Pac Go

A terminal-based implementation of the classic Pac-Man game, written in Go. Inspired by danicat's Pac Go.

Installation

1. Ensure that you have Go installed on your machine
2. Clone this repository
3. In the project directory, run:

$ go build

Usage

Once built, you can execute the binary by running:

$ path/to/binary/pac-go

Note: Executing the binary with no options specified will start a game using the default options.

Gameplay

• Executing the binary (with or without command-line options) begins a new game.
• Use the arrow keys to move. Pac-Man does not move automatically.
• Pac-Man has 3 lives by default. You can customize the number of lives using the -l, --player-lives flag.
• Ghosts move randomly, a single space at a time, at 200ms intervals by default. You can customize this interval to increase/decrease gameplay speed (and difficuly!) using the -f, --framerate flag. Note that regardless of the specified framerate, each Ghost moves a single space per space moved by Pac-Man.
• Collecting a Dot scores 1 point.
• Collecting a Pill scores 10 points, and renders each Ghost vulnerable for 20 seconds by default. You can customize each of these values using the -p, --pill-score and -d, --pill-duration flags.
• Collecting a Pill while one is already active stacks the Pill duration. Use them wisely!
• Ghosts can only be defeated by colliding with one while a Pill is active. Defeating a Ghost scores 15 points by default. You can customize this value using the -g, --ghost-defeat-score flag.
• Colliding with a Ghost while no Pill is active results in a lost life.
• Games have no time limit.
• The player is victorious when all Dot and Pill characters are collected by Pac-Man.
• The player is defeated when Pac-Man loses all lives, or when the player quits the game using either ESC or ⌃ + C.

Customization

Command Line Flags

You can modify several aspects of the game using command line flags while executing the binary.

Flag	Type	Default	Description
-c, --config-file	string	"./lib/config.json"	A relative path to a custom JSON configuration file. See below for configuration file formatting specifications.
-m, --maze-file	string	"./lib/maze01.txt"	A relative path to a custom maze definition file. See below for more information on maze definition files.
-l, --player-lives	int	3	The amount of lives with which Pac-Man begins the game.
-p, --pill-score	int	10	The amount of points scored when reaching a Pill (normal Dots are always worth 1 point).
-d, --pill-duration	duration	20s	The amount of time for which a Pill is effective, rendering Ghosts vulnerable to Pac-Man. This option accepts any value acceptable to time.ParseDuration.
-g, --ghost-defeat-score	int	15	The amount of points scored when defeating a vulnerable Ghost.
-f, --framerate	duration	200ms	The speed at which to render the game. This option accepts any value acceptable to time.ParseDuration.
-h, --help			Prints usage instructions.

Config Files

The default configuration file (located at lib/config.json) is formatted with the following structure:

{
  "player": "😃",
  "ghost": "👻",
  "ghost_blue": "💩",
  "wall": "  ",
  "dot": "• ",
  "pill": "💊",
  "death": "💀",
  "space": "  ",
  "use_emoji": true
}

Each field is required, but you're welcome to change the values to customize your experience. Pay special attention to the "use_emoji" field, as emoji must be rendered as double-width characters. If the value of this field is not consistent with the values of the other fields (single-width ASCII characters vs. emoji), the game will render with incorrect spacing. The configutation file located at lib/config_noemoji.json provides an example using regular ASCII characters and "use_emoji": false.

Maze Definition Files

The default maze definition file (located at lib/maze01.txt) looks like:

############################
#............##............#
#.####.#####.##.#####.####.#
#X####.#####.##.#####.####X#
#..........................#
#.####.##.########.##.####.#
#......##....##....##......#
######.##### ## #####.######
     #.##          ##.#
     #.## ###--### ##.#
######.## # GGGG # ##.######
      .   # GGGG #   .      |
######.## # GGGG # ##.######
     #.## ######## ##.#
     #.##    P     ##.#
######.## ######## ##.######
#............##............#
#.####.#####.##.#####.####.#
#X..##................##..X#
###.##.##.########.##.##.###
#......##....##....##......#
#.##########.##.##########.#
#..........................#
############################

Note the | character on line 12. Whitespace must exist up to the | in order for the wrap-around effect to work correctly. The | character is not present in the actual maze01.txt file. When designing a custom maze definition file, if the wrap-around effect is desired, the row(s) on which it should occur must be the maximum width of the maze. Similarly, you can create a wrap-around effect by including whitespace at the top and bottom of the same column, and each column in which the wrap-around should occur must be the maximum height of the maze.

Each of the different characters used in the above file renders as a specific object. These same characters must be used when writing a custom maze definition file. For reference, the available characters and their resulting values are:

Character	Result
P	Pac-Man
G	Ghost
X	Pill
.	Dot
#	Wall
other	Space