Comments on: The Pac-Man (J.M. Stark)

By: thecreepyhour

thecreepyhour — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 14:08:27 +0000

I don’t care much about pacman-related nostalgia, but I really like the level design here. Sometimes though, the seemingly random movement of the ghosts make the levels a bit less skill-based puzzles and more “try the same thing until it works” (“Grid of consumption” comes to mind). But overall I think it works pretty well. And the narrator is awesome.

By: nobody

nobody — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:54:49 +0000

Yeah, agreed. (Are more interesting elements introduced after the power pellets? I’ve stopped there for now, and wasn’t sure I’d end up coming back to this.)

I also found myself wishing the neat and stylish story/map elements could have been incorporated into the gameplay. The game itself — in its dot-collecting, ghost-avoiding purity (at least in the first 10 levels or so) can’t help but be a let down after the promises the surrounding material seems to make.

It’s silly to pose this as a critique, but this makes me think I’d really like a Pac-Man game in which the dot-collecting gameplay itself takes place in an explorable world.

By: Joe Larson

Joe Larson — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 02:23:15 +0000

Been playing this for a week now and it’s super challenging but I’m really enjoying it. Good pacman.

By: JDM

JDM — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:56:26 +0000

Not to be overly critical! Sorry if that’s the tone and you read this, J.M. Stark. It’s a good game. I like it. I just am in a giving-notes kind of mood.

By: JDM

JDM — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 03:47:57 +0000

There are a lot of things I like about this game. At first it felt a little off-putting to be playing a Pac-Man game where scores and combos weren’t even a thing, but the idea of repurposing Pac-Man to a strict level- and environment-design focus is interesting. And some novel things are done that I really like so far.

Like Aquin, I wish it was a little faster about its escalation, and I wish it was a little faster overall. The ghost behaviors also really throw me off. They always move as fast as me, even when they’re vulnerable. Their movement patterns seem unpredictable in a way original Pac-Man’s never were, which in combination with the speed adds frustration to the otherwise very interesting idea about playing with goals.

The cynicism of the narration also put me off from the start, but I’ve found a lot of things to like about this. It’s super-slick in every kind of good way in its presentation. The music is really good, and a lot of the ideas are really quite interesting.

By: Antoine

Antoine — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:45:47 +0000

Zip file doesn’t work here (Linux).

By: Aquin

Aquin — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:16:53 +0000

I wish the game had less levels and brought in the new elements every level or two instead of every three or four. It’s crazy slow in two senses.

Still, I like da pacmans.

By: TomSmizzle

TomSmizzle — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:33:50 +0000

I like the presentation and the transitions and the hints of story a lot, but as L says, it’s a little slow. Definitely that was the problem with Pacman that Championship Edition solved, and this has gone back on. Pretty as hell, though!

By: L

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:20:57 +0000

While this has the same flaws as the real Pac-Man has (it’s too slow) this is nonetheless a slick production that (barring the hyper-cynical narrator) feels like something Namco could’ve made, but didn’t.