Pac-Man is Going Places

Overview

This is the third assignment for the 'Intro to Computer Science' course at Ariel University (2026).

This project is divided into:

1. Client side - An algorithm that guides the pac-man to eat dots and avoid ghosts.
2. Server side - An engine that manages game logic, ghost AI, and GUI

The algorithm

Each time the move() function is called, pac-man decided whether to move (UP,DOWN,LEFT,RIGHT) or not to move ( STAY). Each of his five choices are considered, and the best choice is executed.

Step 1 - Build the danger map

First, a 'danger map' is built(/updated). Each cell in this 2d-array represents how close that map tile is from the nearest ghost.

Step 2 - Choose a mode

Next, we determine which mode(s) the pac-man is in. There are:

• Powered (ghosts can be eaten)
• Panic (pac-man is not powered-up and a ghost is "nearby")
• Normal (a ghost is not nearby)

Step 3 - Choose a direction

The pac-man evaluates each of the four directions, giving it a score (assuming it's a legal move, i.e. not a wall).

The scoring function works as follows:

Safety

If not powered up, moving towards a ghost is negative and moving away is positive.

The closer pac-man is to a ghost, the higher this coefficient is weighted.

Traps

We assume the given direction was chosen and then check how much open space remains. Large areas are positive, small areas are negative.

This is always weighted quite high.

Food

Pac-man has two (sometimes three) choices of food. Dots and power-ups (and sometimes edible ghosts).

If reachable (i.e. nearby and a high timeLeftEatable), we score moving towards a ghost highly.

If ghosts are nearby (and pac-man is not powered up), we score moving towards power-ups highly.

Otherwise, we score moving towards dots highly.

Best route

Tiles already visited have a small penalty.

Also, moving 'backwards' (i.e. opposite to the previous direction taken) has a small penalty.

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Once the score of each of the four directions is calculated, we consider the direction with the highest score.

If it's above a given threshold, we choose that direction. Otherwise, we choose to stay still.

Step 4 - Make a move

Before executing the move, we store the current tile in memory and record the chosen direction.

Finally, we execute the move (or lack thereof).

Possible improvements

The danger map could be improved by exploring different algorithms for deciding the danger of a cell. Options include minimum distance, cumulative distance, and product of distances.

Demonstrations

Algorithm

See our algorithm being demonstrated on the original game server. Watch the demo

Game engine

A quick guide for how to use our game engine. Currently, only the (above) AI is playable. Watch the demo