This is a pacman game I wrote which took 3 days to write, about 15 hours all up.
It follows the original pacman game as close as I could and has two modes, original and enhanced, enhanced being just more prettier graphics.
As I didn't use any directX, people with slower computers might find the game runs a little slow, though I'm not sure about this. :)
If your computer is fairly slow and it misses frames then you could change the tmrkeyboard to 20 milliseconds and play it on turbo speed (x2 normal speed). :)
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Excellent work! I think the ghosts are supposed to go through the tunnels slower though. 5 globes for sure! (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
It's been a very long time since I've played pacman on the arcades so there will be things which I have forgotten. I didn't know about the ghosts slow down in the tunnels, so thanks you for that. Is there anything else I've forgotten guys? I know pacman is suppose to spin around and die, that was another thing I had overlooked until now. :)
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Some of the best coding I've seen on PSC, well commented, logically indented, easy to follow naming conventions. Just a couple of comments: 1) I changed all the Integer declares to Long where possible & got some speed improvement. For 32 bit machines, it's faster to move 32 bits from register to register than it is to move 16 or 8 bits, i. e. MOV EAX, EBX is faster than MOV AX, BX or MOV AL, BL. 2) I removed the END statements, all you need do is UnLoad & in the UnLoad event, Set frmPacMan = Nothing.
Five from me, keep up the good work.
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Thanks for that tip. I always thought 16 and 32 bit ran the same so never bothered with longs unless I needed to, but if that's the case, I'll use longs more often in future. :)
With the End statement, I know it's not really needed there, I just like to put it there as a safety net. Sort of old habits die hard... :D
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Wow! Excellent game. I thing though, you should put bonus points sprites in the game when you eat a ghost monster so people can see how much each one is worth, and also when you run over the fruit, otherwise good job and well done. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Sorry, forgot about putting the bonus points score in. :) If anyone else finds any other things which needs to be added, please point them out to me. :)
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Yep. I tried to make it as close as the original as possible (UnEnhanced mode). It's amazing how many old memories come back when you play it. :) I was around 8 years old when pacman was around and use to play it a lot in the shops, so playing this, I still sometimes get memories of playing it... :)
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that background makes no sense.... maybe you should come up with a better background pic... but other than that its a great game (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I had to choose a picture for the background which could be washed out so it didn't override the foreground graphics, so choosing something non-contrasting like a nature scene was fine. I know it's not pacman, but it's the only pic I could find on my harddrive which was suitable. It's easy to change the pic to whatever you like, simply load the bitmap into a paint prog and change it to something you would prefer. :)
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Hahaha, well there you go. :) Anyone who knows a little bit about coding, can change the picture, as well as make a new picture appear with each new level... I just didn't do that as the zip file would have been several meg in size then...
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Well 7th Time Lucky! Got It At Last, And I Thought That BroadBand Internet Was Not As Good As I Had Anticipated, Anyway, I WILL Be Back Later After I Have Had A Little Ponder @ It.
Respect,
Wacko (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
It's amazing how many more people have checked it out since it was one of the winners of the code of the month (around 600 new hits in 1 day) the file is around 600k if my memory serves me correctly, and if it took you 7 times to DL it, lucky I didn't include the 10 different backdrops which would have made it around 2.5-3 meg in size then. :)
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hi a loved the game. many ppl at my work now play it. Just some notes.
1. When the ghosts go blue, their suppose to randomly move, not AI move, on your game they run away from pacman, in the origenal one they go haywire.
2. when pacman goes around a corner and the ghost just just just touches it pacman dies. At the origenal one the ghost must at least be halfway in him.
3. The ghost must just just be faster than pacman, not the same speed
4. In the origenal game not all ghosts were equaly smart. Red was smartest. Orange dumbest.
5. When pacman start with "Ready!" and I press left, pacman first goes right a bit then goes left
6. when the free man comes, the origenal game make the sound "DING DING DING DING DING"
7. try to download the origenal. But dude, your program rocks!! I'm playing it at lunch times (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Okay, thanks for all that info, I'll rewrite the code a bit later on and add thoses things to it.
It's been a while since I've player the original (around 10-15 years!) so forgotten the finer points of it. It actually does go ding ding ding when you get an extra man, just that as I didn't spend much time on the sounds, when pacman eats a dot straight after getting an extra man, the dot sound cancels the extra man sound... :(
I'll upload a new version within a few days from now, depending on how much spare time I have. :)
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i think it's very good. though it runs very slow on my computer. i'm using pentium III 700mhz. i tried to make tmrkeyboard properties to 20 but it still runs slow. is there another way to make it faster. thanx.
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I would like to know where got the level picture from. I dont mean the background but the pic that has the level lines and dots for pacman to eat. If you made it did you use something to make it?? (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Not too sure what you are asking as the question is a little vague, so will guess that you are talking about the data held in memory?
I wrote a little program which scanned the original pacman picture and it drew up the table straight into the immediate window, then I simply cut and paste the whole thing into the game (It had already had the strdata(0)="WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" in it for me to grab.
It was a simple test of colours, if the colour was blue then it was a wall, if it was whitish-pink, then it was a dot or powerpill...
If you are talking about the picture itself, I used Paint Shop Pro and made several selections and just loaded them in and altered the pic to the correct brightnesses. I've nearly finished the updated copy of pacman which has 8 pics now. :) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
A very good game overall. It's harder than normal Pac Man because the ghosts are all very smart and move quickly around corners (in the originail Pac Man going around corners was an effective way to get ghosts off of you.) All in all a great game, 5 globes. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I think I better download a copy of the original and have a fiddle with it before uploading the new version of it, as it sounds there are a lot of things I may have missed about it... Thanks for all the info so far guys.
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Pacman was the greatest game ever and you did a great job of remaking it. I love it. Within a day I was addicted to it again. Anyways It's great. and 'Computer games don't affect kids. If pacman affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in the dark, munching on candy and listening to repetitive music.' Thank god I have Pacman again! (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Funny you should say that, cause I now run around in the dark munching on candy while listening to repetitive music. :( (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
i change the code according to your suggestion, first at normal speed it was still slow but in insane speed it is quite okay. thanks i think i can enjoy playing your game now. i hope there are still many more games created in vb so i can learn from it. thank you very much again. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
The timing loop in this version of Pacman is triggered every 10 milliseconds, so if the computer is slow, it will miss the timing so become 20, or 30, or 40 if the computer is like ancient!
I've heard the older computers also with the timers ain't very accurate with timings under 55 milliseconds, so this may be another problem to address...
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'Computer games don't affect kids. If pacman affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in the dark, munching on candy and listening to repetitive music.' I think youll find its 'munching on pills' not candy ;) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I read about programming games all over the Internet a few years back and stumbled upon many interesting sites. One site said something that may help newbies (not you :), though I have since lost the link:
The author of the site recommended starting with Tetris, for simple input handling, drawing, sound, and basic interface coding. Next was Breakout for more advanced physics. Then Pacman (looks like you skipped ahead ;) because it's simple and includes AI.
He said something about the AI that may be of use. He said (just like Jacques did) that the ghosts had different levels of inteligence, that was really quite advanced for the time. One ghost always went right for Pacman. Two of the other ghosts tried to surround Pacman so the first could get him and he wouldn't have an escape route. The last one just went around at random.
In case you were wondering, the last game on his list was Mario, beause then you could include a world bigger than the screen. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Interesting stuff. Though I would have thought pong then breakout then tetris as tetris has those different shaped objects which you has to use maths to calc the shape fitting into the blocks....
My next and should be final version of this pacman game, which I'm nearly finished as I don't have too much time to do it, has the new AI system for some ghosts, plus lots of other little adjustments from all the info people have sent to me via emails. ;)
So when it is done, I'll upload it. The only thing I need to do now is change the 2nd and 3rd ghost so that they calc the escape route, which won't be hard to do, just time consuming. :)
Don't think I'll write a mario game as I never did get into that one much.
Still haven't decided the next little game project yet... :)
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jacques > FYI, Pac-Man goes slower than the ghosts when its eating the dots and faster when its not. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
Very well done. Note on pacman s death... he's supposed to 'blip out'.. he basicly keeps opening his mouth untill he is completely extraverted, then goes 'pop' in a little burst of pixels. I actually have this from when I bought the MS Return of Arcade back in '95 as well a the original ROM that someone turned into a playable screensaver. In anycase, WTG! I am very impressed. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I'd echo some of the other guys comments that the ghosts move minutely faster than pacman in normal mode, though they lose a little bit of ground everytime pacman and they turn a corner. This was vital to staying alive and general game play.
Also the way AI worked as I recall is that the ghosts followed a fixed pattern for the first fifteen-twenty seconds, before gowing into aggressively pursue pac-man mode, so you had a window of opportunity to chew up a whole lot of dots before you had to really run.
Oh and I don't think Pacman made the munchy sound when he wasn't munching dots. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
That sound might be just the wav finishing off as it cuts out half way through the sound after each dot is eaten, so you will have the sound finish a little after he ate the last dot...
Thanks for all the info about pacman, as it's the little things that I have overlooked and will add to the next version of it.
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Sorry, my comments re: the munching sound. On my computer there's some synch problem between the munch sound and eating of the dot. The computer appears to queue the sound so that if you've eaten lots of dots, the sound keeps coming for some time after you've stopped eating. The more dots you've just eaten, the longer the munching sound persists. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I see. might be the sound not getting the time to be read from the harddrive straight away. :) I've fixed this in the update as all sounds are held in memory now.
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As for the game itself, ran without a hitch on my computer, excellent stuff - 5 Globes from me.
Now JFurner, that site you're thinking of that was talking about starting with Tetris and moving onto Breakout would be GameDev, a very, very good site and as soon as I saw this I was instantly reminded of that exact same tutorial on GameDev that you were talking about. For those that don't know what GameDev is, or haven't heard of it:
http://www.GameDev.net
And the Tutorial he was refferring to is at:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/makegames/ (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
And the exact paragraph of AI that everyone's touched on:
"You may not have been aware of this, but in the original Pac-Man the four different ghosts had different goals to trying to defeat you as a team. The aggressor would try to follow the shortest path to you, making you directly avoid him. The interceptor would try to go to a junction that was closest to where you would have to move to avoid the aggressor. A second interceptor would try to stay more towards the middle and try to cut you off from using the tunnel through the sides. The last ghost would sort of wander aimlessly about which often kept him staying in a section you needed to finish the map."
Mr Pookie might want to try adding that into his game, it'd sure make it more like the original. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
I think I know which web site you got that from too, as I have already read it word for word, but it's not in my bookmarks anymore so lost it again. It was one which explained lots of different games to write, and how to write them.... The updated version will have a more better AI like the original.
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Mr Pookie, Tee game looks great. The improvement might be if you add say 7 more speed levels so the user can select an appropriate level for his/her computer. I know the game runs on base of 2s. How do you change it to add more speed levels? Thanks! Keep up the good work. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
It's not that easy to make all those different types of speed levels as you said, it runs on a base of 2s. The game's engine would have to be rewritten to do this, which ain't hard, just a bit time consuming. (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
good job (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
2/17/2005 11:39:54 PM:
hi i think your program skills look great man i been trying to make pacman, pong and space invaders. I tried to download the code to view how you did it but I cant get to it. I was hoping if you can send me a copy of the code for vb pacman. p.s. When im done with mine ill load it to the website as well.
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2/27/2005 4:55:22 PM:
The game is awesome but how (in your code) make the ghosts go slower (but not twice as slow) if you could tell me this I would be greatfull (I give the game five globes) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
With Ghost(nLoop) .DelayTime = 1 - .DelayTime If .PPTimer > 0 And .DelayTime = 0 Then HitWall = True ' turn off ghost move for this turn End If
PPTimer is Powerpill timer, which counts down to zero. when non zero that ghost is in PP mode where they move twice as slow via the DelayTime variable, which each turn goes from 1 to 0 and back again.
Hitwall = true <-- this just tells the routine the ghost cannot move this go so don't move it.
(This code was written around 3 years ago, so took a bit of time for me to work out how I did it myself :P)
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4/17/2005 3:34:22 AM:
Dear “Pookie”,
This code dose not work for me With Ghost(nLoop) .DelayTime = 1 - .DelayTime If .PPTimer > 0 And .DelayTime = 0 Then HitWall = True ' turn off ghost move for this turn End If It doesn’t make the ghosts go slower for me. I think it might be because I am not putting it in the right place in the basGhostAI module
Also I just learned how to use bitblt but for some reason the blt goes slower when my mouse is on the form. If I use a do (doevents) loop it still does not work right because then the mouse goes all funky when it is not on the form plus I still have the same problem as before. I was hoping if you could help me out on this because you’re the best vbprogramer that I know:)
With Respect MadGame007
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If you are using a Do Loop, you need a doevents command in the loop somewhere so that all the other windows events can trigger, like moving the mouse etc...
I can't even remember why i chose to use vb timers instead of api calls for anymore. However, it's not hard to convert it over from one to the other...
As for why that code doesn't work, well if pptimer = 0 then the ghost is in normal mode, so it won't slow down, if you changed it to:
Ghost(nLoop) .DelayTime = 1 - .DelayTime if .DelayTime = 0 Then HitWall = True End If
... (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
that would make them permanently run at half speed, because HitWall = true means the ghost has hit a wall so cannot move that turn, the flipflop .DelayTime = 1 - .DelayTime means every 2nd loop, .delaytime will = 0, trigging the event.
You could change it to a loop of 10: EG .DelayTime = (1+ .DelayTime) mod 10 and every 10th loop, the ghost would miss a turn, making it 9/10th the speed of pacman now....
Hope this helps. :) (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
And on the subject of timers: http://www.visualbasicforum.com/showthread.php?t=22026 You can download an example of how to use a very accurate timer, this timer goes down to like millionths of a second in accuracy. This timer class is what i normally use in writing games, if i'm not using timers, that is.
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This is real good bud. The ghosts are a little bit harder than with the original but overall it's pretty close. You should consider doing away with the timers and relying on one main loop with a regulated base delay. Use the 'timegettime' API and Sleep to build the necessary speed throttle. You should have a go at cloning Lady Bug by Universal 1981. You'll breeze through it if you managed to do all this in just 10 days. Lady Bug is a cheap rip off from Pac Man but does have a few innovative & original concepts.
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Also, a worth while mention is that Pac Man is protected by IDSA. It is illegal to distribute Pac Man as either a ROM or other executable. Your versions pretty close to the original, you may want to consider including a disclaimer and warning people about distribution that goes out side the scope of the programming community. http://www.theesa.com/ (If this comment was disrespectful, please report it.)
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