[HN Gopher] 1D Pac-Man
___________________________________________________________________
1D Pac-Man
Author : memalign
Score : 642 points
Date : 2024-01-02 19:00 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (abagames.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (abagames.github.io)
| saint11 wrote:
| It's really cool how they managed to make an interesting mechanic
| with such a big limitation
| yreg wrote:
| Imposing limitations is how you come to interesting mechanics.
| darajava wrote:
| So much fun! And well implemented. What did you use to build it?
| philomath_mn wrote:
| I am guessing it is a demo for this lib:
| https://github.com/abagames/crisp-game-lib
| noduerme wrote:
| Looks like a custom-built game library they designed atop
| Pixijs
|
| https://abagames.github.io/joys-of-small-game-development-en...
|
| [edit] It seems that Pixi is one rendering method, and the
| graphics themselves are abstracted via a "terminal" and "view"
| class, so the engine focuses on positioning art rather than
| handling sprite draws directly.
|
| It's a nice set of opinionated choices. In particular,
| implementing collisions for 2D sprites. I built a game engine
| like that with particles and collisions (and particle
| collisions!) in AS3 on top of Starling at one point... sadly, I
| can't make games with it anymore.
| roughly wrote:
| That's more fun than I expected it to be! I like all the little
| subtle choices - how the ghost respawns, the speed of the ghost
| vs pac-man, the time it takes for the ghost to flash. It's
| simple, but I could feel myself learning the timing as I played
| and working through the strategy, such as it was.
| runnr_az wrote:
| Clever!
| sbisson wrote:
| Someone has read the impossible game sections of Iain Banks'
| Walking On Glass...
| jerf wrote:
| Should be named *--* *- -*- **- *--* *- -*- **- . ("Paku paku" in
| morse, though I changed the characters to be more obviously
| plausibly one dimensional themselves so your favorite converter
| may not work.)
| tremarley wrote:
| Paku Paku seems too vague.
|
| I clicked on this link because it says "1D PacMan"
|
| It made me think "how can Pac-Man be 1D?"
| jerf wrote:
| I just copied it from the title screen. Actually I don't care
| what it's called, it should just be named with a
| 1-dimensional writing scheme.
| OakNinja wrote:
| Amazing game!
|
| Is it possible to get a higher score than 29?
| jebarker wrote:
| Yep, I got 30 EDIT: 450 :)
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I got 533; There's a bonus multiplier that builds the more
| times you eat the ghost (I think?)
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Pretty sure it's based on rows cleared not ghost eats
| skrebbel wrote:
| Yes
| bagels wrote:
| Yes, trivially.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| 701
| eastbound wrote:
| Yes, it does integer-overflow. I mean on the d axis, but on the
| points axis.
| bru wrote:
| 816.
| aidos wrote:
| 1274, so yes.
| bagels wrote:
| Controls would be better if left arrow went left, and right arrow
| went right. As is, they both toggle, which can lead to wrong
| inputs when trying to stall (left/right in succession)
| hinkley wrote:
| I was trying to figure out why I despise the controls. I think
| you are right. The first time I hit left it did something, the
| second time it ignored me.
| throitallaway wrote:
| As a button masher (go left, go left!) this is infuriating.
| FpUser wrote:
| Same here
| stavros wrote:
| I tried to find the source so I could change this, but it
| doesn't seem to be in the samples dir, at least not by that
| name.
| fabiensanglard wrote:
| Yup, that was frustrating!
| pesfandiar wrote:
| Looks like the creator is following a one-button game design
| philosophy.
|
| https://dev.to/abagames/how-to-realize-various-actions-in-a-...
|
| Source: https://github.com/abagames/crisp-game-
| lib/blob/master/src/i...
| jader201 wrote:
| That may make sense for some games, but for a game that has
| two directions, it makes less sense.
|
| Probably better to completely disable the arrow keys -- or
| better, limit it to the spacebar -- to reinforce single-
| button design.
|
| Or, just intuitively support left & right.
| probotect0r wrote:
| On mobile, it works really well because all u have to do is
| tap to change the direction. They should just remove the
| arrow keys on web, as you said.
| oaktowner wrote:
| I had to start using the space bar instead of the arrows -- it
| reinforced in my mind that it was a single-button controller.
| BD103 wrote:
| Another interesting thing by the same person that got pretty
| popular on HN:
|
| The Joys of Small Game Development
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37799387
| prhn wrote:
| Wow, that's fun. I wish I could articulate why the music and
| dying sound effect are both so great. The gameplay has a great
| rhythmic feeling to it. It's also really tense. I scream every
| time that damn ghost catches me.
|
| The best part is when I die I feel like I made a dumb mistake,
| and that if I improved just a few things I could be way better.
|
| Too many games these days give you the allure of depth and
| complexity by making things difficult in the wrong ways.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's pretty, I'll give it that.
|
| I don't feel like it was my mistake when I got killed often,
| for one thing the ghost is faster than me, sometimes respawns
| right next to me, ...
| prhn wrote:
| Isn't the ghost spawn at least somewhat predictable?
|
| I think it picks the farthest edge from where you ate it.
| Also, it only spawns at the edges, so don't eat the ghost
| near the edge if you're not sure where it will spawn.
|
| Yes the ghost is faster than you, but it can't wrap around
| the stage like you can.
| brianpan wrote:
| You just need to use your eyes. ;D
| glhaynes wrote:
| _The best part is when I die I feel like I made a dumb mistake,
| and that if I improved just a few things I could be way
| better._
|
| I think I've heard Miyamoto talk about that. When the
| frustration is all with yourself (rather than with the game
| itself), and you just _know_ that if you try one more time,
| that 'll be the one where you won't make any dumb mistakes. I
| think it's the cornerstone of every action game that appeals to
| me.
| filoleg wrote:
| There is something to be said about "easy to learn difficult to
| master" curve, as well as overall basic simplicity and the
| feedback loop being very transparently clear and "tactile."
|
| The one game that never fails to hook me in that way is Quake
| 3. Every mistake feels like your own, but with a very clear and
| obvious path for improvement. Every improvement step feels
| incremental and doable, none of that "noscope 180 from the
| bushes where i had zero chance to spot the enemy" situations.
|
| Even on kills where it initially felt like some annoying cheap
| trick, i watch the killcam, and walk away very impressed and
| eager to try out their approach myself. And it always makes
| perfect sense. As opposed to a lot of more modern games, where
| killcam only frustrates me more.
|
| Imo this is the same thing that made the original DOOM a
| massive sensation, but I feel like Quake 3 would be easier to
| relate for a lot of people. I was too young and growing up in
| the wrong part of the world to catch that original DOOM hype.
| But with Quake 3 (and imo even quake 1 and 2), that phenomenon
| truly transcended countries and cultures.
| samstave wrote:
| WONDERFUL.
|
| It better be landscape only on mobile. Add a pitfall bomb (what
| was that game that created a hole for the critters to fall into,
| and you could walk over them, but the climb out and the hole
| heals in a short period... ? Let the ghosts to fall in a hole,
| then you can place more than one ghost on the path, but you need
| as many "hole bombs" as there are ghosts on screen+1 (or N)... to
| not make it rage quit-worthy.
| tremarley wrote:
| Most people use their phone in portrait mode.
|
| If it were Landscape Only, it would create unnecessary
| friction.
| samstave wrote:
| >>> _Most people use their phone in portrait mode_
|
| We have invented a new word for you to incorporate into your
| comments:
|
| "OPTIONS"
| gojomo wrote:
| Alternatively, the one dimension of movement could be up-
| down.
| samstave wrote:
| no. its a single tunnel. no off-shoots. 1D.
|
| Cant turn. only damage the 1D path, to your
| advantage/detriment.
|
| Your mechanic is Gauntlet. (best video game ever)
| jerf wrote:
| "what was that game that created a hole for the critters to
| fall into, and you could walk over them, but the climb out and
| the hole heals in a short period..."
|
| Lode Runner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWwyhymcDxI
| spc476 wrote:
| You can even play it online:
| https://loderunnerwebgame.com/game/
| evolve2k wrote:
| Yeah that was fun. Reminds me of 1D Doom that was shared here a
| while back.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It was hard until I realized that the ghost doesn't change when
| you cross the edge of the screen. After that, it turned into an
| uninteresting stalemate.
|
| The controls really need to be edited, though. Left should be
| exclusively left, and right exclusively right. Having them both
| toggle makes input the primary challenge.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Stalemate is a loss. The goal is to get points, not survive X
| seconds.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| That's unfortunate, because it adds a second dimension to
| strategy.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I found the input really intuitive. Personally I preferred it
| to having invisible zones on the touch screen that react
| differently
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I used a keyboard, not a touchscreen. I'm not sure if/how
| that is different.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| fun! for a fleeting moment anyway.
| mongol wrote:
| Next Flappy Bird in my opinion
| tremarley wrote:
| Agreed
| throw_m239339 wrote:
| LOL, exactly what I thought...
| tremarley wrote:
| '1D Pac-Man' is a great name.
|
| It made me click on this link because it made me think "how can
| Pac-Man be 1D?"
| lanewinfield wrote:
| People who liked 1D Pac-Man also liked Wolfenstein 1-D
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_1-D
| yreg wrote:
| Apparently here, but I don't know how to get past the menu.
|
| https://archive.org/details/wolfenstein-1-d
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Nice game! I managed to 6,600 points
|
| Per my experience The optimal strategy is to deprioritize eating
| the ghost. You can get some nice streaks sometimes eating him but
| it generally doesn't help.
|
| What you want to do is use the power up to collect the middle
| dots. The sides you can collect safely on reflexes alone. By
| about 3000 points it becomes impossible to recover if you don't
| pick up the middle and have consumed your power up. Eating the
| ghost is ok if it happens incidentally.
|
| Because you're trying to use the power up to collect the middle
| that often means the ghost will be further from the middle than
| you when you finish a line. So finish a line, then 180
| immediately to collect the middle again. The worst case is you
| end up with your power up ending just as you're finishing a line
| and you are on the side. But up until very high point values I
| think it's always safe to grab the power up as it tends to be on
| the sides.
|
| Edit: 6800
|
| Might play more if other HNers step up their game :)
| auselen wrote:
| Came here to say 520 (;[?])
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Heh. My first or second game, I just happened to get like 650
| points. And then spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure
| out what the hell I had done. Turns out you can sometimes get
| into a rhythm where you don't even have to turn for a while
| and score a lot of points.
|
| OP's score is just ludicrous.
| goldemerald wrote:
| Mostly following your advice, I got 14257. I found if I could
| easily eat the ghost, it was worth taking a few extra steps to
| go for it. The real key is knowing you can successfully leave 6
| on either side to carefully pick up after getting the middle.
| progmetaldev wrote:
| YES! I play this way even with the original version on Atari,
| as well as all of the various other 8-bit versions (Ms. Pac
| Man, Super Pac Man, Pac Man Jr., etc.)
| xg15 wrote:
| Crazy enough, that strategy really works! Got to 1000 with a
| lot of effort by eating ghosts and easily to 5000 using your
| strategy.
|
| I'd say there is even a (very slight) disadvantage to killing
| the ghost: As long as it's on screen (and preferably slowed
| down) you know where it is. Once you kill it, you don't know
| exactly when and where it will reappear.
|
| Interestingly, the points you get for a kill are NOT tied to
| how many ghosts you've killed before. They only depend on the
| speed of the ghost, which in turn depends on your overall
| score.
|
| So I think one addition to the strategy would be to try to keep
| the ghosts alive as long as practical early on, then eat them
| later when you already have some points and kills can actually
| give a significant bonus.
| justinl33 wrote:
| This is so fun! Makes me feel like I'm conducting a 1 dimensional
| random walk. Who knows, maybe this is being used to generate
| pseudo stock prices or something.
| snshn wrote:
| Genius
| stephenhandley wrote:
| Love this, mechanics and music are great!
|
| One suggestion would be to not care what key is pressed, maybe
| just have any key change direction?
| thraxil wrote:
| See also Line Wobbler by Robin Baumgarten:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dufXuWDjLU
|
| 1D dungeon crawler hardware game.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Pac-Man meet Flatland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland)
| veganjay wrote:
| Love it! I like seeing Pac-man put into strange scenarios.
|
| I made a slightly similar (1.5d?) game for the CHIP-8. Pacman can
| only go left and right, but the ghosts fall from the sky.
|
| https://veganjay.itch.io/falling-ghosts
| wkjagt wrote:
| This is wonderful. Very nice execution, and super addictive. I
| kind of want to do a Commodore 64 version now.
| mrb wrote:
| I have been looking for 1D game ideas to implement on an
| addressable RGB LED strip. 1D pacman seems perfect, as it's
| instantly recognizable even with a single-pixel pacman and
| ghosts, by using the right colors.
| gojomo wrote:
| Your comment reminded me...
|
| Long ago - early 80s - UHF & cable-syndicated TV station WPIX
| (NY) offered live broadcast call-in videogames controlled by
| the caller's voice yelling "pixx!". Here's a peek of some of
| the forms it'd take:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJN9eM84Rq8
|
| "Behind the scenes, the voice activation was really operators
| in the control room pushing the buttons." :)
|
| The simple control of this 1D PAKU-PAKU game (or others you're
| considering) could be wholly voice-operated. (A fun trigger
| word nodding to an old 'Friends' episode might be: "Pivot!")
|
| With modern voice-recognition/voice-printing, it might even be
| possible to have a multiplayer game where even though N players
| are all yelling the same trigger-word, the recognition
| disambiguates the speaker to control only their sprite. Or, use
| a larger vocabulary of control-words for more actions.
| 'Nibbler' with yelled commands "Up!"/"Down!"/"Left!"/"Right!"
| might be diabolically frustrating.
| gojomo wrote:
| Another thought: have the 1D RGB strip spin around its long-
| axis to enable rapid LED cycling to stroboscopically plot the
| domain in 2D, despite the action & rendering array being
| "only 1D".
| mrb wrote:
| Very cool ! I like the idea of voice controls. Right now I
| have a 22-foot long LED strip on the fascia of my house. I
| was thinking of putting a physical button for visitors or
| random pedestrians to play the games, but voice control would
| be more fun.
| pcwelder wrote:
| Kudos for building this. Highly rewarding and elegant. Initally I
| thought 200 was good. Ended up on 11k after half an hour or so.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Good game. I also played 3D Pacman in DOS in an IBM PS1, this was
| years before Wolfenstein and Doom. Today we have come full
| circle!
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajWIYW-wk6U
| havkom wrote:
| Brilliant game!
| j2kun wrote:
| Nice. Now do it on a Mobius band: there's a "ceiling" and
| "floor", and when you go out the left, you end up on the ceiling
| on the right, and vice versa. Two ghosts chasing you, one on the
| ceiling and one on the floor.
| qkhhly wrote:
| this is surprisingly engaging!
| rdoherty wrote:
| This reminds me of the book Flatland which is about what a 2
| dimensional universe would be like and the experience of a 3
| dimensional entity visiting it. Great read!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatland
| neilv wrote:
| I wonder whether anyone has done a Pac-Man variant inspired by
| Flatland.
|
| Say, a powerup temporarily turns the screen to 3D, with the
| ghosts only perceiving the 2D slice. Pac-Man might be a cone
| that can 'shrink' to squeeze around ghosts, can jump through
| 3rd dimension to 'teleport', can move back and forth between
| different 'levels' floors in a building, etc.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Is PacMan also in the public domain?
| lotu wrote:
| Nope, no video games are in the public domain nor will there be
| for decades. until the late 2060s :(
| Dwedit wrote:
| Except for games declared by their authors to be public
| domain.
| eachro wrote:
| That was surprisingly fun. Nice job!
| Dwedit wrote:
| Took me a while to realize that it treats a (potentially
| repeating) key press as the condition to turn around, which badly
| messes with you if you assume the game has direct control.
| PeterHolzwarth wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA_Games
|
| Oh, I had completely forgotten about aba games (the work of Kenta
| Cho) for some years until seeing this HN post! He has been making
| little mini-games and posting them on his site (both browser-
| based and windows-based) for more than 20 years now.
|
| Here's his games (I always liked Torus Trooper):
| https://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/index.html
| gchaincl wrote:
| It seems that perfection is attained, not when there is nothing
| more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away.
| nonfungibleuser wrote:
| is there a leaderboard? I just got 69,420 points
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-01-02 23:00 UTC)