Show HN: Reverse Pac-Man

You should make it so user can hold down a key to change direction <i>before</i> they reach the intersection, joystick style.<p>As it is, it feels like you are checking for key press (not key down) in a narrow window when the ghost reaches the intersection. That is very hard to play. It is much more forgiving if I can press and hold the key whenever I want.

Nintendo did something like this with &quot;Pacman vs&quot; for GameCube. The multiplayer gimmick was the players controlling the ghosts couldn&#x27;t see the entire map and the player controlling Pacman could with a Game Boy Advanced linked to the Gamecube.

Fun game! From the title, I was expecting to guide Pac-Man to put all the dots back in place.

Awesome. It&#x27;s mind-bending to control two players. The idea of using arrow keys to control one player and WASD to control another is genius. Maybe you can visualize which is which by coloring the explanatory text.

I can&#x27;t see the whole screen on my laptop, and the screen doesn&#x27;t scroll.

It&#x27;s one of those things that &quot;why did nobody think about it yet?!&quot;

For anyone interested in this style of gameplay mechanic, the game <i>Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons</i> (steam: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;225080&#x2F;Brothers__A_Tale_of_Two_Sons&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;store.steampowered.com&#x2F;app&#x2F;225080&#x2F;Brothers__A_Tale_o...</a>) uses a twin-stick approach to this, and builds puzzles around controlling two &quot;people&quot;.<p>It&#x27;s a quick play and the game is pretty good, I recommend experiencing it.

Reminds me of a demo I played 10 years ago called swap box turbo. Designed for two players, it is a simple platformer where you and your partner swap positions and momentum every 3 seconds.<p>You can play it single player too and have an experience similar to this.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freeindiegam.es&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;swap-box-turbo-nifflas&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.freeindiegam.es&#x2F;2012&#x2F;12&#x2F;swap-box-turbo-nifflas&#x2F;</a>

On FF (similar on Edge):<p>Secure Connection Failed<p>An error occurred during a connection to reverse-pacman.staticrun.app. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR

Would be fun to have dual stick controller support: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-US&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Web&#x2F;API&#x2F;Gamepad_API" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.mozilla.org&#x2F;en-US&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Web&#x2F;API&#x2F;Gamepad_API</a>

The ghosts don&#x27;t respond to a key until they encounter to an intersection, so that you cannot reverse direction instantly. Maybe there is a deliberate point to that, but it doesn&#x27;t make it less annoying.

I like the concept but shouldn&#x27;t the score be counting down? Or am I trying to shepherd Pac-Man into eating as many as possible to get a high score?

Are you planning on adding the power pills to give Pac Man a fighting chance?<p>Also, I noticed that he often circles around the upper left area a few times at the start even though there are no dots to collect.

It&#x27;s not loading at all for me. Hug of death?

Very cool. Gemini is such a fun tool to do a one-shot MVP of a game like this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;g.co&#x2F;gemini&#x2F;share&#x2F;7639ee864df7" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;g.co&#x2F;gemini&#x2F;share&#x2F;7639ee864df7</a><p>Gemini wasn&#x27;t clever enough to disallow ghosts changing directions mid-way, but it did do a smart thing with &quot;pellets remaining&quot; scoring.

This was why I liked opposing force. Give NPCs their own backstory and make them playable.

The game screen is cut on the right when browser window is small.

genius