Waka Waka! Behind the Scenes of Tech-Man
Hey Tech Enthusiasts!
Following up on our adventures with the Pixel Dino Runner, we wanted to pull back the curtain on another fun project brewing here at NeedTechAdvice: Tech-Man! It’s our homage to the timeless arcade classic, Pac-Man, built entirely with web technologies you can run in your browser. It’s been a great exercise in recreating iconic game mechanics with creative coding tools.
MOBILE Users Please Note: Tech-Man is currently designed for Desktop gameplay and requires Arrow Keys for navigation. We’re exploring mobile controls, but for now, you’ll need a keyboard!
The Tech Foundation: Creative Coding Power via p5.js
Just like with our dino game, the amazing p5.js library is the heart of Tech-Man. If you’re new to it, p5.js makes drawing shapes, handling animations, managing user input, and generally bringing creative ideas to life on a web canvas incredibly accessible. For Tech-Man, it gives us straightforward ways to draw our main character, animate his chomping mouth, and respond instantly to those essential Arrow Key presses, all without getting lost in complex browser APIs.
Keeping Things Tidy: Code Structure and Libraries
While Tech-Man might not (yet!) have the multiple distinct screens like a title, gameplay, and game over (which benefited from the p5.js Scene Manager in our dino game), organization is still vital. We’re focusing on clear functions within our main sketch.js file – separate logic for moving Tech-Man (movePacman()), drawing him (drawPacman()), handling the mouth animation (animateMouth()), and managing keyboard input (keyPressed()). As we add features like ghosts, we’ll likely break those out into their own files (e.g., ghost.js) linked via the HTML.
Getting p5.js itself into the project is simple. We can use a CDN (Content Delivery Network) link right in the HTML or download the library files and host them alongside our project. Both are effective ways to include the necessary code.
Setting the Server Stage: Why .php?
You might notice the game page has a .php extension rather than .html. Since p5.js runs entirely in the browser (client-side JavaScript), why involve PHP? This requires the page to be served by a web server (like Apache/Nginx, common in XAMPP/MAMP setups or standard hosting). While Tech-Man doesn’t use server-side logic yet, structuring it this way prepares us for future enhancements. Imagine adding features like saving high scores globally, creating user accounts, or implementing a site-wide leaderboard – having the PHP structure ready makes integrating these server-dependent features much smoother down the line. For now, the server’s main job is just delivering the HTML structure and the JavaScript that makes Tech-Man run.
From Circle to Character: The Visual Journey
Tech-Man didn’t start looking like the iconic yellow circle-eater. Initially, he might have just been a simple yellow circle (ellipse()) moving around a black background (background(0)). This “placeholder” approach lets us nail down the core movement and boundary logic first.
The real magic happens when we switch to using p5.js’s arc() function. This allows us to draw a partial circle, creating Tech-Man’s characteristic mouth. By dynamically changing the start and end angles of the arc within the draw() loop (based on our animateMouth() logic), we can make him appear to “chomp” as he moves – a small detail that brings the character to life!
Bringing Tech-Man Alive: Gameplay Mechanics
Here’s how the core gameplay came together:
- Basic Movement: The first step was responding to the
keyPressed()event for the Arrow Keys (LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN) and updating Tech-Man’s position variables (pacX,pacY) based on his speed (pacSpeed). - Screen Wrapping: What’s a Pac-Man game without the tunnels? We implemented logic to check if Tech-Man goes off one edge of the canvas and make him reappear on the opposite side, creating that seamless wrap-around effect.
- Chomp Animation: As mentioned, using
arc()and adjusting its angles gives us the classic eating animation, tied to whether Tech-Man is currently moving.
What’s Chomping Next?
This is just the beginning for Tech-Man! Building this foundation has been a blast, showcasing how classic game ideas can be revisited with modern web tools. Here’s what we’re thinking about adding soon:
- Pellets/Dots: The core objective! Adding collectible dots for Tech-Man to eat.
- Power Pellets: The larger dots that let Tech-Man turn the tables.
- Ghosts! Introducing Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde (or our own themed versions!) with basic movement AI.
- Scoring: Tracking points for eaten dots and ghosts.
- Sound Effects: Adding the iconic “waka waka” and other sounds.
- Leaderboard: Like the Dino game, maybe top scores get bragging rights (or gift cards!).
We hope you enjoyed this peek into the development of Tech-Man! It’s another example of how accessible and fun game development can be with p5.js. Give the current version a try and let us know what you think!
Check out our other p5.js creation: Pixel Dino Runner – Desktop Web Edition – Get ready to throw fireballs w/ X key!
