Rebirth of America, this is my era

Chapter 91 I like to get fucked for free
What should Pac-Man do when it comes to AI?
Ethan didn't know.

But when Evelyn pulled him into the garage of their new home, which was also the girl's new base, the girl, who had spread out the design drawings on the production table, already had an idea, "Ethan, we can slowly make the levels, scores, models, and rewards, but we must consider these four intelligent ghosts first, because I feel that without them, the whole game will have no soul."

Ethan agrees.

As he nodded in agreement, Evelyn smiled and said, "Then let's start with the creation of the ghosts? The first question is, I want to know, in your inspiration, how many common patterns do these four ghosts have?"

"Because once the common pattern is determined, the code for this section can be directly copied."

Ethan felt that he understood, but not completely.

The so-called understanding means copying.

There's nothing he can do about it. Who made him do this because there were so many jokes about programmers copying code in his previous life?

As for not understanding...

"Oh Evelyn, I wonder what you mean by common pattern?"

Ethan asked decisively.

"Common patterns? This actually refers to the ghost's behavior. Are there any common features in your designs?"

Since Ethan didn't understand, Evelyn patiently explained, "For example, four ghosts chasing the player, this is actually a common mode, but in our case, the term common mode is not applicable because you have set different characteristics for the four ghosts."

"You set the characteristic of the red ghost to chase directly. So when writing the code, its characteristic is to calculate the shortest distance between itself and the player in real time, and then keep moving along this path."

"You set the pink ghost to ambush the player. So when writing the code, it calculates the player's position in real time, and then determines a number of pixels forward according to the player's direction. Then, it turns this empty target that the player may move towards into the ghost's destination, and lets the pink ghost go to this location. At the same time, every time the player changes, the pink ghost's forward position will also change."

"And the feature you set for the blue ghost is to cooperate with the red ghost to encircle it. In this case, you must confirm the point where the player is as the center point, connecting the red ghost on one end and the blue ghost on the other. In this process, the red ghost's path must be calculated first. If it moves horizontally, it is the X axis, and if it moves vertically, it is the Y axis. In this case, the blue ghost's path must be symmetrical with it to create a right-angle intersection. When the right-angle intersection appears, the encirclement effect you want can be realized, and the blue ghost can chase the player in the game by double-teaming."

"For the last orange ghost, you designed it to be stationed. So when writing the code, its characteristic is to station near the birthplace and set a detection radius around it. When the player enters the radius, the orange ghost will calculate the shortest distance and start chasing. When the player leaves its detection radius, the orange ghost will stop chasing until the player appears again."

"Because their pursuit patterns are different, we cannot call the ghosts' pursuit a common pattern. On the contrary, as long as the ghosts' action patterns are exactly the same, then these codes are..."

Evelyn stretched out her voice.

Ethan nodded in understanding and added, "Common."

"Bingo!" Evelyn smiled and snapped her fingers. "So... in your opinion, what are the common patterns?"

Evelyn had already made her words so clear, so it would be much easier for Ethan to describe them.

Although he had only played the game "Pac-Man" in his previous life and had not attempted to make one, it was still very easy to judge the common patterns of the four ghosts, such as escaping and being caught.

1. The so-called escape is that after the character played by the player eats the glowing beans at the four corners of the map, a layer of DeBuff is applied to the ghost.

When the player eats the glowing beans and becomes invincible, the four ghosts will enter a state of fear and avoidance, because at this time, the character played by the player can kill them. In this way, changing color and running away becomes a common mode for the four ghosts.

Second, being caught, this refers to the ghost’s death state after the player is in an invincible state and eats the ghost.

Because in Pac-Man, the ghost can be resurrected after death, but it must return to its nest in the middle to rest.

Therefore, this process is also the common pattern of the four ghosts.

To be honest! Although Ethan had written a lot of content before, this kind of segmented analysis was not on the draft paper.

Therefore, when he recalled the common pattern of the four ghosts under Evelyn's questioning, Evelyn quickly recorded it there.

At the same time, Evelin kept talking, "If we look at it separately, the escape mode is the behavior of the four ghosts detecting the disappearance of any of the four light spots on the map, and then running in the opposite direction..."

"Being caught means that the four ghosts overlap with the player character at the same coordinates on the map during their escape. This needs to be distinguished from the ghosts capturing the player, because the detection of coordinate determination is the same and cannot be wrong, so... add a time detection? For example, for a period of time after the light point on the map disappears, if the ghosts overlap with the player, it means they are caught?"

Looking at his sister writing furiously, Ethan felt a little emotional.

Because when he decided to make the game "Pac-Man", he never expected that the game would be so difficult.

Write the judgment separately?
This is too much workload!
But at the same time, a hint of curiosity actually arose in his heart.

"Evelyn." He called the girl's name.

"Yeah?" the girl answered subconsciously.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"explain."

"I want to know why you chose the time detection method in the judgment of being caught?"

Ethan asked doubtfully, "In my setting, when the player eats the glowing spot, the ghost will have a negative state, and at the same time, they will change their appearance. So, can't we set the detection to the change of appearance? When the player encounters a ghost with a changed appearance, the ghost will die. Isn't this logic wrong?"

"Of course." Evelyn understood what Ethan wanted to say.

But at the same time, she also explained: "But if it is set up like this, there will be a problem with the game detection. Suppose when the player collides with a ghost with a negative state, the ghost's negative state just disappears, then how should the game judge at this time?"

"The ghost will determine that it has no negative status, while the overlapping codes that collide at the same time will determine that the ghost has a status."

"Because the two codes are calculated simultaneously."

"So in this case, did the player eat the ghost, or did the ghost kill the player?"

“The machine can’t figure it out.”

“This kind of rough judgment without distinguishing priorities may cause judgment problems in the game, so I think the best anchor point for detection is the time with the highest priority. With this setting, the code only needs to judge one variable and it is not easy to make mistakes.”

So that’s it?
Ethan understood.

"Will we have to write less code in this case?" "Of course." Evelyn nodded. "After all, our memory is limited. If we can use 4K, we definitely can't use 8K."

"A little more would mean an increase in cost of more than thirty dollars."

Wow! Is this including the cost?
Ethan was shocked.

But Evelin's confidence made him feel more at ease.

After communicating with each other, they analyzed the AI ​​of the four ghosts that night.

The next day, Evelyn began to stay at home and try to write code.

To be honest, if it were any other game company, when faced with a game like Pac-Man that requires coding, the production progress would not be fast, because the penetration rate of personal computers on the market is quite low.

Even if commercial companies wanted to jump from circuit board arcade machines to CPU arcade machines, they had to first purchase personal computers and then recruit engineers who knew programming to make games.

During this process, they may also face various problems such as the poor quality of joystick computers like Altair and CPU adaptation.

As for Ethan and the others...

There is absolutely no such concern.

Because the personal computer Evelyn used was the Apple 1 that Steve Wozniak hand-made and gave to Ethan.

Not only that, MOS 6502 is their own product.

When the most important inventor of the CPU for making games and the inventor of the personal computer that provided production tools could be easily found, Ethan really couldn't think of anyone in the world who could stop him from making Pac-Man?
Especially when he called Chuck Peteau and asked about the assembly language of MOS 6502, and the other party sent him the 151 opcodes and 56 instructions by fax in less than an hour...

Even though Evelyn had never been exposed to MOS 6502, she was able to quickly get started with the instruction set.

When Ethan called Steve Wozniak and asked him to install a disk interface for the Apple 1, the other party had already prepared all the external devices for Ethan in less than three hours...

Evelyn doesn't have to worry about the data being lost.

Of course, Ethan's call also made others curious.

Chuck Petrus asked him on the phone if he had any new ideas.

Ethan smiled and said yes, and said he would send him a copy after it was finished.

Steve Wozniak was more rambunctious and wanted to see Ethan's inspiration.

Although this did not comply with the rules for protecting trade secrets, Ethan agreed.

After Steve Wozniak finished reading it, the little fat guy was immediately very excited——

"Oh! Sxxt! Is this your inspiration?"

"Oh! My! God! This design of yours makes me want to play with it!"

"How about taking me on a game production?"

"I don't want money! I just want to get it made!"

"You can ask me to take charge of any project! Whether it's writing the paths for the four ghosts, designing the basic panel, or creating the map levels, I can complete these projects!"

"real!"

“I’m really good at coding!”

Ethan was overjoyed at the proposal, and Evelyn was also happy to have someone to share the work with her.

So, on the first day of game production, the Pac-Man team grew from two people to three.

Also, on this day, the fat boy Steve Wozniak discovered a problem as soon as he started.

“Ethan, Evelyn, did you miss something?”

"Because in your design, the four ghosts, like the players, all start from the small house in the middle of the map. However, among the four ghosts, only the red, pink, and blue will chase the players, while the orange one will monitor the player within a certain range."

"So, when the game starts and the player runs out of the middle, three ghosts will chase after the gate opens, and the fourth orange one will only wait in the middle. In this way, isn't it very easy for the player to avoid it?"

"My suggestion is that, if possible, it will come out of the haunted house and then keep moving forward along the wall of the maze at a fixed time. For example, when the difficulty is low, it will be 30 seconds? Move forward for 10 seconds and then rest for 30 seconds? When the difficulty is high, it will be changed to 20 seconds? 10 seconds?"

“We can make it an aimlessly wandering creature. When the player enters its range, it will hunt him down fiercely. Isn’t this more vivid?”

This suggestion left Ethan stunned.

Although he didn't know whether the little orange ghost in the previous life of "Pac-Man" was designed like this, it didn't matter, right?
Because Steve Wozniak's proposal sounds very interesting!

"very good!"

“It feels very oppressive!”

"I'll leave this matter to you!"

Ethan patted Steve Wozniak on the shoulder and entrusted the fat boy with an important task.

It’s all free anyway!

The technical tycoon is willing to do more, so how could he be polite to the other party?

It doesn't exist, okay!

(End of this chapter)