I started learning programming last year and have been collecting a few projects that I'm proud of. One of them is a Pac-Man recreation I built as a final assignment for a class. It has capybaras and crocodiles in place of the original characters, and the game is in Portuguese, although there isn't much text to read.
It's been a while since I worked on it, so looking back, I can see several flaws and plenty of room for improvement. I'd really appreciate feedback on the gameplay, visuals, and overall presentation. One issue I already notice is that some character animations are a little awkward, especially the transition when eating items, where a sprite appears to jump a few pixels.
I'm also still unsure about good project organization and version-control practices. At the moment, I structure my repositories in whatever way makes sense to me, but I'm not sure whether that would work well for a team. Any advice on organizing a small game project, writing a useful README, or using a better workflow would be welcome.
2 Answers
The capybara theme is fantastic, and the sprites are genuinely charming. The movement feels a little floaty, but that’s a relatively small issue for a first game—finishing a complete Pac-Man-style game is already a serious accomplishment. For the repository, start with a clear README that explains what the project is, how to run it, and includes a screenshot or short gameplay description. That alone makes a project much easier for others to understand. You can also separate folders such as assets and src if everything is currently in one place. Team practices like branches, pull requests, and issue tracking are easier to learn once you’re collaborating on a real project, so there’s no need to overcomplicate things while working alone.
This has a surprisingly strong retro-game feel, and I mean that in a good way. It looks like it has its own personality rather than being just a technical clone. The capybara and crocodile idea gives it a memorable identity, and the fact that you actually shipped a playable game is something to be proud of. Publishing it on a game-hosting site could also be a nice way to let more people try it without having to set everything up themselves.
Thanks a lot! The project took quite a bit of effort at the time, especially drawing and animating all the characters. I’d still like to fix the sprite transition and make other improvements, but I haven’t had much time lately.