure who had this all figured out. He comes off not only as super smart but also quite zen—unlike the manic 11 year old me. Not only did he figure all this out, but once he got to the keys (the hardest patterns in the game) he would let his friends play for him because those screens bored him. Talk about feeling like a peon in the Pac-man world.
Parking lot behind Grand Venue and Merrick Road in Baldwin, LI
The other odd thought that comes to mind when I found re-discovered this booklet online again last week was how strongly it is tied to a very specific place from my childhood. There is a parking lot in Baldwin, Long Island that is behind the library, bowling alley, and pool hall—all of which hand back entrances.
The Bowling Alley and Library are still there, as is the Pool Hall, which is pretty crazy.
Billiards sign points to the back entrance to pool hall (Grand Ave). Behind the red van was once Howie’s Stationary (Merrick Road)These places were big parts of my childhood, and they were all on the same major street that ran through the town latitudinally, Grand Avenue. It’s an overflow parking lot that’s also connected to some other super important places from those years: Howie’s Stationary store and the single-house theater cinema on Merrick Road, another major thoroughfare that ran longitudinally through Baldwin.
This long, non-descript doctor’s office was the Movie theater of my boyhood. You’re looking at it’s side, the front was on Merrick Rd by telephone pole
The cross-roads of Merrick Road and Grand Avenue was the external, extra-institutional world for me from about 8 until 13 years old. As soon as I saw PacMania my mind went right to this parking lot, in particular the back entrance of the pool hall, one of the many places I played these video games. The visual is so strong it’s almost more than a memory, it’s like a vision into the past. I might be sounding weird here, but I can’t shake it.
Billiards sign points to the back entrance to pool hall (Grand Ave). Behind the red van was once Howie’s Stationary (Merrick Road)
Not sure what all this has to do with getting better at video games, but having these visions from my past is pretty intense. I think I need to play some Pac-man to get grounded—It’s I am time traveling or something.
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*Shit always comes up: accounting spreadsheets draw me in, tickets consume me, and the real life of an everyday Reclaimer takes over.
