frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

Show HN: Reverse Pac-Man

https://reverse-pacman.staticrun.app/index
78•Eagle64•6mo ago
Keep one eye on the first ghost and the other on the second

Comments

brudgers•6mo ago
I can't see the whole screen on my laptop, and the screen doesn't scroll.
Eagle64•6mo ago
Thanks for the feedback. It is fixed
pmontra•6mo ago
It's one of those things that "why did nobody think about it yet?!"
toast0•6mo ago
Pac-Man Vs. [1] was a commercial game on this wavelength. I don't think I ever played that one.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs.

jaimebuelta•6mo ago
I was going to say the same thing. Pac-Man Vs was incredibly fun and a great party game.
thih9•6mo ago
Fixed link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E

(trailing dot escaped via %2E)

roskelld•6mo ago
One Little Ghost (2012) [1] [2] for the ZX81 is one version I only recently found out about. Figured it was worth mentioning here given how impressive it is for a game on the humble ZX81 machine that's well over 40 years old.

[1] https://bobs-stuff.itch.io/one-little-ghost

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq2hOlC97SQ

iorekz•6mo ago
genius
Eagle64•6mo ago
Haha. I’ll take the compliment.
roskelld•6mo ago
Are you planning on adding the power pills to give Pac Man a fighting chance?

Also, I noticed that he often circles around the upper left area a few times at the start even though there are no dots to collect.

Eagle64•6mo ago
Good idea ! That will add a new cool dynamic. The behavior of the Pac-Man is to avoid the ghost with some random pattern added. This might happen.
xnx•6mo ago
Very cool. Gemini is such a fun tool to do a one-shot MVP of a game like this: https://g.co/gemini/share/7639ee864df7

Gemini wasn't clever enough to disallow ghosts changing directions mid-way, but it did do a smart thing with "pellets remaining" scoring.

Eagle64•6mo ago
Really ? Even if you specify that ghosts can turn only at intersections?
xnx•6mo ago
I'm sure it could. I was very unspecified with my prompt (below). No doubt it could add sound, etc. as well.

Prompt: Create a game of Pacman with only 2 ghosts. Instead of the player controlling pacman, the player controls the ghosts.

Controls: Ghost 1 (Red): WASD or ZQSD Ghost 2 (Cyan): Arrow Keys

amadeuspagel•6mo ago
Awesome. It's mind-bending to control two players. The idea of using arrow keys to control one player and WASD to control another is genius. Maybe you can visualize which is which by coloring the explanatory text.
eesmith•6mo ago
I used to solo play 2-player Gauntlet for the PC this way, back around 1990.

In the 1980s it was pretty common to have 2-player games with both players on the same keyboard.

Edit: Spacewar (see https://archive.org/details/msdos_Spacewar_1985) is an example of a two-player-on-one-keyboard game, from 1985.

redbluething•6mo ago
Yellow Wizard Needs Food Badly!
chrisweekly•6mo ago
Warrior is about to die!

man that takes me back

CloudNetPro•6mo ago
Me and my friends used to play 3 player simultaneously in D-Zone. Obviously we had to be kind with each other about space around the keyboard and about key presses. Still one of the best gaming experiences I ever had.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/69231/destruction-zone/

vunderba•6mo ago
I built a dual snake game where you simultaneously control two snakes a while back, perhaps I should do a Show HN about it at some point.

https://specularrealms.itch.io/the-twins-of-caduceus

Fair warning: It's a game made for people who excel at ambidextrous tasks like patting one's head and rubbing one's tummy, or juggling Rubik's cubes that you are also solving.

KennedyHere•6mo ago
Fun game! From the title, I was expecting to guide Pac-Man to put all the dots back in place.
Eagle64•6mo ago
Haha. I haven’t thought of this. That would be a cool other mode
GlassOwAter•6mo ago
Poo-Man or Puke-Man
xnx•6mo ago
Crap-Man?
vunderba•6mo ago
While that would be amusing, mechanically it would be identical to the original game.
derefr•6mo ago
Not really. Presume that everything is time-reversed, and the game kills you if you do anything not possible when your playback is flipped around and played "forward." Then:

- Obviously, you "emit" dots and fruit and power pellets as you traverse the grid.

- Less obviously, once you populate a dot/fruit/power pellet onto a grid square, you can't visit that position again — as, if reversed, that'd look like you going over those things without collecting them.

- You'd randomly enter the powered-up state, and you'd then have to visit one of the unpopulated power-pellet grid positions in order to emit the power pellet to get out of that state — before the powered-up-state timer expires. (The power-up-state going on longer than that is invalid!)

- While in the powered-up state, you'd see pairs of ghost eyes unavoidably approaching you; they'd touch you, turn into ghosts, and then flee from you. That's fine. But once they become ghosts and move off of the grid-space you occupy, you can't touch them again.

LocalH•6mo ago
Idea for a "challenge mode" on top of that, since this would probably be too hard for casual play:

A series of levels where you are given a score at the beginning. You must find the path around the map that brings your score exactly to zero, using reverse Pac-Man scoring rules (each dot you lay reduces your score by 10, etc). If you reach zero with more dots to lay, or finish laying down all dots without reaching zero, you die (as those would also be invalid states).

Recording input for these challenge runs would be a cool idea too, as you could have the option to watch the run "forwards" for further entertainment. To lessen the difficulty a little bit, the player could even have access to the "forward" version of a run that completes the desired score target (with appropriate bonuses for players who don't utilize the "hint" run).

alnwlsn•6mo ago
For that, you want this rom hack/patch

http://48k.ca/bacman.html

mrighele•6mo ago
Me too, also because I remember playing that kind of game, on a Creativision, more than 40 years ago [1]

[1] https://archive.org/details/Crazy_Chicky_1981_VTL

mtVessel•6mo ago
On FF (similar on Edge):

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to reverse-pacman.staticrun.app. PR_END_OF_FILE_ERROR

Eagle64•6mo ago
Thanks for letting me know. There is a problem with the host. I moved it to itch.io https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man
kmoser•6mo ago
On Firefox it freezes on the keyboard instructions screen for me. Console shows it requires WebGL. Maybe put a message on screen indicating that?
xnx•6mo ago
Would be fun to have dual stick controller support: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Gamepad_API
tantalor•6mo ago
You should make it so user can hold down a key to change direction before they reach the intersection, joystick style.

As it is, it feels like you are checking for key press (not key down) in a narrow window when the ghost reaches the intersection. That is very hard to play. It is much more forgiving if I can press and hold the key whenever I want.

Eagle64•6mo ago
Thank you for the suggestion. Your wish has been granted. It is definitely better like this.
tantalor•6mo ago
Yes! thanks
bentcorner•6mo ago
For anyone interested in this style of gameplay mechanic, the game Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons (steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/225080/Brothers__A_Tale_o...) uses a twin-stick approach to this, and builds puzzles around controlling two "people".

It's a quick play and the game is pretty good, I recommend experiencing it.

bitwize•6mo ago
That game was an emotional journey, man. Very short as these games go, but it hit hard.

And the music was by Gustaf Grefberg, "Lizardking", my favorite oldskool demo musician by a mile.

progforlyfe•6mo ago
It's not loading at all for me. Hug of death?
Eagle64•6mo ago
Even with this link ? https://themarelle.itch.io/reverse-pac-man
narcindin•6mo ago
Reminds me of a demo I played 10 years ago called swap box turbo. Designed for two players, it is a simple platformer where you and your partner swap positions and momentum every 3 seconds.

You can play it single player too and have an experience similar to this.

https://www.freeindiegam.es/2012/12/swap-box-turbo-nifflas/

kazinator•6mo ago
The ghosts don't respond to a key until they encounter to an intersection, so that you cannot reverse direction instantly. Maybe there is a deliberate point to that, but it doesn't make it less annoying.
adamiscool8•6mo ago
I like the concept but shouldn't the score be counting down? Or am I trying to shepherd Pac-Man into eating as many as possible to get a high score?
lostmsu•6mo ago
The game screen is cut on the right when browser window is small.
nprateem•6mo ago
This was why I liked opposing force. Give NPCs their own backstory and make them playable.
staticman2•6mo ago
Nintendo did something like this with "Pacman vs" for GameCube. The multiplayer gimmick was the players controlling the ghosts couldn't see the entire map and the player controlling Pacman could with a Game Boy Advanced linked to the Gamecube.
thih9•6mo ago
The game is also available on nintendo switch and it supports multiplayer with that same gimmick, with two devices.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_Vs%2E

Olmo 3: Charting a path through the model flow to lead open-source AI

https://allenai.org/blog/olmo3
135•mseri•4h ago•25 comments

FAWK: LLMs can write a language interpreter

https://martin.janiczek.cz/2025/11/21/fawk-llms-can-write-a-language-interpreter.html
6•todsacerdoti•33m ago•0 comments

It's Hard to Build an Oscillator

https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/its-hard-to-build-an-oscillator
52•chmaynard•3h ago•28 comments

Nano Banana Pro

https://blog.google/technology/ai/nano-banana-pro/
1063•meetpateltech•19h ago•612 comments

Android and iPhone users can now share files, starting with the Pixel 10

https://blog.google/products/android/quick-share-airdrop/
684•abraham•17h ago•393 comments

WebAssembly from the Ground Up

https://wasmgroundup.com/
117•gurjeet•5d ago•28 comments

FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices

https://fex-emu.com/
204•open-paren•1w ago•77 comments

Show HN: 32V TENS device from built from scratch under $100

https://littlemountainman.github.io/2025/11/17/tens/
23•autonomydriver•3d ago•5 comments

Over-regulation is doubling the cost

https://rein.pk/over-regulation-is-doubling-the-cost
207•bilsbie•12h ago•373 comments

New OS aims to provide (some) compatibility with macOS

https://github.com/ravynsoft/ravynos
229•kasajian•14h ago•114 comments

Hilbert space: Treating functions as vectors

https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2025/hilbert-space-treating-functions-as-vectors/
67•signa11•1w ago•34 comments

Scientists now know that bees can process time, a first in insects

https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/12/science/bees-visual-stimulus-study-scli-intl
11•Brajeshwar•5d ago•5 comments

Data-at-Rest Encryption in DuckDB

https://duckdb.org/2025/11/19/encryption-in-duckdb
180•chmaynard•15h ago•18 comments

Okta's NextJS-0auth troubles

https://joshua.hu/ai-slop-okta-nextjs-0auth-security-vulnerability
303•ramimac•3d ago•116 comments

NTSB Preliminary Report – UPS Boeing MD-11F Crash [pdf]

https://www.ntsb.gov/Documents/Prelimiary%20Report%20DCA26MA024.pdf
176•gregsadetsky•16h ago•191 comments

The Qtile Window Manager: A Python-Powered Tiling Experience

https://tech.stonecharioteer.com/posts/2025/qtile-window-manager/
7•stonecharioteer•3h ago•1 comments

The Lions Operating System

https://lionsos.org
167•plunderer•16h ago•44 comments

Free interactive tool that shows you how PCIe lanes work on motherboards

https://mobomaps.com
210•tagyro•2d ago•47 comments

Show HN: F32 – An Extremely Small ESP32 Board

https://github.com/PegorK/f32
251•pegor•1d ago•43 comments

New Glenn Update

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/new-glenn-upgraded-engines-subcooled-components-drive-enhanced-pe...
168•rbanffy•13h ago•101 comments

Adversarial poetry as a universal single-turn jailbreak mechanism in LLMs

https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15304
300•capgre•23h ago•152 comments

CBP is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with suspicious travel patterns

https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveillance-drivers-ice-trump-9f5d05469ce8c...
715•jjwiseman•15h ago•761 comments

GitHut – Programming Languages and GitHub (2014)

https://githut.info/
76•tonyhb•13h ago•26 comments

Two recently found works of J.S. Bach presented in Leipzig [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hXzUGYIL9M#t=15m19s
150•Archelaos•3d ago•87 comments

Germany: States Pass Porn Filters for Operating Systems

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Youth-Protection-States-Pass-Porn-Filters-for-Operating-Systems-1108...
5•trallnag•9m ago•1 comments

Historical Reasons

https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2025/11/11/historical-reasons-2/
15•speckx•1w ago•4 comments

Show HN: My hobby OS that runs Minecraft

https://astral-os.org/posts/2025/10/31/astral-minecraft.html
181•avaliosdev•3d ago•20 comments

HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops' CPUs

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/11/hp-and-dell-disable-hevc-support-built-into-their-laptops...
11•latexr•1h ago•6 comments

Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC

http://geacron.com/home-en/
322•not_knuth•1d ago•134 comments

Microsoft makes Zork open-source

https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/20/preserving-code-that-shaped-generations-zork-i-i...
571•tabletcorry•16h ago•218 comments