Ghostly

About

Ghostly is a Pac-Man-inspired multiplayer AI programming game where each player writes a bot to control one of four ghosts instead of Pac-Man. Bots connect over a TCP/JSON protocol to eat pellets and, after eating a super pellet, other ghosts, with a "sudden death" monster that appears if a round runs too long. It originated as an AI programming competition (aicompo-tg17) built with Qt.

How it differs from the original

Unlike Pac-Man, there's no single chased player character — instead, all four ghosts are controlled by player-written AI bots, normal ghost-to-ghost collisions simply block movement rather than being fatal, and a ghost that has eaten a super pellet can eliminate others by colliding with them. The game's graphics are drawn from a separate Pac-Man-style asset project and licensed under the GPLv3, distinct from the original arcade game's own assets.

Getting started

A human can also control one ghost directly with the arrow keys, while AI bots connect over TCP (port 54321) using a JSON-based protocol to send movement commands and receive game-state updates. Pre-built Windows binaries are available from the project's releases page.

History

The project began as an entry in the aicompo-tg17 AI programming competition; an early test bot using simple Q-learning is kept in a separate repository, described by the author as mostly of historical interest.

Known issues & limitations

• gameplay: Round ends after 600 game ticks if no winner has been determined; sudden death mode activates with a monster.

Licensing & legal

• The Pac-Man trademark is explicitly disclaimed in the readme as unaffiliated with and not endorsing this project.