Our newspaper reported on the live pac-man:

Yellow pellets, blue energizers, ghosts and the three-quarter dot we've all come to love. Wakka, wakka, wakka. Here comes Pac-Man.

If you were anywhere around the West Quad courtyard Saturday afternoon, you'd initially notice the song "Pac-Man Fever" by Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia on repeat. But then you'd ask yourself, "Why are people dressed as shiny ghosts chasing a guy wearing a Pac-Man helmet through a maze?"

Because it's fun!

Hosted by the university's chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, the Pac-Man Competition may have been the first that the school has ever seen of a live recreation of a classic arcade video game.

ACM chapter president Ben Fine said this event that he and the group have been advertising for about three weeks - by handing out fliers all around campus while wearing a crafty homemade Pac-Man head - was a chance for them to get the word out about their newly reformed club.

"You could hold talks, but this (holding a Pac-Man Competition) brings the people out," said the fourth-year computer science student.

Fine is also a photographer for The Daily Gamecock.

The competition started out as an idea by one of the ACM members to do a live-action video game - one that is universally recognized. Last semester, the chapter hosted a Halo 3 tournament (on Xbox 360) among other small events.

Other people have held live Pac-Man games, particularly a group of college students from New York University who have a site called pacmanhattan.com and plays on a larger scale around the blocks of Washington Square Park with slightly different rules.

The rules that the ACM has adopted to its interpretation of the video game are almost similar to the actual game. Pac-Man must collect all the pellets (yellow-taped plastic balls) he can without being caught by a ghost. Blue power-up pellets are worth 10 points and allow Pac-Man to tag the ghosts for a limited amount of time.

The game is a true test of one's "ghost avoidance skills." While some people came pre-registered and ready to test those skills, there were some passersby that joined in the fun, too.

Sarah Fuentes, 20, was walking by to do her laundry and finally just stopped to see what was going on, she said. She was persuaded to play and ended up racking up more than 100 points.

With the Pac-Man helmet on, "you cannot see. There's no peripheral vision," the second-year marketing student said. "But it's funny, and it's a brilliant idea."

Michael Tyson, 28, a graduate student studying higher education and student affairs, said he had a lot of fun playing even though he was tagged pretty early on by a ghost.

"I wish had a better strategy," Tyson said. "But it's definitely a creative idea."

Fine said the competition may become an annual event for ACM.

"It is fun, lots of fun," he said. "Where else are you going to be able to act out a video game?"

Interested in joining ACM? Anyone is welcome to the weekly meetings Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Swearingen Engineering Center room 2A17 or contact Ben Fine at fineb@mailbox.sc.edu.

Saturday March 29 at 1pm in Swearingen.

We have an invited talk coming up:

How to Prepare Yourself for a Job in the Games Industry

Things I Wish I Had Learned In College Because I Use Them Now

The talk will be on Thursday, January 31 at 11am in Swearingen Room 2A31.

Dan Amerson is the Technical Director for Emergent Game Technologies' Gamebryo Element, a cross-platform Game engine used in over 200 titles to date. Since joining the company in 2001, he has worked primarily on console rendering technologies for GameCube and Xbox 360 as well as multithreaded execution models. Prior to Emergent, Dan graduated from NC State University where he worked on the Mimesis project developing intelligent camera controller technology for virtual worlds and interactive narratives.

Microsoft XNA presentation (a toolkit for writing games) on Monday Nov 4 at 5:30pm.

From the Gamecock

ACM, Microsoft sponsor 'Halo 3' party, tournament

Association for Computing Machinery hopes to attract new members through speakers, demonstrations of gaming prowess

Sean Gruber

The Daily Gamecock

Andrew Bartlett, a second-year Nursing student, reloads his shotgun. The bodies of his opponents are scattered around him.

He starts to run down the corridors of the docking station he is fighting in. He's seeking other opponents. His one point lead over his closest competitor is fragile. And to stay still in Halo 3 is to die.

On October 1 at 5:30pm in the ACM room. Free food and prizes.

Hey,
Our next meeting is tomorrow at 5:00pm in 2A17. Please bring along a friend or two. Also please e-mail me with your hours for tutoring. Thanks.

Ben

If you missed our first meeting, it was a great success. We had over 20 people in attendance and much pizza was consumed. Several decisions were taken:

• Weekly meetings on Mondays at 5pm in 2A17, starting on the 10th.
• 145 tutoring to start next week. Email Ben Fine (fineb at the usual mailbox.sc.edu) if you want to help out.
• Game night: Time TBD.
• DefCon: ON
• Hit Duncan in the face with a pie: ON

Oh yeah, and whoever is the secretary should be doing these minutes instead of me. And you, the reader, should create an account on this site and email me so I can give you administrator privileges and you can start using your mad HTML skills to fix up this site.

We will be meeting this Friday Aug. 31 at 2pm in 2A17 to organize the tutoring sessions and other matters. There will be free pizza. We especially hope that new members will show up!

Here is the new website. It's running drupal.

This Fall the ACM has acquired a new room: SWGN 2A17! It is a large room located right next to all the classrooms. The Chapter will be using it for meetings and for doing tutorials for CSCE 145.

Also, if you are an ACM member and want to help make this site pretty just create an account here and then email Ben or me your username so we can upgrade your permissions.