pinata242

Ghost Chain Combos.

starman9000

I can't tell, does it ever go higher than 3200 per ghost (aka, is it worth it to keep the chains going an absurd amount of time?)

PixyJunket

I don't think it goes over 3200.. but it would be worth it either way, no?

pinata242

To elaborate, when you clear all the pellets on one side, a fruit appears on the other. Eating the fruit on one side resets the pellets/ghosts/maze on the other. It's a constant back-and-forth.

The game is designed to have optimum paths through each new pellet/ghost/maze configuration. It's up to you to find it and navigate it. As you do, you'll run next to the dormant ghosts who will wake up and join the "ghost train" (if it passes them when they're ! alerted). They chase you, you eat pellets and fruits.

Eventually the pellet/ghost/maze configuration will terminate with a power pellet. This is when you turn the tides and eat all those ghosts that have been chasing you. You can see the power bar drain at the top and if you want to keep it going, you have to keep eating power pellets either on the board directly, hidden in an idle ghost, or in a ghost in the ghost train.

It's deceptively simple.

pinata242

As long as you're still uncovering and eating the fruit to keep new power pellets coming.

The value of the "fruit" (since they aren't always actual fruit) increases to well over 3200 points. They're obviously more rare but crucial to keeping the power pellets spawning.

starman9000

It's worth it to a point, but it takes what 5-6 ghosts to get to 3200? I think it's worth clearing that trail occasionally when it gets insanely fast and busy on screen. I just noticed the color turned from blue to red once I really starting capturing a large trail, but it's just a blur so thought maybe there was an added incentive to hit like 100 ghosts at once.

I've been playing a lot of the ghost levels now, does anyone know if you actually get penalized on your ghost trail when you die or use a bomb? It looks like they all come back, but it's hard to tell.

pinata242

You just lose time and therefore efficiency. It's about ghosts/second

boredsilly

I don't think there is anything more satisfying in gaming than eating 12 some odd ghosts in a row.

Also, the little matrix slow time addition is a thing of genius.

starman9000

Sure, but I've been trying to be too precise, in reality I could just try to work up as many in my train as possible until the final opportune moment right? I'm guessing that would work out better than trying to chain together ton of pellet resets in a row.

pinata242

As I said before, you need to focus on board resets without losing idle ghosts in the process. Ideally you want a train, obviously. You don't always have time to create another.

The primary focus is

starman9000

Just let me enjoy my top ten score in Dungeon before more than 11 people play it.

Groucho

Dumb question (please don't flame): what is the purpose of the "resume" setting (off by default)...?

pinata242

It forwards your replays to prospective employers.

Liver&Onions

I beat your score by 200k, yet watching your replay it seemed that you went for ghosts more than I did...

pinata242

Not no more you haven't. #19 on the 10-min, ChampII leaderboard when I shut it off.

This is going to be fun. I just wish the leaderboards weren't so terribly disfunctional. A nice summary screen like Geometry Wars 2 or a visual indication like (gasp!) Game Room perfected with their red/green banners would have been the absolute shit.

How about a list of every map & mode I'm not #1 on and I can quick launch from there?

Michael Corvin

After giving this an hour or so tonight it doesn't feel like this will have the same replay value as the original. I kept scoring roughly the same amount (within 10k) every time. With the original you could have a range of 100k between a good run and a great run, which adds more variety and challenge to keep you coming back.

pinata242

Maybe that's true once you get to the top of your game, but I've been improving every single time. There's nothing more frustrating than when you're on a legit-as-balls run and you fuck it up and flail around for 5-10 seconds trying to reset the path and chain.

slop101

I've only had time to play two rounds, but holy shit, this game's fucking awesome! I had more satisfied videogaming fun in these 15 minutes than I've had in hours of even some of my favorite games. And yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll get full-achievements pretty soon - the only game I've done that on is the other Pac-Man CE.

Liver&Onions

nice - I was #50 on my first run on that one too. But alas, Modern Family called...and now it's Assassin's Creed time...but maybe a quick PMCEDX

porieux

I love this game.

MoviePage

Finished 100% of achievements last night and I'm a beginner when it comes to this new-fangled glowy neon crazy fast Pac-man, so they must be fairly easy.

The only two that I had any issue with was 1 million points on the 5-minute and 2 million on the 10-minute, but those came after a little practice.

Groucho

Answer my own question: if this is set to "Yes" the game takes you directly to the last board and mode you were on the next time you play, instead of taking you through all the top menus first.

In case anybody wonders, I was able to figure out the "vibration" setting all on my own as well. It's rare indeed that this is "off" by default!

PixyJunket

My Championship II score is above all you suckas but now I'm deadly curious how the "score" on the dashboard leaderboard is calculated.

starman9000

I was ranked 73rd overall when I went to bed, I assume that has dropped like a brick over night.

pinata242

It's the same as the overall combined score. I assume that's all your 5 and 10 minute runs summed up. Time Trials and Ghost Combos may factor in too.