4 ms·
Show HN: Reverse Pac-Man
Keep one eye on the first ghost and the other on the second
- brudgers 1y agoI can't see the whole screen on my laptop, and the screen doesn't scroll.
- Eagle64 1y agoThanks for the feedback. It is fixed
- pmontra 1y agoIt's one of those things that "why did nobody think about it yet?!"
- toast0 1y agoPac-Man Vs. [1] was a commercial game on this wavelength. I don't think I ever played that one. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs.
- jaimebuelta 1y agoI was going to say the same thing. Pac-Man Vs was incredibly fun and a great party game.
- thih9 1y agoFixed link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E (trailing dot escaped via %2E)
- roskelld 1y agoOne 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. [1] https://bobs-stuff.itch.io/one-little-ghost https://bobs-stuff.itch.io/one-little-ghost [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq2hOlC97SQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq2hOlC97SQ
- iorekz 1y agogenius
- Eagle64 1y agoHaha. I’ll take the compliment.
- roskelld 1y agoAre you planning on adding the power pills to give Pac Man a fighting chance? 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.
- Eagle64 1y agoGood idea ! That will add a new cool dynamic. The behavior of the Pac-Man is to avoid the ghost with some random pattern added. This might happen.
- xnx 1y agoVery cool. Gemini is such a fun tool to do a one-shot MVP of a game like this: https://g.co/gemini/share/7639ee864df7 https://g.co/gemini/share/7639ee864df7 Gemini wasn't clever enough to disallow ghosts changing directions mid-way, but it did do a smart thing with "pellets remaining" scoring.
- Eagle64 1y agoReally ? Even if you specify that ghosts can turn only at intersections?
- xnx 1y agoI'm sure it could. I was very unspecified with my prompt (below). No doubt it could add sound, etc. as well. 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
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- amadeuspagel 1y agoAwesome. 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.
- eesmith 1y agoI used to solo play 2-player Gauntlet for the PC this way, back around 1990. 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 https://archive.org/details/msdos_Spacewar_1985) is an example of a two-player-on-one-keyboard game, from 1985.
- redbluething 1y agoYellow Wizard Needs Food Badly!
- chrisweekly 1y agoWarrior is about to die! man that takes me back
- CloudNetPro 1y agoMe 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. https://www.mobygames.com/game/69231/destruction-zone/ https://www.mobygames.com/game/69231/destruction-zone/
- vunderba 1y agoI built a dual snake game where you simultaneously control two snakes a while back, perhaps I should do a Show HN about it at some point. https://specularrealms.itch.io/the-twins-of-caduceus 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.
- KennedyHere 1y agoFun game! From the title, I was expecting to guide Pac-Man to put all the dots back in place.
- Eagle64 1y agoHaha. I haven’t thought of this. That would be a cool other mode
- GlassOwAter 1y agoPoo-Man or Puke-Man
- xnx 1y agoCrap-Man?
- vunderba 1y agoWhile that would be amusing, mechanically it would be identical to the original game.
- derefr 1y agoNot 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.
- mtVessel 1y agoOn FF (similar on Edge): Secure Connection Failed An error occurred during a connection to reverse-pacman.staticrun.app. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR
- Eagle64 1y agoThanks for letting me know. There is a problem with the host. I moved it to itch.io https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man
- kmoser 1y agoOn Firefox it freezes on the keyboard instructions screen for me. Console shows it requires WebGL. Maybe put a message on screen indicating that?
- xnx 1y agoWould be fun to have dual stick controller support: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Gamepad_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Gamepad_API
- tantalor 1y agoYou 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.
- bentcorner 1y agoFor 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_of_Two_Sons/ 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.
- bitwize 1y agoThat game was an emotional journey, man. Very short as these games go, but it hit hard. And the music was by Gustaf Grefberg, "Lizardking", my favorite oldskool demo musician by a mile.
- progforlyfe 1y agoIt's not loading at all for me. Hug of death?
- Eagle64 1y agoEven with this link ? https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man
- narcindin 1y agoReminds 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. https://www.freeindiegam.es/2012/12/swap-box-turbo-nifflas/ https://www.freeindiegam.es/2012/12/swap-box-turbo-nifflas/
- kazinator 1y agoThe 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.
- adamiscool8 1y agoI like the concept but shouldn't the score be counting down? Or am I trying to shepherd Pac-Man into eating as many as possible to get a high score?
- lostmsu 1y agoThe game screen is cut on the right when browser window is small.
- nprateem 1y agoThis was why I liked opposing force. Give NPCs their own backstory and make them playable.
- staticman2 1y agoNintendo 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.
- thih9 1y agoThe game is also available on nintendo switch and it supports multiplayer with that same gimmick, with two devices. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E