GAME DESIGN DOCUMENT

1.  Basic Premise Of The Game.

PacMan runs around a maze and tries to earn points by eating dots and fruit and occasionally ghosts while avoiding ghosts attenpting to eat PacMan.

2.  Victory And Progress Criteria.

There is no explicit victory; the game can continue forever as long as the player doesn't explicitly lose by having PacMan die.  The player makes progress by clearing a maze of dots, at which point a new level is drawn.

3.  Failure Criteria.

When a de-energized PacMan makes contact with a ghost, one life is lost.  When the life count reaches zero, the game is lost.

4.  Difficulty Assessment.

Each level is more difficult than the previous level.  The ghosts move increasingly quickly, and the energized PacMan stays energized for decreasing amounts of time.

5.  Game Controls.

PacMan is controlled by a joystick.  There is a start button to initiate play.

6.  Rough Game Storyline.

PacMan is hungry and needs to eat dots.  The ghosts are hungry and need to eat PacMan.  For some reason, PacMan's food source is located in a maze.  PacMan doesn't need to "solve" the maze since its easy and completely visible to the player.  He just has to run around and eat.

7.  Game Introduction And Controls Training.

Before the quarter is inserted, there is a screen containing the names of all the ghosts.  Very little instructions are given explicitly by the game itself; the understanding it that people will learn how to play it by watching other people play it.

8.  Game Conclusion.

Unless I deliberately put a bug in there that causes the game to crash at level 256, the game's only conclusion is a failure, due to the loss of all lives.

9.  Game events.

PacMan can eat dots, fruits, and energy pills.  Ghosts can eat dots.

10.  Basic User Interface.

PacMan is a 2-D game played in a maze.  There is a connector between the far left and far right boundaries of the maze so that PacMan can leave one side of the screen and appear on the other.  (This is called "through the tube.")  It is a simple white maze on a black background.  PacMan is yellow, the ghosts and fruit are various colors.  The dots and energy pills are white.  The ghosts become blue when PacMan is energized.

11.  Scoring And Other Game Measurements.

Eating a dot is worth ten points.  Eating an energy pill is worth fifty.  Eating a fruit gives the player a varying number of points depending on the fruit.  Eating ghosts gives the player a certain number of points increasing with the number of ghosts eaten.

When a certain threshold is reached in points, an extra life is granted the player.

The only game measurement is the score.  PacMan keeps track of one high score.  Any player exceeding that high score can enter his initials into the game which will remain until someone else beats that score, the operator clears the high score, or the machine becomes unplugged.

12.  Multiplayer And Online Modes.

There are two game plays in PacMan, one-player and two-player.  If two-player, the two players alternate turns upon loss of life, and the winner is the one with the higher score at the end.