Pac‑Man Game

🎮 Game Features

• Classic Pac‑Man mechanics: Navigate the maze, eat food (10 points), power‑food (50 points), and bonus cherries (100 points).
• Ghost behavior: Four ghosts patrol randomly, reverse on walls, and return to start when eaten in power‑food mode (+200 points).
• Power‑ups: Eating a power‑food scares ghosts for 8 seconds—ghosts change appearance and can be eaten.
• Cherry spawn/animation: Periodic bonus cherries spawn every 10 seconds on random food tiles, alternating between two images for a simple animation effect.
• Screen wrap-around: Exiting left/right edges teleports Pac‑Man to the opposite side seamlessly.
• Game states:
  • Playing: Default state; HUD shows lives and score.
  • Paused: Press P to pause/resume. Semi‑transparent overlay + “PAUSED” text.
  • Game Over: After losing all lives, game halts. Overlay displays “GAME OVER” + final score, and the restart hint.

🔄 Programming Paradigms & Techniques

• OOP Principles: Encapsulation (Block class), single-responsibility methods (loadMap, move, draw), and separation of concerns between rendering, input, and logic.
• Data Structures: HashSet<Block> for efficient tracking and removal of dynamic entities.
• Event-driven programming: Swing event loop (Timer + ActionListener) triggers move() and repaint().
• Collision detection: Axis-Aligned Bounding Boxes (AABB) via overlapping rectangles.
• State management: Booleans (paused, gameOver, ghostsScared) govern behavior and rendering states.
• Timing logic: Java's System.currentTimeMillis() to manage temporary states and spawn intervals.
• Image handling: ImageIcon and getResource() to load assets; dynamic image swapping for states and animations.
• Game loop optimization: repaint() only when necessary, using System.currentTimeMillis() to control update frequency.
• Code organization: Clear separation of concerns, concise method names, and consistent naming conventions.

When cherry eaten -

🧩 Code Structure & OOP Concepts

App.java

• Sets up the Swing JFrame container, configures window size, and attaches the PacMan panel.
• Calls pack(), centers window and requests focus to enable key input handling.

PacMan.java

• Extends JPanel and implements ActionListener + KeyListener, combining rendering, game loop control, and input handling.
• Uses javax.swing.Timer for a consistent 20 FPS update cycle (actionPerformed()).

Inner Class: Block

• Represents moving/fixed game entities (Pac‑Man, ghosts, walls, food, cherries).
• Fields: position (x, y), size, Image, start position, movement direction & velocity.
• Methods:
  • updateDirection(char): changes movement, applies collision correction.
  • updateVelocity(): recalculates velocity vector.
  • reset(): teleports back to spawn location.

Game Board Initialization (loadMap())

• Uses a tile map (String[]) to lay out walls (X), food, power‑food (*), ghost spawn positions (b, o, p, r), and initial Pac‑Man (P).
• Dynamically builds HashSet<Block> collections for each type.

Rendering (paintComponent() & draw(Graphics))

• Clears background and draws all active blocks in correct order: Pac‑Man → ghosts → walls → food → power‑food → cherries.
• Renders HUD and overlay messages depending on game state.
• Uses Graphics2D alpha blending for overlays.

Game Logic (move())

• Moves Pac‑Man, wraps at horizontal edges.
• Checks wall collisions and undoes movement if blocked.
• Ghost movement: random directions, bounce off walls/sides; resets on collision with Pac‑Man.
• Food eating removes food, updates score, reloads map when empty.
• Power‑food eating triggers scared mode: changes ghost image, activates timed state.
• Scared-ghost-mode ends after a set duration; reverts ghost visuals.
• Cherry spawning: randomly chooses empty tile, animates via toggling between two images; removed upon collision.

Input Handling (keyReleased(KeyEvent))

• Direction control via arrow keys (updateDirection).
• Press P toggles pause mode, halting movement/timer updates.
• Any key press when game over resets map, lives, score, positions, and restarts the loop.