[IN PROGRESS] Pac Man for Zune

[Gunston]

All

Very early days, just wanted to

demonstrate

something is happening. I know there's at least one other Pac Man dev on the boards but I want to create something *very, very* close to the original.

Cheers.

- Gunston

[cable729]

cool, can you post a download?

[Scrapz616]

I don't even think he's finished yet, so I don't think he will post a download.
Good luck and keep up the good work, I'm looking forward to playing.

[Marshillboy]

http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/dev...ss-pacman.html

WTG. This is an a near-exact clone of pacman as well, what's your point?

[cable729]

so this is the second pacman, is it actually done?

[soccerfreak24]

Woot another pacman. I guess i'll use whichever comes out first.

[cable729]

Originally Posted by soccerfreak24

Woot another pacman. I guess i'll use whichever comes out first.

agreed

[Gunston]

Originally Posted by Marshillboy

http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/dev...ss-pacman.html

WTG. This is an a near-exact clone of pacman as well, what's your point?

What does WTG mean?! Anyway, no problem if we're both building Pac Man - just that I'm aiming for a very near approximation to the original, including Ghost personalities, speed, sound fx, attract and preview screens etc.

Maybe you're doing the same thing, I haven't seen any footage or screen shots yet - care to share?

By the way, I'm happy to share all my code and assets if you're interested.

Good luck.

Cheers, Gunston.

[Sk8ierBoi]

Originally Posted by Gunston

What does WTG mean?! Anyway, no problem if we're both building Pac Man - just that I'm aiming for a very near approximation to the original, including Ghost personalities, speed, sound fx, attract and preview screens etc.

Maybe you're doing the same thing, I haven't seen any footage or screen shots yet - care to share?

By the way, I'm happy to share all my code and assets if you're interested.

Good luck.

Cheers, Gunston.

WTG = Way to go lol

But wow, love ITTTTT!!!! =D

[Marshillboy]

Originally Posted by Gunston

What does WTG mean?! Anyway, no problem if we're both building Pac Man - just that I'm aiming for a very near approximation to the original, including Ghost personalities, speed, sound fx, attract and preview screens etc.

Maybe you're doing the same thing, I haven't seen any footage or screen shots yet - care to share?

By the way, I'm happy to share all my code and assets if you're interested.

Good luck.

Cheers, Gunston.

Alright. I can deal with collaboration since umisguy is already helping me out a ton. Right now, Ghost personalities are merely random corner turning, with code to prevent continuously bumping into a wall. Speed is fine, but we haven't payed much attention to sound fx or menus yet. Currently, the big issue is making pacman turn a corner (bigger task than it might sound). I've collision mapped the whole level with rectangles, manually populated the point grid (yes, it took awhile), implemented simple ghost code, etc.

[cable729]

nice, so you're making progress

[ZGamer]

Wow! It looks so great!!!!

[poseidon_waves]

all right can't wait for this one.
good luck man

[Gunston]

@Marshillboy

What you're doing re collision rectangles for the maze sounds like a lot of work. If you're using the original Pac Man maze, it's just a grid of 28 columns and 31 rows. Each 'cell' in the grid is 8x8 pixels. This fits neatly on the Zune screen.

Here's my string layout:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
X000000000000XX000000000000X
X0XXXX0XXXXX0XX0XXXXX0XXXX0X
X*XXXX0XXXXX0XX0XXXXX0XXXX*X
X0XXXX0XXXXX0XX0XXXXX0XXXX0X
X00000000000000000000000000X
X0XXXX0XX0XXXXXXXX0XX0XXXX0X
X0XXXX0XX0XXXXXXXX0XX0XXXX0X
X000000XX0000XX0000XX000000X
XXXXXX0XXXXXVXXVXXXXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXXXXVXXVXXXXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVVVVVVVVVVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
------0VVVXXXXXXXXVVV0------
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVVVVVVVVVVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
XXXXXX0XXVXXXXXXXXVXX0XXXXXX
X000000000000XX000000000000X
X0XXXX0XXXXX0XX0XXXXX0XXXX0X
X0XXXX0XXXXX0XX0XXXXX0XXXX0X
X*00XX0000000VV0000000XX00*X
XXX0XX0XX0XXXXXXXX0XX0XX0XXX
XXX0XX0XX0XXXXXXXX0XX0XX0XXX
X000000XX0000XX0000XX000000X
X0XXXXXXXXXX0XX0XXXXXXXXXX0X
X0XXXXXXXXXX0XX0XXXXXXXXXX0X
X00000000000000000000000000X
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

'X' is a solid block. '-' is causes Ghost slowdown (as they go through tunnels). 'V' is a void cell (nothing going on). '0' is a pacdot. '*' is a power pellet.

I basically read this string layout (from an XML file) and generate a Maze object. I can then use 'if (maze[col, row + 1] is SolidBlock)' to determine whether a Ghost (or Pac Man) can move down).

Simplistic but effective. I used a similar scheme for my Manic Miner game (download at gameprojects.com). Many retro games can be represented in this block fashion.

FWIW, my Ghosts are just moving randomly at the moment with some subtleties around *preferring* to go left or right if they hit a wall when moving up or down (and vice versa).

Cheers.

- Gunston

[Lucifer]

Collaboration is preferable. I like the mapping, it goes along with my idea of making pacman run on a track (pacman begins the game moving a specified direction on a specified chunk of track, and +/- roughly 5 pixels in any direction as pacman approaches any track intersections, the game signals the button polling to see if left, right, up, or down is pressed.. and if so, and it's a usable direction change, do it when pacman hits the intersection coordinates.)

[Gunston]

@umisguy

Just to give you more of a flavour, here's my Ghost.Update() method (at end of this post). Code requires some tidying up and is posted as is.

The Ghost object has a Vector2-type Position attribute which is per pixel (Ghosts typically move at 2 pixels per frame [same as Pac Man]).

'Direction' defined as a bitwise enum:


enum Direction
{
None = 0,
Left = 1,
Right = 2,
Up = 4,
Down = 8
}


Here's the code to choose a random direction, given a set of available directions (specified in mask):


private Direction RandomDirection(Direction mask)
{
Direction direction = Direction.None;

while (direction == Direction.None)
{
Direction anyDirection = (Direction)(1 << (Ghost.random.Next(0, 4)));

if ((mask & anyDirection) != 0)
{
direction = anyDirection;
break;
}
}

return direction;
}




public override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
{
IFrame frame = this.Frame;

if (frame.HasRunTimeElapsed(this.LastUpdateTime, Ghost.UpdateInterval))
{
IBlockLayout layout = this.Maze.Layout;

// Is Ghost at a maze intersection?
if (layout.IsWholeCol(this.X) && layout.IsWholeRow(this.Y))
{
int col;
int row;

layout.Translate(this.Position, out col, out row);

Direction directions = Direction.None;

// Left?
if (col > 0)
{
if (!(this.Maze[col - 1, row] is SolidBlock))
{
directions |= Direction.Left;
}
}

// Right?
if (col < layout.Cols - 1)
{
if (!(this.Maze[col + 1, row] is SolidBlock))
{
directions |= Direction.Right;
}
}

// Up?
if (row > 0)
{
if (!(this.Maze[col, row - 1] is SolidBlock))
{
directions |= Direction.Up;
}
}

// Down?
if (row < layout.Rows - 1)
{
if (!(this.Maze[col, row + 1] is SolidBlock))
{
directions |= Direction.Down;
}
}

// CRITICAL: unless the maze is broken, we should have a place to go
ValidationHelper.ValidateAssertion(directions != Direction.None);

if (this.direction == Direction.None)
{
this.direction = this.RandomDirection(directions);
}
else if ((this.direction & (Direction.Up | Direction.Down)) != 0)
{
Direction mask = directions & (Direction.Left | Direction.Right);

if (mask != 0)
{
if (Ghost.random.Next(0, 4) != 0)
{
this.direction = this.RandomDirection(mask);
}
}
}
else if ((this.direction & (Direction.Left | Direction.Right)) != 0)
{
Direction mask = directions & (Direction.Up | Direction.Down);

if (mask != 0)
{
if (Ghost.random.Next(0, 4) != 0)
{
this.direction = this.RandomDirection(mask);
}
}
}

if ((this.direction & directions) == 0)
{
// NOTE: can't continue in current direction but logic above did not
// throw up a 'random' route so just pick a new direction
this.direction = this.RandomDirection(directions);
}
}

switch (this.direction)
{
case Direction.Left:
this.FrameIndex = (this.frameSet * this.Sheet.FrameCols) + this.frameOffset;
this.X -= 2;
break;

case Direction.Right:
this.FrameIndex = (this.frameSet * this.Sheet.FrameCols) + 1 + this.frameOffset;
this.X += 2;
break;

case Direction.Up:
this.FrameIndex = (this.frameSet * this.Sheet.FrameCols) + 2 + this.frameOffset;
this.Y -= 2;
break;

case Direction.Down:
this.FrameIndex = (this.frameSet * this.Sheet.FrameCols) + 3 + this.frameOffset;
this.Y += 2;
break;
}

// this.Screen.Layout.Focus = this.Position + this.Center;
this.LastUpdateTime = frame.RunTime;
}

if (frame.HasRunTimeElapsed(this.lastAnimationTime, Ghost.AnimationInterval))
{
if (this.frameOffset == 0)
{
this.frameOffset = 4;
}
else
{
this.frameOffset = 0;
}

this.lastAnimationTime = frame.RunTime;
}
}


Cheers.

- Gunston

[Anachostic]

Teamwork, FTW!

[poseidon_waves]

nice, can't wait for this one.

[Mini Jo]

You guys should team up and make one awesome Pac-Man game .

[dabeastofdamusic]

wow amazing. ive been waiting for so long for this.