You should make it so user can hold down a key to change direction before they reach the intersection, joystick style.
As it is, it feels like you are checking for key press (not key down) in a narrow window when the ghost reaches the intersection. That is very hard to play. It is much more forgiving if I can press and hold the key whenever I want.
Not really. Presume that everything is time-reversed, and the game kills you if you do anything not possible when your playback is flipped around and played "forward." Then:
- Obviously, you "emit" dots and fruit and power pellets as you traverse the grid.
- Less obviously, once you populate a dot/fruit/power pellet onto a grid square, you can't visit that position again — as, if reversed, that'd look like you going over those things without collecting them.
- You'd randomly enter the powered-up state, and you'd then have to visit one of the unpopulated power-pellet grid positions in order to emit the power pellet to get out of that state — before the powered-up-state timer expires. (The power-up-state going on longer than that is invalid!)
- While in the powered-up state, you'd see pairs of ghost eyes unavoidably approaching you; they'd touch you, turn into ghosts, and then flee from you. That's fine. But once they become ghosts and move off of the grid-space you occupy, you can't touch them again.
Idea for a "challenge mode" on top of that, since this would probably be too hard for casual play:
A series of levels where you are given a score at the beginning. You must find the path around the map that brings your score exactly to zero, using reverse Pac-Man scoring rules (each dot you lay reduces your score by 10, etc). If you reach zero with more dots to lay, or finish laying down all dots without reaching zero, you die (as those would also be invalid states).
Recording input for these challenge runs would be a cool idea too, as you could have the option to watch the run "forwards" for further entertainment. To lessen the difficulty a little bit, the player could even have access to the "forward" version of a run that completes the desired score target (with appropriate bonuses for players who don't utilize the "hint" run).
Nintendo did something like this with "Pacman vs" for GameCube. The multiplayer gimmick was the players controlling the ghosts couldn't see the entire map and the player controlling Pacman could with a Game Boy Advanced linked to the Gamecube.
Awesome. It's mind-bending to control two players. The idea of using arrow keys to control one player and WASD to control another is genius. Maybe you can visualize which is which by coloring the explanatory text.
Fair warning: It's a game made for people who excel at ambidextrous tasks like patting one's head and rubbing one's tummy, or juggling Rubik's cubes that you are also solving.
Me and my friends used to play 3 player simultaneously in D-Zone. Obviously we had to be kind with each other about space around the keyboard and about key presses. Still one of the best gaming experiences I ever had.
One Little Ghost (2012) [1] [2] for the ZX81 is one version I only recently found out about. Figured it was worth mentioning here given how impressive it is for a game on the humble ZX81 machine that's well over 40 years old.
For anyone interested in this style of gameplay mechanic, the game Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons (steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/225080/Brothers__A_Tale_o...) uses a twin-stick approach to this, and builds puzzles around controlling two "people".
It's a quick play and the game is pretty good, I recommend experiencing it.
Reminds me of a demo I played 10 years ago called swap box turbo. Designed for two players, it is a simple platformer where you and your partner swap positions and momentum every 3 seconds.
You can play it single player too and have an experience similar to this.
The ghosts don't respond to a key until they encounter to an intersection, so that you cannot reverse direction instantly. Maybe there is a deliberate point to that, but it doesn't make it less annoying.
As it is, it feels like you are checking for key press (not key down) in a narrow window when the ghost reaches the intersection. That is very hard to play. It is much more forgiving if I can press and hold the key whenever I want.
http://48k.ca/bacman.html
[1] https://archive.org/details/Crazy_Chicky_1981_VTL
- Obviously, you "emit" dots and fruit and power pellets as you traverse the grid.
- Less obviously, once you populate a dot/fruit/power pellet onto a grid square, you can't visit that position again — as, if reversed, that'd look like you going over those things without collecting them.
- You'd randomly enter the powered-up state, and you'd then have to visit one of the unpopulated power-pellet grid positions in order to emit the power pellet to get out of that state — before the powered-up-state timer expires. (The power-up-state going on longer than that is invalid!)
- While in the powered-up state, you'd see pairs of ghost eyes unavoidably approaching you; they'd touch you, turn into ghosts, and then flee from you. That's fine. But once they become ghosts and move off of the grid-space you occupy, you can't touch them again.
A series of levels where you are given a score at the beginning. You must find the path around the map that brings your score exactly to zero, using reverse Pac-Man scoring rules (each dot you lay reduces your score by 10, etc). If you reach zero with more dots to lay, or finish laying down all dots without reaching zero, you die (as those would also be invalid states).
Recording input for these challenge runs would be a cool idea too, as you could have the option to watch the run "forwards" for further entertainment. To lessen the difficulty a little bit, the player could even have access to the "forward" version of a run that completes the desired score target (with appropriate bonuses for players who don't utilize the "hint" run).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E
https://specularrealms.itch.io/the-twins-of-caduceus
Fair warning: It's a game made for people who excel at ambidextrous tasks like patting one's head and rubbing one's tummy, or juggling Rubik's cubes that you are also solving.
In the 1980s it was pretty common to have 2-player games with both players on the same keyboard.
Edit: Spacewar (see https://archive.org/details/msdos_Spacewar_1985) is an example of a two-player-on-one-keyboard game, from 1985.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/69231/destruction-zone/
man that takes me back
[1] https://bobs-stuff.itch.io/one-little-ghost
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq2hOlC97SQ
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs.
(trailing dot escaped via %2E)
It's a quick play and the game is pretty good, I recommend experiencing it.
And the music was by Gustaf Grefberg, "Lizardking", my favorite oldskool demo musician by a mile.
You can play it single player too and have an experience similar to this.
https://www.freeindiegam.es/2012/12/swap-box-turbo-nifflas/
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Also, I noticed that he often circles around the upper left area a few times at the start even though there are no dots to collect.
Gemini wasn't clever enough to disallow ghosts changing directions mid-way, but it did do a smart thing with "pellets remaining" scoring.
Prompt: Create a game of Pacman with only 2 ghosts. Instead of the player controlling pacman, the player controls the ghosts.
Controls: Ghost 1 (Red): WASD or ZQSD Ghost 2 (Cyan): Arrow Keys