Okay, so I got addicted to Elden Ring and lost track of time... BUT! 😅
I'm mostly done with the art for all levels, all that's left is sound effects and the menus and I can finally release Problem-Man!
Can you recognize each of my previous games?
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More or less finished with the Tricat level for Problem-Man! It's not perfect, but that's also not the goal! 😁
Got three levels to go. After that it's time for SFX, UI and the game will ready to be played!
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New update for Problem-Man's art! It's still a WIP but here's a looong gif showing off the art for each level. Take a look at the pellets, fruit, powerups, ghosts and pac-man himself!
It'll look awesome when I'm finished, please look forward to it! 🙏
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Art's coming along step by step, don't mind the contrast as the maze's design will change appropriately as well.
Made the player and ghosts for Tricat, Keybricks, I need to go & Cheese Chasers!
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Apologies for lack of updates but life's busy! Here's what Tricat's level will look like (still WIP!).
Pac-Man becomes Tricat, the ghosts become witches.
Not sure yet how far to go in terms of the maze's art.. 🤔
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It took me way too long to figure this out, dude.I can now change the maze's color (and thus its art) on command. Damn, that feels good boyyyy!
Improved HUD, added a start countdown, and a death animation. Gameplay is finished, now time for art. 🫡
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I am happy to say I'm 99% done with writing the gameplay loop and algorithms of Pac-Man. Today I added the start countdown timer and tomorrow's up for game over and next level handling!
Problem-Man's coming along well in the background. 😊
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Slow but steady progress. Implemented the ghosts' system for being eaten and respawning after a certain time. Ghost gets eaten, they rush to jail, then wait a certain amount of seconds before joining back in.
Here's what that looks like! 😅
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I'm still around, had some irl stuff to do! Pac-Man's system is tricky but I got it! I'm back to it yet again and thus here's a small look, lots of progress made and to be made soon!
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Back to it after the weekend. The game's logic behind the scenes is more complex than I anticipated, it's quite difficult!
At least I can control the ghosts' states by events now. First a short wait, then scatter for 7 seconds, chase for 20 seconds, ..
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Despite lack of time today, I added the pellets, scores and fruits! It's placeholder art, I know it looks goofy. 😅
Using these newly learned patterns like event bus, state machine, managers, ... Has made my code so scalable, I love it.
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Created the specific behaviors for each ghost! Explored the event bus pattern and now I can tell them all to switch to a specific state with one press of a button. It's so cool!
I'm making good progress behind the scenes! 😁
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TIL finite state machines are awesome! Separating the ghosts' logic for what they should do, when, why, and how is separated per state. I'm still learning how to utilize it properly, but I am getting there.
Short look at the red ghosts' four states!
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Thanks for asking!
Yes, the plan is to fully implement the gameplay of classic Pac-Man for educational purposes. I'll also try to put my own little spin on every game I learn to make as I dislike making 1 to 1 copies. 😅
Today's task was to make the maze's art more consistent and to align it with the original game's maze. I managed to fixed the ghosts' jittering and improved their navigation & behavior.
Tomorrow's time to learn about state machines!
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The player moves by always snapping to the center of the next tile in the game's grid, the ghosts use grid A* navigation.
Disallowing diagonal movement and indicating which paths are available was most of the work, at each tile the ghosts re-evaluate their path. 😅
I figured out the ghosts' behaviors! 🤔
Red: directly chases
Pink: chases four positions ahead
Orange: chases if far away
Blue: chases double the distance of red's distance to player
It sounds simple, but I am not having an easy time, lmao. 🥲
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Image in space with the "Cheese Chasers" logo, a cheese ship shooting lasers at mice.
Cheese Chasers' announcement got a record 40 likes!
Thanks to everyone for sticking with my journey, every game brings me a little more attention I never thought I'd receive, and for that I am very grateful.
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Figured out Godot's A* navigation, it's very neatly put together! I was able to figure out some basic ghost AI, and while not perfect (notice jittering), I am very proud of it. Got to re-iterate, it feels so good to make your work move.
Have a look!
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I figured it out! I got a fully functional tile-based movement system for the player character done, it took quite a bit of research, and a lot of trial-and-error but I'm very happy it works!
The maze is a placeholder, for now. 😊
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Screenshot of the classic Pac-Man gameplay.
I discovered that it's best to use "tile-based" movement for a game like Pac-Man. It's interesting how there's so many ways to fix the same issue in game development.
I have no idea how that works, so I'll focus on studying that tomorrow.
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Dark background with Problem 18 logo on top, while a Pac-Man-life figure approaching four logos, each of a game made by Problem 18.
Next in the Problem 18 challenge, "Problem-Man"! You'll enjoy the classic Pac-Man gameplay while traversing through the worlds of my previous games. Each level will portray characteristics of each game.
Please look forward to it!
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Logo of problem 18 with a space-imitating background. A text saying "loading" underneath is displayed.
Objects appearing for the first time causes stutters in Cheese Chasers. I believe this is due to a web export limitation and incorrect particles system choice.
A bummer but a productive lesson for future games nonetheless.
Thank you for playing!
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Help needed! I've received two reports of the game lagging when objects appear on screen for the first time. A fix has been attempted, looking for volunteers to quickly test it out.
Could you take a look? I'm very thankful! 🙏
problem-18.itch.io/cheese-chasers
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With a new game comes a new development post! It's quite technical as I dive into many concepts I learned while creating Cheese Chasers.
Thanks to @emmettfried.bsky.social for their advice when I needed it!
Give it a read!
problem-18-dev.github.io/cheese-chase...
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Yellow circle with a triangle cut out in the right.
My learning continues and game #5 approaches. A Pac-Man clone, not sure about my twist on it but I'm excited for learn how to make it.
The AI behind the ghosts is scaring me, already. Let alone making these ghosts move the way they should. 😅
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Oooh useful! Bookmarked!!
Thank you! It’s all good, I appreciate you giving it a go regardless!
Game 4/10, Cheese Chasers is out!
This game has taught me a lot of new concepts, improved my skills taken up in previous games, and gave me insight into different coding patterns for the future games.
Read the announcement blog:
problem-18-dev.github.io/cheese-chase...
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Cheese Chasers is out! What an adventure!
Defend yourself from floating mice in space, each wave comes at you stronger, but power-ups should help you stay alive as long as possible. Can you beat your own high score?
Play it on @itch.io:
problem-18.itch.io/cheese-chasers
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