Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
ghosts, and eating fruit. One of these actions, eating fruit, is fairly isolated from the
rest of the game. Eating fruit scores bonus points but doesn't help with anything
else, which means that novice players who have their hands full with the tasks of
eating and evading can safely ignore the fruit. The power pills are an important
resource that must be spent wisely.
Playing around with the digital version of the
Pac-Man
diagram even gives you a feel
of some of the strategic options available in the real game: You can use power pills
to eat ghosts and score bonus points, but you can also use power pills to safely go
for the final dots and progress faster.
FIGURe 5.28
complete diagram for
Pac-Man
NOTE
in the real
game, the duration
of the power pill and
the number of points
earned for eating a
ghost are level-depen-
dent factors, so we
simplified those
aspects.
