Ultimate Pacman Design

Pac-Man is a classic arcade style game from 1980 developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the U.S. by Bally/Midway. This design is about a Pac-Man like game which is a good first game design activity for high school students with no programming background.

Category

 * Game
 * Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence
 * Math

Objectives

 * make a simple but complete game
 * apply design process to identify objects and interactions
 * computational thinking: basic object interaction, stacks, creating object instances, rule based programming, message sending.

Design
Follow the gamelet design process:
 * Identify game objects, called agents, by locating nouns in the game description.
 * Categorize agents into user controlled agents, agents that move or do other things by themselves (sometimes also called artificial intelligence agents) and completely passive agents acting as props such as the background.
 * Identify agent interactions by locating verbs in the game description.

Tutorials

 * Pac-Man Tutorial: step by step tutorial for building the basic Pac-Man game

Experimental

 * Another version of the Pac-Man Tutorial by Sandy Wilder

Lesson Plans

 * Sample Lesson Plans for a Pac-Man unit

Teaching Material and Handouts
Anna Holen's teaching material and student handouts for the PacMan unit
 * [[Media:TrackPacman Visual.ppt|Teacher prop for explaining diffusion]]
 * [[Media:Collaborative Diffusion.pdf|Collaborative Diffusion handout]]
 * [[Media:Hill Climbing.pdf|Hill-Climbing handout]]
 * [[Media:The_Win.pdf| Implementing winning in PacMan]]

Computational Thinking Patterns

 * Absorb: Pac-Man eats Dots, Power Capsules, Ghosts, Fruit Targets (optional)
 * Collision: Ghost collide with Pac-Man to deflate him
 * Collaborative Diffusion: Ghosts track Pac-Man
 * Generate: Create Fruit Targets (Optional)

Standards
ISTE National Educational Technology Standards:
 * Creativity and	Innovation. design and implementation of a game, create originals works: creating artwork and game levels
 * Critical	Thinking,	Problem	Solving,	and	Decision	Making. Plan	and	manage	activities to	develop	a	solution	or	complete	a	project: follow game design process.
 * Technology	Operations	and	Concepts. understand	and	use	technology	systems: use authoring tool, organized project folder; troubleshoot	systems	and	applications: run, test and debug program.

Grading Requirements, Assessment, Success Criteria, etc.

 * Pac-Man Requirements for Middle School
 * High School Transition Module Pac-Man Requirements
 * Mark Shouldice's success criteria sheet: updated 6/12/2013 ([[Media:Pacman Evaluation Sheet v2.doc|Word file]]) ([[Media:Pacman Evaluation Sheet v2.pdf|PDF file]])
 * Pacman grade sheet by Anna Holen([[Media:Pacman_Rubric_Holen_Group.pdf|PDF file]])
 * Pacman grade sheet by Steve Foster ([[media:Pacman Rubric foster.pdf|pdf]])

Acknowledgements

 * Simulation was built by Alexander Repenning.
 * Minimal / simplified version built by Andri Ioannidou and Ashok Basawapatna.
 * A first version of the AgentSheets pacman was built by Thilo Huebner, now at Electronic Arts
 * Lesson plans by Krista Marshall and Andri Ioannidou