Gamasutra has just released an incredible article about Pacman that covers, in detail, the history, best strategies and programming logic of this legendary game.

Pacman is the earliest game I'm aware of that uses any form of pathfinding, and according to the article the pathfinding algorithms are bare basic, but appear highly complicated because each of the Ghosts move subtly different. Infact I had always been under the assumption that the Ghosts had some randomness to their movement, but this isn't the case at all! (Pathfinding is interesting to me because I've usually needed to program one algorithm or another for my 3D games). It also goes over some bugs, such as how it is possible to walk right through a ghost without dying, and how to keep almost all of the ghosts locked up in the pen indefinitely.

I don't know if I'll ever get to play a genuine Pacman machine, but if I do this guide will have been a big help. It can be read here

I was fascinated by the Donkey Kong mechanics that were very *very* briefly covered in the King of Kong, and so I think it'd be really cool if they did a similar article for that one too.