The Pac-Man screen shown is NOT the kill screen, it is possible to find all the pellets in that glitched up mess through sheer luck and move on. The level that comes after it, however, is a black screen with no walls or pellets, only the ghosts. That one is impossible.
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Err, no. That IS the kill screen. There aren't enough pellets to cause the "next level" flag to turn on.
"The odds of this [killer sequence] happening - even assuming that the game's random number generator is fair, and that the programmers have not spotted the problem - were astronomically high, but finite."
- I strongly suspect that whoever wrote this actually meant "The odds were ... astronomically low, but non-zero" (and, if I were to play indefinitely, the sequence will eventually appear). Probability of anything is always finite - it can't be greater than 100%. [Or in other words, he meant: the odds are 1 in X, where X is a huge (but finite) number.]
- Majutsukai: In a theoretical "infinite game", which this example is referring to, the odds are very high.
- Mike Rosft: In an infinite sequence the probability of anything that has a non-zero base probability (as long as it's independent on other events) is 100%, so the statement is meaningless.
- Majutsukai: In a theoretical "infinite game", which this example is referring to, the odds are very high.
Meaningless how? It means that, if you keep going long enough, you'll get hit with the kill sequence. That's what qualifies it for the trope. It's not a Kill Screen without that property.
I bet the first person to get to level 256 in Pac-Man just about had a heart attack when they saw the screen.