Workshop › Pac-Man-style Maze Chase › Step 32 of 42

Caught!

What we are doing

After everyone has moved, compare the player's drawn position with each ghost that is out of the house. Closer than 0.6 tiles is a catch: one life less and everyone back to the start, or, with no lives left, the game is over.

```js
function caught() {
  lives -= 1
  if (lives > 0) {
    placeActors()
    return
  }
  state = 'over'
}

  const p = position(player)
  for (const g of ghosts) {
    if (g.waiting > 0) continue
    const q = position(g)
    if (Math.abs(p.x - q.x) + Math.abs(p.y - q.y) > 0.6) continue
    caught()
    return
  }
```

What it means

• The distance is |dx| + |dy| in tiles (walking distance on the grid), cheap and good enough here.
• Ghosts still in the house are skipped.
• After caught, return stops the frame: everyone has just been placed again.

Your turn

1. Above the key listener, write caught.
2. At the end of update, after an empty line, write the catch loop.

Skills: Collision detection, Game states

← Three lives Game over →

All steps

1. The maze as text
2. The game loop
3. Draw the walls
4. A set of pellets
5. Draw the pellets
6. The player
7. Where can you walk?
8. What a mover remembers
9. One frame of movement
10. Move every frame
11. Turns you can press early
12. Glide between tiles
13. Turn back at once
14. Swipes on a phone
15. Eat the pellets
16. Show the score
17. Clear the maze
18. A red ghost
19. A ghost never turns back
20. The ghost walks
21. The ghost hunts you
22. Four ghosts in the house
23. One by one out of the house
24. Scatter or chase?
25. Every ghost to its corner
26. Pink cuts you off
27. Orange is shy
28. Cyan works with red
29. Wait for the first key
30. Tell the player to start
31. Three lives
32. Caught!
33. Game over
34. Play again
35. Frighten the ghosts
36. Power pellets work
37. Scared ghosts wander slowly
38. Eat a scared ghost
39. Blue, then flashing
40. Harder levels
41. A best score that lasts
42. Build it yourself: the slow tunnel