I started learning programming last year and have been collecting a few projects on GitHub. One of them is a Pac-Man-inspired game that I made as a final assignment for one of my classes. It features capybaras and crocodiles, and the game is in Portuguese, although there isn't much text to read.
It has been a while since I worked on it, so looking at the project now, I can see several flaws and plenty of room for improvement. The character sprites and some animation transitions especially bother me, but creating and animating everything still took quite a bit of effort.
I would really appreciate feedback on the game and suggestions for improving it. I'm also still unsure about how to organize repositories properly. At the moment, I structure projects in whatever way makes sense to me, but I don't know whether that would be suitable for working with a team. Any advice on repository organization and common GitHub workflows would be helpful too.
4 Answers
Capybara Pac-Man is a fantastic idea, and the game has a charming old-school feel. The movement feels a little floaty, but that is a relatively small issue for a first game. The sprites also give it a lot of personality. For the repository, start with a README explaining what the project is, how to run it, and perhaps include a screenshot. Organizing the code into folders such as src and assets can help too, but you don't need to worry about advanced team conventions until you're actually collaborating with others.
You put a lot of work into this, especially with the art and animation. It makes sense that you would still want to improve some parts, but it is also fine to leave an older project as a snapshot of what you learned at the time. If you revisit it later, fixing the animation timing and adding a few README details would be good high-impact improvements.
Thank you! I would like to make more changes eventually, but I don't have much time for it right now. For the moment, I'm happy that it documents an important stage of my learning.
This has the character of a real 1980s arcade game, in the best way. The visual style feels deliberate and memorable, and finishing a complete Pac-Man-style game is a significant accomplishment for someone early in their programming journey. The ghost behavior and general game structure can be surprisingly challenging, so you should be proud of getting it working.
Once you polish the presentation a little, consider publishing it on a small indie-game platform so other people can try it. A short description, a screenshot, instructions, and a downloadable build would make it much easier for people to play.
My school actually has quite a few capybaras around, so they became an easy choice. I was also uncomfortable with the sprites, but I only drew four frames for each direction. The most noticeable problem to me is the eating animation, where one of the characters jumps a few pixels instead of transitioning smoothly. Thanks for the helpful feedback!