Supplemental notes for Paccy
============================

Paccy was written as a programming exercise.  Unfortunately, late on in
development it became apparant that adding more code to the program was
slowing the whole program down, just by the size of the code.

I moved a few routines around so that they were closer to related 
routines.  This caused the jumps around the program to lessen, and 
sped the whole thing up slightly.

If you notice any slowdown in the game, please try to tie it down to a 
certain event or part of the game and email me at marc.gale@ntlworld.com
so that I can address the issue.

A few features that I added, but had to remove due to this slowdown 
included:

 o - Animated High Score table
 o - Fading status message showing the bonus points given for stealing 
     a cloak from a ghost (200, 400, 800, 1600)
 o - An options screen allowing the player to customise the game with
     options such as altering the AI for each ghost, setting the starting
     map, whether the maps should cycle in sequence, or be chosen randomly.

Ghost AI
========

Paccy has four seperate AI, one for each ghost.  The ghosts and their AI 
are detailed below.

Red    : Aggressor   : Takes most direct route to player
Purple : Interceptor : Take most direct route to junction player is heading towards
Blue   : Loiterer    : Hangs around the central portion of the maze
Orange : Roamer      : Ambles around without any real purpose

Only the Red and Purple ghosts will hit the player intentionally.  The other two
ghosts will only hit the player by accident.

Designing Maps
==============

Paccy works from very simple map designs, and makes them more interesting as it
processes them.  The simple map design means that they can be modified and added 
to very easily.

A route overlay is also created for the ghosts to follow.  Again, this is done from
the basic level design, so the level designer doesn't have to worry about it.

Every map is 28 squares along by 31 squares high.  If an edge square is an empty 
space, it is treated as a tunnel to the other side.  Make sure that there is a 
matching empty square on the other side of the map.

When designing a map, use the following symbols.

% : solid wall
. : yellow dot
o : power pill
C : Paccy start square
  : Blank square (space)
- : Door to ghost home
5 : Ghost 1 home square
6 : Ghost 2 home square
7 : Ghost 3 home square
8 : Ghost 4 home square

Ghost homes can be placed wherever you like, but the doors into them have to be 
horizontal if you want it to look nice.  I didn't add the vertical doors.  Maybe
in a later version...

If you add a new map, make sure you increase the maxlevels value at the start of the
initialise procedure.

Wrapping Up
===========

I'm quite disappointed that I couldn't add more to Paccy without the speed suffering.

At least in it's current guise, the game remains playable.  Have fun with it.

Marc Gale
(Xalthorn)