JavaScript-PacMan 2.6

"JavaScript-PacMan 2" is another step in the evolution of the famous "JavaScript-PacMan". This game is written in pure JavaScript and doesn't require any plug-ins or other extensions. If Flash-Player 9.0 or higher is detected, an additional Flash-movie is used to provide the sounds.

The use of sound may affect the animation speed of the game.
Set the sound slider to zero to optimize the game for slower machines.

"JavaScript-PacMan" was originally designed as a demo-page for an advanced employment of JavaScript animation techniques. The first version (for Netscape Navigator 3.0) was published in late 1996/Jan.1997 and might well have been the first arcade style game on the web implemented in JavaScript only!

How to Play

Anyone who doesn't know Pac-Man? Really? O.K. – That's how to play:

Guide the Pac-Man, the munching yellow ball, through the maze and eat all the food, the little white dots laid out all around the passages. But be aware of the ghosts: they will give their best to pursue and catch you. (The ghosts will become more intelligent and dangerous in higher levels.)
There are also some bigger pellets: the power pills. Swallow one of these to become invincible for a few seconds. Now – while the ghosts are turned blue – you my haunt those nasty runners for some extra points.

A propos scoring: You will collect an extra live for every 10000 points (but you may not have more than five lives in stock).

Moving / Controls

Use the cursor keys or the numeric keypad to navigate the pac-man.

You may also use the following keys:

		W	(up)
(left)	A	S	D	(right)
	(down)

		I	(up)
(left)	J	K	L	(right)
	(down)

Other controls:

	N	....	New game
	P or ESC	....	Pause / resume

Touch Screens / Mouse Control

Control the pac-man by strokes (mouse gestures) at the maze:

Click (tap) anywhere in the maze and drag the pointer in the desired direction.
(You may steer in advance, not only when the pac-man is just encountering a crossing.)
Double-click (tap rapidly twice) to pause/resume the game.
Use the "New Game" button to start a new game.
Special Moves:
You may even use compound gestures (e.g.: left and up in a single movement): Steer in the first direction, keep the mouse down and steer in the next direction just after the turn.
This may be especially useful to navigate through winding passages as you haven't to click again for every turn.

Levels and Layouts

There are 3 sets of maze-layouts with 5 different levels each.
You may select any of these from the "Mazes" pop-up menu:

Standard Levels: These are the levels of the original JavaScript-PacMan
Aztec Levels: A tribute to the charms of the 1980ies' Jump'n'Run games
Mini-Pac Levels: These levels share some resemblance with the layout of the original Pac-Man and the 4 levels of Ms. Pac-Man
Hacker Levels: Another 6 challenging levels for the real hacker – including a thrilling visit to the mysterious depths of /dev/null

Finally there's the unique random maze generator, which provides an unlimited number of different mazes for endless fun and varying game play. Random levels will be generated on the fly when you successfully cleared the last designed level of a set. You may also choose "Random Levels" from the "Mazes" menu to start with random generated levels just from the beginning.

Sound Integration

A tiny Adobe Flash movie (swf-file) is used as a simple sound player in case that Flash Player 9.0 or higher is detected. This provides a robust cross-browser sound integration in absence of any real world standard for sound integration and scripted sound control. Flash is not used for any other purpose – the game works just the same without the Flash plug-in. (Even the volume control is implemented in DHTML, just for the fun of it.)

Pac-Man Trivia

The original Pac-Man arcade game (which differs in some ways from this game) was first released by Namco (licensed and distributed in the U.S. by Midway) in 1980. The game was originally named "Puck-Man" (from paku paku – Japanese slang describing the motion of an opening and closing mouth while eating), and was renamed to conform to the North American market.

Eventually Pac-Man became the most successful video game ever, causing even a coin shortage in Japan. It is listed as the all time number one at the "Top 100 Videogames" of the Killer List of Videogames.

One of the most important off-springs was Ms. Pac-Man (released 1981 by Midway/GCC, later Namco). While the original Pac-Man featured a single maze and deterministic ghost movements, Ms. Pac-Man introduced changing mazes and some random to the ghosts in favor for a more varying game play.
So in fact JavaScript-PacMan owes more to Ms. Pac-Man than to the original Pac-Man game.

Version History

JavaScript-PacMan vers. 2.5 released Sept. 20011.

Added another set of levels: "Hacker Levels" (June. 2008)
Added support for Google Chrome Frame (Sept. 2009)

New features of JavaScript-PacMan vers. 2 (Dec. 2007):

3 different sets of levels (5 levels each)
even refined ghost AI
multi colored maze layouts
new graphics & effects
sound effects
improved mouse controls for touch screens

Previous versions and updates:

2004: unified cross browser version and DOM compatibility, random maze generator
Aug. 1997: bigger maze for bigger screens, smooth animations (for NS 4.0 layers, MSIE 4.0 css)
Mar. 1997: 5 different level layouts, revised script
Feb. 1997: 3 different level layouts, improved controls
Dec. 1996/Jan. 1997: first release (for Netscape 3.0 and 12" screens)