Pac-Man Diary #10

Well, tomorrow is here. Changed quite a few things cosmetically! There’s now a picture surrounding the maze on a dark blue background. The only black area now is in the game area itself. There was a reason for this. The only way I could think of implementing the passageway was to place a couple of coloured block sprite outside the exits. This way, when Wobman or the ghosts pass into the exit they actually pass behind this sprite which gives the appearance of them vanishing off the screen. I then just make them reappear behind the other sprite at the other side of the screen so they appear to slide into the game area. The effect is just right – I’m a genius!

I add some code to display smaller Pac-Mans to represent the number of lives, and fruit to determine your level at the bottom of the screen. I have to make some decisions here as there is a limit to how many fruit can be displayed! I think 14 fruit in 2 rows of 7 is enough, so any levels beyond that won’t show any more fruit. I’d really like to know what happens in the arcade version.

Spending a lot of time doing minor bug fixing and general tidying up of code. Want it all to feel just right. The program really feels like a game with the added sound effects.