18 replies to this topic

[kburkhart84]

I have made a simple pacman clone. It has 25 levels(though it goes back to the last five so it never ends). I wasn't trying too hard on the graphics, and it shows. But the gameplay is easy to pick up(it's pacman, duh).

Move your character with the arrow keys. Enjoy!

Here's the direct link...

Another thing, it plays full speed for me with IE9, but it is laggy on firefox 8.0(just updated a couple days ago). I'm going to have to believe that the update slowed down the HTML5 code because my other game on my website plays horribly slow now, when it was full speed in both firefox and IE9 before the update. Can anyone confirm this??

Edited by kburkhart84, 03 February 2012 - 06:32 PM.

[Desert Dog]

I get a 404 not found.

[Robert3DG+]

404'd as well.

Check your links.

[kburkhart84]

I just checked, they are working fine. I installed a forum that is not ready yet, and accidently had overwritten the main site, which I'm guessing messed that up, but they are working fine at the time of this post.

Sorry about that...

[kburkhart84]

This game now has a high score table. Who gets the highest??

[Smarty]

There is no ghost intelligence, is there? They seem to walk around randomly with no interest whatsoever in hunting down the player. I can almost hear them shout "please come here and accidentally walk in to me!"

It's one of the reasons why so many pac-man clones fail.

[kburkhart84]

There is no ghost intelligence, is there? They seem to walk around randomly with no interest whatsoever in hunting down the player. I can almost hear them shout "please come here and accidentally walk in to me!"

It's one of the reasons why so many pac-man clones fail.

True, there is no ghost intelligence. I will have that in future versions. Thanks for the look though.

My goals at this time are to get several games up, at the minimum playable, working, and "close enough" to the originals. Then, I'm going back through and making things better when I'm done. It seems a quick way to get content up, especially since I'm short on time. Though, I'm considering instead fully finishing each one. It takes that much longer, but then I don't have to go back and "redo" anything later.

That's also why I haven't made my site truly "public" yet, except here on the GMC and my personal "friends." I need to get the content, get it right, and get the website design(which is my worst thing since I'm learning that part) much better first. Then, when it is worth it, I'll publicize it. That's also why I don't have ads, or a donate button or anything to monetize it. It is simply a work in progress.

[Smarty]

My goals at this time are to get several games up, at the minimum playable, working, and "close enough" to the originals.

Are you sure you know what close enough means in this case? Yes, that's a long read, but look up Modus Operandi and Meet the Ghosts for an introduction on pac-man ghost AI.

I understand your need for content, but you may want to focus a bit more on quality content. I fear that the true arcade aficionados, who would certainly welcome a website dedicated to the classics, wouldn't come around a second time after having seen the first attempt.

[xot]

That's a great set of pages Smarty just linked. I used it to build the Pac-Man monster AIs in Game Maker myself. Absolute accuracy will be a significant challenge, but "close enough" isn't too hard.

[kburkhart84]

My goals at this time are to get several games up, at the minimum playable, working, and "close enough" to the originals.

Are you sure you know what close enough means in this case? Yes, that's a long read, but look up Modus Operandi and Meet the Ghosts for an introduction on pac-man ghost AI.

I understand your need for content, but you may want to focus a bit more on quality content. I fear that the true arcade aficionados, who would certainly welcome a website dedicated to the classics, wouldn't come around a second time after having seen the first attempt.

That's a great set of pages Smarty just linked. I used it to build the Pac-Man monster AIs in Game Maker myself. Absolute accuracy will be a significant challenge, but "close enough" isn't too hard.

You've got a point. I've seen that Pac-Man Dossier site myself, so I've go a pretty good idea of what exactly the AI originally did. Indeed, I'll go back and redux both games from scratch. Thanks for the "push" to get things right.

Make up a grid with the walls in it, then use the route finding to plot a path to the player. Then every couple of seconds redo it. That way you'll look like your homing in on the player, but not SO well as to make it impossible.

Is the mp_etc... set of functions working now in HTML5?? I'm probably better off doing it the way it was done "back then" but it IS something to look into, if it isn't too slow to work with in the Javascript runner.

[Smarty]

Is the mp_etc... set of functions working now in HTML5?? I'm probably better off doing it the way it was done "back then" but it IS something to look into, if it isn't too slow to work with in the Javascript runner.

The grid pathfinding routines in GameMaker would actually improve on the pathfinding routines of the original game, because the latter can sometimes choose the less than optimal path. However this isn't really a problem for this game because the pac-man maze has no dead ends, and the player has 3 other ghosts to worry about. The ghost will pick up chasing the player again at the next intersection, and the player will occasionally be very happy he went the wrong way.

Javascript is pretty fast and the pac-man maze isn't that large, so I imagine using grid path finding wouldn't cause a blip on the game's performance. But yes, all things considered the routines of the original would compute faster than the grid routines - if only because they're more simple.

That's a great set of pages Smarty just linked.

I know. And I'm pretty sure I got it from you.

Edited by Smarty, 13 December 2011 - 10:56 AM.

[paul23]

Actually, I'd be careful with using A* or other "planning" algorithms. It is very likely that all ghosts will "follow the same path" - So they will just chase the pacman. This leads to an even easier game than randomly moving ghosts..


Best you just combine several methods for each ghost - or actually use a "ghost controller" who knows about all ghosts and actually makes sure ghosts won't follow the same path.

[Smarty]

Actually, I'd be careful with using A* or other "planning" algorithms. It is very likely that all ghosts will "follow the same path" - So they will just chase the pacman. This leads to an even easier game than randomly moving ghosts..

est you just combine several methods for each ghost - or actually use a "ghost controller" who knows about all ghosts and actually makes sure ghosts won't follow the same path.

You can perfectly well use any kind of path finding routine and avoid that all instances are locked in the same path by simply setting different path targets for each of them.

Which is exactly what the original pac-man game does, which is something you would have found out if you had read the link I posted.

[kburkhart84]

Yes, either using the "original" or the GM path-finding functions, I would use the "targets" so that the ghosts to what they are supposed to, not just to follow pac-man around. I want the pacman "experts" to be able to be experts at this using the same skills that they learned.

[salaH]

Just tried the game. its pretty good, but as was mentioned before the ghosts were pretty random. Also the rules of pac man are pretty complicated

[kburkhart84]

Alright guys...

I just uploaded an update to this game. It still has the same levels, and the same ghosts. But the ghosts have four different behavior patterns, which are similar(but not exact) to the original pacman.

One follows you directly, one follows 4 spaces ahead of where pacman is facing, one stays completely random(which is actually annoying when you play because you can't control him at all) and the fourth either stays in his "corner" or follows you directly, depending on how many pills/pellets are left.

When they get scared, they "very slowly" go back to there corners, similar to classic Pac-Man rules.

Try it out. I await your comments...

[max_r_61270]

Dead link. PM me when it's back up please

[kburkhart84]

Dead link. PM me when it's back up please

Sorry about that. I'm taking a little different direction with my website. At least for a time, I'm making games downloadable instead, and though I have the asteroids clone, and a tetris clone(which I never had online), I haven't gotten yet to remaking the Pac-man clone. But it will be up at some point. Thanks for the interest though. I probably should have mentioned that it was no longer available. I'll report the topic and change the topic so people know.