Game Structure

Basic feature

• Mechanism:
  • Pacman eats Beans, count shown on the corner display
  • Pacman eats PowerBeans(PB) pacman can eat ghosts
  • Game Successed: if all beans are eaten Game Failed: if pacman is caughted by the ghosts
• Implementation:
  1. Animation of movement and disappear of pacman and ghost to Synch fps, speed, tick, frame
  2. Pacman and Ghost cannot pass through the wall (movable func)
  3. PB mode last for 10s: Pacman can eat ghosts after eating PB
  4. ghost->status and ghost_move_script
  • FREEDOM (normal status) - random(move freely, w/o joggling) or shortest_path(ghosts chase pacman with shortest path) To change the difficulty of game via modifing this in code, e.g 1/4 is shortest the other is random
  • FLEE: (when in PB mode): if pacman move, ghosts go opposite, if not go random
  • GO_IN (after pacman eats ghosts): ghosts must go back to cage)
  5. user can import the customized map of txt file and load to the code (no GUI, need changing code )
  6. Scene changing: Menu, Game, Settings
  7. Dynamic Memory allocation and release(w/o memory leak)

Advanced feature

1. can customieze 1st pacman control key (text input shown on screen) default 1st pacman KEY is WSAD (can be customized) default 2nd pacman KEY is direction keys(cannot customized)

2. Purple Bean: After pacman eat, it has reversely key contorl that last 10s

3. Collaborate Mode: create 2nd pacman (white): cannot eat bean, but can create wall(press '/') to block the ghosts and assist 1st pacman (yellow)

4. Competition Mode: 2nd player can control ghosts and use direction day to chase 1st player's pacman. Press 'SPACE' can switch to next ghost.

5. Cheat Mode:

   • player 1 press 'C': can turn on "Cheat Mode", in Cheat Mode, press 'S' ghosts stop moving, press 'K' ghosts go back to cage, press 'L' pacman can pass through the wall
   • New: ghost->status and ghost_move_script STOP(S) - when press S CONTROLLED - when press K or L

Allegro 5 Pacman Game Template

Related Links:

• Exercises
• Exercises step-by-step video
• Exercises Template
• Final Code
• Allegro5 Wiki

Installation

Follow the steps here.

• Official Guide
• Linux(Debian)
• Windows
  • Visual Studio: Video
  • Code::Blocks: Video
  • Dev-C++: Video
• Mac OS
  • XCode: Video
• Others

Useful Links

• Official Site

  Allegro - A game programming library

• Documentations

  Allegro 5 reference manual

  Allegro 5.0 reference manual

• GitHub repo of Allegro 5

  Source Code

  Examples

• GitHub repo of I2P(I) final project before 2020 Source Code

Tutorials

C++ Allegro 5 Made Easy

2D Game Development Course

Allegro Game Library Tutorial Series

FAQ

Final Project

• If you want to use GIF images, you can download the plugin algif.

  It can be used like videos after putting the library under your project folder.

• If you want to load MP3 audio, you can try out streaming as mentioned here.

• If you play multiple BGMs or sound effects at the same time, the al_play_sample could fail.

  You can either:

  1. Set RESERVED_SAMPLES to a higher value.
  2. Don't abort if al_play_sample fails.

• Unable to find resources when open the executable file located in ...\bin\ directly.

  You can copy all used resources to the ...\bin folder, since the executable file searches for the resources file located in the same folder.

• Error message: assertion failed ... bitmap_draw...

  A high chance is that you didn't initialize one of your image file before drawing it. e.g.

  ALLEGRO_BITMAP* img;
  ...
  al_draw_bitmap(img, ...);

  The full error message:

  Assertion failed!
  
  Program: <PATH>\final.exe
  File: <PATH>/bitmap_draw.c, Line 140
  
  Expression: bitmap
  

• al_load_bitmap, load_resized_bitmap keeps failing, but I've done nothing wrong.

  Some image files you downloaded from the internet might be in the incorrect format. You can open it in PhotoShop, GIMP, Paint.NET, ... and re-save it as *.png or any format you want. This problem occurs sometime if you are using Chrome, but it doesn't occur if you use Firefox.

  For example: You can try to save this image: http://img1.3png.com/340af8a9dd2e666738f797b6573a963e1e8f.png. Although it says it's a PNG file, but it's actually a JPEG file. If you don't believe it, you can open it in Notepad, Notepad++, ... You'll see the JFIF at the beginning lines, if it's a PNG file, you should see NG.

• Task 1, 2, 3 are independent, you can test the game behavior after finishing each part.

• If your game lags (drop frames), you can comment out the line below:

  #define LOG_ENABLED

• If your game loading time is very long, it is caused by the large music files. You can change the file to other audio, or simply disable (don't load) background music.

• Space key cannot be detected.

  You should change your input from Chinese to English, otherwise the keycode will be different.

Installation Issue on Windows

• LNK2019 or LNK2001 bug in Visual Studio

  • Try turn the option "Project -> Project Property -> Configuration Properties Whole Program Optimization" to "Use Link Time Code Generation

• "\ZI \GL is not compatible" Problem in Visual Studio

  1. Turn "Project Property -> Configuration Properties -> C/C++ -> General -> Debug Information Format" to "none" or others (Just don't include \ZI)
  • Remember to install the Allegro addons by yourself !!

• fopen is not safe ... in Visual Studio

  • Add #define _CRT_SECURE_NO_DEPRECATE/#define _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS at the top of your main.c file.

  • Or you can set it in the Project Settings.
    

• Cannot compile on Visual Studio. (unresolved external symbol...)

  • Remember to check Support C++ Desktop when installing.

    

  • When setting the configuration of Allegro5 plugins, make sure to set in All Configurations and All Platforms.

    

  • When Visual Studio complains the Windows SDK Version / Platform Toolset is not found, choose any downloaded Windows SDK Version and any Platform Toolset. (Make sure the options you chose are installed in your computer)

• Cannot compile on Code::Blocks. For Code::Blocks you should create a project following the tutorial above, and set the project settings to allow C++11.
  The settings are almost the same in other IDEs. For 'abs(float&)' is ambiguous you can change abs to fabs.

• File allegro-5.0.10-monolith-mt-debug.dll is missing in Code::Blocks Find the file allegro/bin/allegro-5.0.10-monolith-mt-debug.dll located inside the unzipped library folder. Copy it to your project folder under bin\Debug. If these folders don't exist, you can create them by yourself, or simply compile and run the code, your IDE will create them for you.

• task_2_ans.c compile error in Code::Blocks.

  error: could not convert 'al_init_font_addon()' from 'void' to 'bool'
  

  Change

  if (!al_init_font_addon())
      game_abort(...);

  to

  al_init_font_addon();

• Header not found using the new version Allegro5.2 in Dev-C++

  fatal error: allegro5/allegro.h: No such file or directory

  The include and library paths assume that you have extracted the library using the built-in Extract All..., and put it into the C drive.

  A way to check if you had put them in the correct path is to see if the include path really exists in the file system.

• Cannot find resource files (when running task_2_ans.c)

  You should drag your files (pirulen.ttf, 32largebugs.jpg) into your project folder (same folder as your main.c or task_n_ans.c).

• Redefinition of ...

  You need to keep only one main function in one project, for example you may have both task_1_ans.c and task_2_ans.c in your project. You should only keep one.

  Or you might accidentally edit the Allgero5 library header, re-installing the library may help.

• When reopen the project, all settings are gone.

  For Code::Blocks you should open the *.cbp file.

  For Dev-C++ you should open the *.dev file. If all files disappear, use Project > Add To Project... and select all files.

• On Code::Blocks Release mode: The Application was Unable to Start Correctly (0xc000007b)

  You should copy both allegro_monolith-5.2.dll and allegro-5.2.dll to your /Release folder.

• I want to hide the console window.

  For Code::Blocks, set the build target type to GUI application.

  

  For Visual Studio, set the Subsystem to Windows (/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS).

  

  For other IDEs there are also such settings.

• In Visual Studio, how to swap between the start up project in Exercises?

  Right-click a project and Set as StartUp Project and recompile.

  

Installation Issue on Mac OS

• (This issue should not occur now) There are OpenGL related bugs in newer version of XCode make sure to use XCode versions prior or equal to 10.3.

  Or you can use a custom Makefile.

• Command not found - brew

  When installing homebrew, it'll ask you to press Return to continue, you must press Enter and type your password to continue installing.

  If you press any other keys, it'll abort the installation process.

• Password are not read by terminal

  The password you type won't be shown on the terminal (it won't have something like ****). You can just type your password and press Enter.

• Cannot find resource files (when running task_2_ans.c)

  You should drag your files (pirulen.ttf, 32largebugs.jpg) into your project.

  

• Redefinition of ...

  You need to keep only one main function in one project, for example you may have both task_1_ans.c and task_2_ans.c in your project. You should only keep one.

  Or you might accidentally edit the Allgero5 library header (e.g. fmaths.inl), re-installing the library using the command below may help.

  brew uninstall allegro
  brew install allegro

• dyld: Library not loaded ...

  You need to brew install allegro on your Mac. For the detailed steps, please refer to the XCode installation guide.

• Suggestion: Legacy Build System

  • If you see some missing error messages, please switch to the legacy build system. Please refer here