Roguelike Power Pellets

I have implemented the Pacman power pellets in my Roguelike game RoguePac. Initially I wanted the pellets to be round. But they were too hard to see in the maze. So I used "x" to mark the spot. Ghosts change their symbology when the player runs over the power pellet.

I let the ghost still chase the player, even when they are afraid. The played can just kill them with one hit then. I also let the ghosts respawn afraid. Makes my life easier. Also allow the ghosts to consume the power pellets themselves. They don't get any special powers. I just did not bother to implement a smart redraw to put the power pellets back after the ghosts ran over them.

There was some tricky updates to make sure all ghosts show them new afraid symbol. At first I thought I could just let the ghost move routine take care of it. But sometimes ghosts get stuck in the maze and do not move. So I wanted to make sure those ghosts changed their symbols too. So I just call a routine to force redraw of all ghosts when either a pellet is eaten, or the timer is up.

Now I am looking forward to determining how the player wins the game. I have been toying with the idea of a player leveling up to a certain level. That is not hard to code. It might feel lacking to the player. I figure they might want a more noble quest. I will sleep on it.

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