I Built Pac-Man in ~150 Lines of Vanilla JavaScript

A developer built a fully playable Pac-Man clone in about 150 lines of vanilla JavaScript, using a text-based maze, grid movement, and simple greedy ghost AI. The entire game logic relies on array lookups rather than a physics engine, with collision detection reduced to a single character check. The project demonstrates that classic arcade mechanics can be implemented with minimal code.

Pac-Man looks like it needs serious AI and a physics engine. It needs neither — a maze stored as text , grid movement, and ghosts that just step toward you. About 150 lines of vanilla JavaScript. 🟡 Play it: https://dev48v.infy.uk/game/day11-pacman.html https://dev48v.infy.uk/game/day11-pacman.html js const MAZE = " "," ... "," . . " ; // = wall, . = pellet Everything — movement, collision, pellets, ghost moves — is a lookup into this grid. The whole level is data you can edit by typing. if MAZE pac.y+dy pac.x+dx == " " { pac.x += dx; pac.y += dy; } That one check IS your collision system. No pixel math. Store a wanted direction separately; switch to it when that way opens. That tiny buffer is the difference between responsive and stiff controls. if grid y x === "." { grid y x = " "; score += 10; pellets--; } When pellets hits 0, the maze is cleared. From a ghost's legal moves, pick the one closest to Pac-Man plus a little randomness so you can escape . Greedy distance-minimising is surprisingly menacing. A text maze + grid steps + greedy ghosts = the whole arcade icon. Play it https://dev48v.infy.uk/game/day11-pacman.html — the "Understand" tab walks each step.