Playing Dodge-Ghost

Inspiration

I came late for this week’s MadDesigners.org game jam and the theme was already chosen — “inspired by Pac-Man.” I will admit that the idea of a game jam theme that was based on an existing game struck me as dangerously prescriptive, but then decided that it just made it that much more of a challenge to try to avoid simply recreating Pac-Man.

There weren’t a lot of people at the jam because many were still in San Francisco for this year’s Game Developers Conference, so I worked alone on it.

Game Elements

• avoiding ghosts
• collecting dots
• big dots as “ghost shields (of sorts)
• fruit for points
• confined space

Thought Process

I wanted it to be fun and active, so actively resisted my initial thoughts of using a grid board (Checkers, or Go) and basically recreating the screen. And I wanted it to be a multi-player, group game because I like those. I also wanted it to have simple rules because one of the things that I’m learning through these game jams is that people like “simple rule sets that generate maximum possibility space.” In Pac-Man, the most basic idea is to avoid the ghosts (a variation of the game of tag).

More inspiration

Along the way you can’t really help but collect dots, which you quickly notice gives you more points (variation of basic hoarding instinct). Then you see fruit, which looks yummy and different enough that you go for it. All these things are pretty basic.

Core Idea

I was not a huge Pac-Man fan or player (i.e. I sucked at it). It seemed too much of a reflex game for my skill set. And when I watched others, I almost always rooted for Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde — so I wanted to make the ghosts central to whatever game I designed this week. And when I thought of ghosts I thought of the tissue ghosts I made as a kid for Halloween which looked a bit like Badminton birdies, which could be launched fairly effectively at others, which led me to the game of Dodge-Ghost.

Prototyping

The problem with Tissue Ghosts is that they’re a bit fragile, so I made a few prototypes out of paper towels, tissue, etc. and didn’t really find anything that worked well. I then rooted around the building for ideas, and found a load of pallet-wrapping plastic in the trash on the loading dock — tough, flexible, recycled, and ghostly translucent! So I made a few little ghosts out of it and threw them across the room. They flew too fast and accurate; I needed to figure out how to make them a bit more unwieldy to even out the skill levels among players (one of the big problems with dodgeball was that it was all about throwing and catching skill, and didn’t have enough of the element of chance in it). So I made the ghost heads much lighters and made their “tails” more uneven and fluffy. That slowed them down some, and added some erratic flight to them (ghosts never travel in straight lines, right? They always waver around)

I made six or so smallish ghosts before I realized that I still had a LOT of plastic wrap that I wasn’t using, and since the ghosts in Pac-Man are roughly the same size as the Pac-Man, I decided it might be fun to make them bigger. Bigger ghosts are also slower and easier to see coming at you. And since they’re made of plastic wrap, they probably wouldn’t hurt when flung. I decided to limit the ghosts to 12 and make them much bigger.

Supporting Ideas (and eventual game-play)

The largest ghost (~3' tall)

My first vision was just a snowball fight across a table, and once you got hit, you were out. But that seemed too simple, and not “Pac-Man”-y enough. I added the idea that teams should have to pick up dots (poker chips), and an occasional fruit thrown down by the game-master. Then, since the table in the room were playing in was huge (12′ x 18′), and sturdy, I decided to make one player from each side the Pac-Man whose job it was to ‘eat dots while avoiding ghosts,’ and made the others on the team the Ghost-Tossers who threw ghosts at the opposing team’s Pac-Man. Instead of the big dots, which in the console version made the ghosts vulnerable, I gave the Pac-Man a small (6″ diameter) shield to deflect ghosts with, and had the game-master occasionally throw down a gold coin, which gave the Pac-Man the count of seven “Ms. Pac-Man” (instead of “Mississippi”) to be invincible to the attacks of ghosts, and be able to focus on picking up dots.

When a Pac-Man gets hit, he or she gets off the table, deposits dots into the bank, and hands the shield to the next player who becomes the Pac-Man and hops on the table to collect dots. The previous Pac-Man becomes a Ghost Tosser and picks up dots in competition with the opposing team’s Pac-Man, while dodging ghosts and looking for the golden coin that gives a few seconds of invincibility.

Winning

The game ends when all the dots are picked up. The most dots wins. Next time I think we’d make the gold coins worth more, and throw in fruit, but we didn’t do it in this first iteration.

The trial game ended 103 to 97. Most were tired. The Clydes won.