Pacman Research

its what it says isnt it

Transcript

2. Four Pillars - Pacman Ghosts Movement Pellets Levels The enemies in Pacman are four ghosts, Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde. They all try and chase you (as if they touch you, you die), but they all approach doing this in different ways: - Blinky will always head straight towards pacman. - Pinky moves in anticipation of pacman, pathfinding to four tiles ahead of his current position (unless pacman is looking upwards due to a glitch in the code) - Inky tries to corner pacman, by moving to a location ahead of pacman’s position depending on both it and blinky’s position - if blinky is near pacman, inky is not far away. - Clyde is just Clyde. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Throughout each level are pellets that pacman can eat. There are two types of pellets, small ones and large ones. The level ends when you eat all the pellets, but when you eat the big pellets, something interesting happens - the ghosts get scared and turn blue & run away from you. If you chase after them while they are blue, you can eat them, and they can’t attack you until going back to their base in the middle to heal. Eating the ghosts while they are scared is the key to getting a lot of points in the game, and the secret to getting a high score - as that was what people would spend hours doing in arcades. The movement in pacman is very simple but well-done. You move using a joystick controller that directly translates to pacman’s movement - up/down/left/right, you get the deal. The map is a maze-like structure, giving you lots of paths to move along, as well as gaps on the left and right of the screen that connect to each other. The maze-like structure works well, as it allows you to get trapped & trap the ghosts, and enhances the chase mechanics that the game is centred around. The level design, as mentioned above, is a maze pattern that allows you to get trapped occasionally but also to trap the enemies (namely Pinky), lets the player think about their next move. Once you beat a level, everything resets, but with a difference - the enemies move faster. For the first 17 levels, the enemies get progressively faster, but from level 18 onwards the enemies stay at the same speed - making the game much harder as it progresses, without having to code too many complex features. At level 256, the game begins to experience overflow errors and the game breaks, as shown here:
3. Core Loop - Pacman Eat Pellets Avoid Ghosts New Level