Vec-Man

[Peer]

Oct 31, 2019 10:39:13 GMT -5 limitzer0 said:

A few notes from my long play.

There are times I don't understand why I don't get an extra life when eating all the ghosts. I know activating something else while large will negate the extra life. But other times it happens as well. Is it possible for a ghost to come back after you've eaten it and before eating the others? This might be a scenario where you don't get an extra life. Also when an item is activated before turning big might screw it up? I couldn't figure it out while playing.

I like the idea of it being faster. Especially farther in.

I think one of the biggest things that makes it too easy is it doesn't feel like Vec-Man is slowing down when eating pellets. He may be but maybe not enough? You can sort of lead the ghosts around for a while until they try to trap you again. I'd look into this if you can before taking lives away.

I love the ghost AI. They seem to be able to catch me off guard and trap fairly regularly.

Thanks a lot for your report, that is very helpful.

Obtaining extra lives: I probably should have explained that a bit better in the manual. You get a bonus life, if all "present" ghosts are eaten, so that the maze (for a moment) is entirely free of ghosts. Each eaten ghost reappears after a certain amount of time. So, if you are eating the "last" ghost, but the "first" ghost you ate has already started to reappear, that's tough luck. But then again, if you quickly also eat that one again, that counts. There have to be no ghosts at all on the screen for at least a single frame.

Eating pellets: Yes, indeed, Vec-Man does not slow down while eating pellets (or other things). In the back of my mind I knew that fact about the original P**-Man, but when coding Vec-Man it somehow never came to my mind to also implement such behavior. But this is something that can be very easily introduced. Would love to hear what others think about this.

Ghost AI: Thanks I spent quite a lot of time and effort on the AI, or rather the AIs. The most difficult thing to deal with was the feature that the layout of the mazes constantly changes. Each level has a different layout. For a fixed and unchanging layout (like in the original P**-Man) it is rather easy to code some very mean AIs, because as programmer you know exactly which spots in the maze are well suited for ambushes, or which isles are potential death traps. Finding some more general cooperative hunting strategies which at the same time still give the player some chance to survive was a nice challenge.

Many Cheers,

Peer

[Peer]

Oct 31, 2019 11:53:35 GMT -5 VectorX said:

Oct 31, 2019 4:26:08 GMT -5 Peer said:

Once Vec-Man eats this bonus, all pills will behave in the same fashion and "home" in on you.

I didn't really notice that, but then I've only played this game twice so far. I'll pay more attention the next time I give it a shot.

Some trivia here: The effect of this bonus item is that the pellets are now controlled by the very same AI as the ghosts. So the pellets start chasing and ambushing Vec-Man. If it weren't for the still present ghosts, Vec-Man could just rest and let them all come

[Peer]

Oct 31, 2019 11:56:06 GMT -5 VectorX said:

Also forgot to mention that I like the "sad" ghosts once you eat a power pellet, along with when they kind of zoom in at you once you eat them.

Thanks

Did you also spot the "smiling" ghost?

[VectorX]

No, maybe once Vec-Man gets caught? I'll have to look for that. Very clever, whatever the deal is

[limitzer0]

Nov 1, 2019 3:46:30 GMT -5 Peer said:

Oct 31, 2019 11:53:35 GMT -5 VectorX said:

I didn't really notice that, but then I've only played this game twice so far. I'll pay more attention the next time I give it a shot.

Some trivia here: The effect of this bonus item is that the pellets are now controlled by the very same AI as the ghosts. So the pellets start chasing and ambushing Vec-Man. If it weren't for the still present ghosts, Vec-Man could just rest and let them all come

I was curious if in some stages the pellets had the same AI as the ghosts when they are running away from you. Some of those last pellets were often hard to catch or cut off.

[Peer]

Nov 1, 2019 14:22:11 GMT -5 limitzer0 said:

I was curious if in some stages the pellets had the same AI as the ghosts when they are running away from you. Some of those last pellets were often hard to catch or cut off.

Well observed! You are correct In quite a number of the upper levels the movement of the pellets is driven by the same AI which is used by the ghosts when Vec-Man has eaten a power pill. This AI causes the ghosts / the pellets to flee from Vec-Man. And yes, it is very much intended that they are hard to catch

[50tbrd]

Got to try the most recent build for a few levels. It is quite nice. I will have to play it more to see the Ghosts run away. I'm guessing their movement also speeds up.

[playvectrex]

Speaking of hard to catch... level 36 is very hard! I got there about 6 or 7 times naturally during the Vector War IX and went through about 70 lives trying to beat it. NADA! Then I decided to select level 36 over and over and practice. I beat it once in about maybe 20 more attempts. I'm not sure if level 36 needs a tiny bit of help, but once thing I think would be nice to add to the game before you sell it is to make the level selector give you unlimited lives. If it's meant for practice, and the high score is not saved, why not? Thanks for a well made game! It is a lot of fun to play.

[VectorX]

Yeah it took me a while to get past that too. I think several players got stuck there. I finally got through it last night as my third attempt.

[Peer]

Greetings everyone,

many thanks to all who have provided feedback, especially to all players of the Vector War!

As a result, I have just uploaded a new (absolutely last and ultimately final, yet probably not eternal) gamma test version 2-4 on the Vec-Man web page.

• Vec-Man now slows down for 2 frames (skips movement for 2 frames) when eating a pellet / pill. I do not know if this really affects the game play in terms of difficulty. First, I tried skipping just 1 frame, but that felt not noticeable to me. Might be due to the fact that the original Pac-Man ran at 26 Hz, and Vec-Man is running at 50Hz. Skipping 2 frames is now visually noticeable. Still, I don’t know if I like this whole thing and if it should be kept. Thoughts?

• The ghosts can now decide to reverse direction in the instant when Vec-Man eats a power pill. This is the only situation where ghosts can reverse their direction. They must not do so, but will do so, if their AI decides that this might be to their advantage. This makes chasing the ghosts a bit more difficult, and so far I like it, and I think that I will keep this. Thoughts?

• When Vec-Man eats a power pill, the ghosts now slow down less than before (to about only 2/3 of their current speed). Before, the ghosts always slowed down to minimum speed, regardless of the level. Again, this should make chasing them a bit harder. I guess I will keep this. Thoughts?

• The "slow" bonus now slows down the ghosts only. This is what I intended from the beginning. Up to version 2-3, this bonus also slowed down all other moving items as well (pellets and other bonuses), so this is rather a bug fix. Again, this should make things a bit harder for the player, and I think I will keep it. Thoughts?

• The ghosts in level 1 now start out a bit faster than before. Together with all the above, level 1 should now be a bit more interesting, but still manageable for novice players. Thoughts?

• Slightly modified level 36 and made it a tiny bit easier, as a reaction to many players reporting it to be really hard during the Vector War. Thoughts?
  

I definitely want to finalize the game now and see if we can have a physical cartridge release. So, once more, feedback regarding this latest version 2-4 is highly appreciated

Many thanks and many cheers,

Peer

[TrekMD]

Cool. Downloading now! Thanks!

[limitzer0]

Looking forward to trying it this weekend.

I'm hoping the pellet slowdown will make it a tad harder to manipulate the ghosts in later levels. I was purposely getting them to follow me closely so they wouldn't end up in front of me.

[limitzer0]

I played it for a bit tonight but not a long play session.

I like the pellet eating slow down (of course I requested it ). It really only adds a layer of difficulty to levels where ghosts are faster and has a lot of static/moving pellets. In one instance I had a few ghosts on my tail and 3 or more pellets in a row were moving towards me. I chose to be greedy and go for the pellets instead of taking another route and the ghosts caught me. In my opinion your game is all about greed management and the frame skipping works well with that I think. My only issue with it is it makes your smooth game look less smooth. I'm not sure what you could do to make it look less choppy other than do something like skip 1 frame > move 1 frame > skip 1 frame instead of just skipping 2? I don't know. I'm curious to see what the other think about the change.

I did find it much harder to catch ghosts in later levels. Did you make the ghosts faster as well as decrease the power pellet duration? Just curious.

I didn't have an issue with 36 being too hard originally. I liked that it was a bit of a drain to get past it. That being said it isn't too easy now either. It still took 1 life from me.

Keep in mind I used the level select in most of my testing tonight so wasn't exactly warmed up.

[Mayhem]

The slowdown on eating happens in Jr Pacman too btw.

[Peer]

Nov 8, 2019 0:09:51 GMT -5 limitzer0 said:

I played it for a bit tonight ... [abbreviated, to keep this post shorter]

Great, thanks a lot for your detailed feedback  I guess I will then keep all the recent changes / additions and have 2-4 as the final version. I might still try to smoothen the visuals of skipping two frames a bit like you suggested in your post and see if this looks better...

Cheers,

Peer