PacDessert1436.MonoGame.StartKitVB 1.0.0

PacDessert1436.MonoGame.StartKitVB - Devour-Man: Eat Seeds & Plant a Forest!

Overview

Devour-Man is a minimal viable game template built with VB.NET for MonoGame, inspired by Pac-Man. Players collect seeds to grow a forest and dodge patrolling insects.

This project offers a working starting point for making MonoGame games in VB.NET - with a clean structure, event-driven states, and super-simple geometric placeholder art - ideal for rapid prototyping, learning, and extending. The template is an "early spring planting" - a community-starter seed for learning and exploring MonoGame with VB.NET.

Note: This is a minimal viable template, currently supporting only the MonoGame DesktopGL platform. It is unfinished and intended for education or prototyping - not for shipping production games as-is!

Features

• Pac-Man-like Gameplay: Collect seeds for points, grow a forest, avoid hazards
• Simple Controls: Arrow keys or WASD for movement, Enter to start/retry
• Basic Score System: Tracks score, seeds, and trees planted
• Game States: Title, running game, and game over/restart support
• Procedural Level: Seeds and enemies spawned randomly every game
• Minimalist Graphics: Circles/squares - easy to replace/skin with your own sprites later!
• Clean Source: Code organized for easy extension. Modern event/state management for beginners.

Platform Support

• Tested and designed for: MonoGame DesktopGL (Windows/Linux/Mac)
  • Mobile and UWP are not supported out-of-the-box (host layers are C#; core gameplay is VB.NET).
  • For mobile or other platform adaptations, additional work is required!

Installation (as a .NET Template)

1. Install from NuGet:

   dotnet new install PacDessert1436.MonoGame.StartKitVB::1.0.0
   

   Or, if you have the .nupkg locally:

   dotnet new install ./PacDessert1436.MonoGame.StartKitVB.1.0.0.nupkg
   

2. Create a new project:

   dotnet new mgstartkit-vb -n MyDevourManGame
   cd MyDevourManGame
   

3. Build & Run:

   dotnet build
   dotnet run
   

If you run into path or .NET SDK issues, see the MonoGame and .NET CLI documentation or check dependencies listed on the MonoGame website.

How to Play

1. Press ENTER at the title screen
2. Move: Arrow keys or WASD (desktop keyboard)
3. Collect Seeds (green): For every 10, plant a tree!
4. Avoid Insects (red): Touching them ends your run
5. Earn Points: Seeds and trees both increase your score
6. Restart: Press ENTER after Game Over

Project Structure

• GameMain.vb - Game loop & main logic
• Actor.vb - Entity base classes (Player, Enemy, Seed, Tree)
• Essentials.vb - Game constants, config, and state management
• Content/Fonts/GameFont.spritefont - Only required asset (UI font)
• LICENSE - BSD 3-Clause License and usage terms

Customization & Extending

You can easily:

• Change Colors/Sprites: Swap geometric drawing for your own images, update sprite fonts, etc.
• Tweak Difficulty: Adjust constants in Essentials.vb (player speed, enemy speed, size, etc.)
• Add Features: More enemy types, powerups, sound, high-score system - start building your arcade!
• Port to Other Platforms: Advanced users can rework the host/deployment layer for mobile if desired (requires C# interop).

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Open issues or PRs to:

• Improve art/assets or add new sprites/UI
• Generalize the template for other platforms
• Clean up/documentation help
• Bug fixes and suggestions

License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See the LICENSE file for details.