Age of Pacman by Linus
Age of Pacman is a mix between the genres RTS, Arcade and Tower Defense and is a game created for #LD41.

Controls (similar to Age of Empires):
- Click with the mouse on the minmap to move viewport or scroll with the mouse in the screen edges or use arrow keys or ASWD. Hold middle mouse button to scroll in the direction of the mouse.
- Drag mouse with left button down to select.
- Click mouse right button to move/attack target (you can also right click on the minimap).
- ESC to pause game.
Objective (reverse Tower Defense):
- Take down towers with units before the timeout runs out (the blue bar shown at each tower) to gather additional units.
Tips
- Never attack a tower with only a single unit, the tower can easily kill single units.
- Focus on the towers that have stood the longest.
- It is all about map control, spread your units in groups and use the minimap actively.
Tools used:
- Unity3D
- MonoDevelop
- Gimp
- Aseprite
- http://sfbgames.com/chiptone/
- Game Jam Menu
- dreamlo.com
- Music from Jukedeck - create your own at http://jukedeck.com.
patch 1.0.4: fixed minimap selection and leaderboard names. patch 1.0.5: ported to MacOS and WebGL
| HTML5 (web) | https://gamejolt.com/games/aop/335188 |
| Windows | https://gamejolt.com/games/aop/335188 |
| macOS | https://gamejolt.com/games/aop/335188 |
| Linux | https://gamejolt.com/games/aop/335188 |
| Other (web) | https://youtu.be/SfEl3T5n0ng |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/age-of-pacman |
Ratings
| Overall | 371th | 3.341⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 338th | 3.288⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 545th | 2.951⭐ | 43🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 602th | 2.95⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 375th | 3.179⭐ | 44🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 228th | 3.175⭐ | 42🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 319th | 2.703⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 308th | 3.09⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 39🗳️ | 49🗨️ |
If you have time, check out my entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/golden-beak-golf :)
I rate your game, if I can give a game in my game, Witch's Escape.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape
When several towers spawn it becomes interesting because you need to split your unit to lower the damage
Your pathfinding AI is pretty good and the behaviour of the units is really good too. With a pacman / rts mix, i would think about adding some ghost, and have to find a way to reach some gold nuggets to fight them
So, nice job in mechanic for a game jam, but you can take your theme farrer : D
Here's our game, if you wanna take a look : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/blocksnblaster-1
@ElusiveMilestone thanks for playing! It was hard to balance the game so it isn't too hard in the beginning but the game becomes hard very quickly after the 2 minute mark. :grin:
@Lerg that's unfortunate, can you tell me about your hardware so I can maybe fix this issue? Thanks!
@silkworm_sweatshop thanks for the constructive feedback. I'm hoping to make an improved version of this game with more mechanics and other towers + upgrades but a lot of the focus went into the unit selection mechanic and formation. Also, the "wakka wakka" sound effect would be really fun to have :grin:
@Jin9310 thanks for playing. Really glad that you liked the idea, I hope to update the game with new features and maybe create a full RTS someday :smiley:
The user interface is simple, yet slightly unoptimal; I’m talking about group selection. The selection rectangle is an RTS classic, but in a hectic title such as this one it is arduous and prone to mistakes.
The minimap already groups pacmen together so why not allow double clicking one of them to select the whole group? Another possibility is showing a button over each group in the world, which acts as a hotkey for selecting the group (one of the few good features in Supreme Commander 2, btw.)
The battle music is pretty darn catchy for a tune made by an algorithm. The sound effects are nothing special yet functional. The menu scene looks and sounds different than the battle scene which is weird; the wireframe retro graphical style is good, so why not use that in the menu too? The visuals remind me of Darwinia and Multiwinia. You should play those if you haven’t already.
Good work in all.
Double clicking on groups on the minimap should probably have been part of the game though. I'll keep these things in mind if I decide to make a full RTS game based on this.
Thanks for the game recommendation, I'll check out Darwinia and Multiwinia.
Good job taking the first place on the leaderboard by the way :grin:
Had to go to the game page > play game to get it to work.
Not sure if link expired or something but just letting you know this.
Anyways, about the game.
I really loved the graphics, wire frame style graphics look really cool and retro as heck :D loved it. Pacman is always great to see, fits well with the retro style graphics.
I was really into it as I love strategy games of this style, super fun super enjoyable very nicely put together! well done!
2 suggestions / complains
1- i'd love to see some kind of SELECTION thing... like when I drag I'd like to see what exactly i'm about to select... some kind of indicator, like all strategy games have. (but i understand you probably didn't have time to implement that
2- faster moving camera without having to click on the map to move the camera fast.
got to 12th place i think? maybe 11th, can't remember anymore :D fun stuff anyways!
@vkmicro it seems that the token for the HTML5 expires and there is no permalink, so accessing the game via gamejolt is probably the only way. Glad you liked the game, thanks for the feedback!
Drawing a selection box when dragging was something I wanted to implement but kept procastinating it so it never happen, it will be the first thing I will implement if I make a post-jam version of this game :grin:
I miss the selection box, I found out by accident that you can select multiple pacmen at once.
Another thing that bugs me is that when you click on the mini map, it is not centered, the bottom part of the screen will be at that position so you always have to click BELOW your point of interest.
Why is the game 47 MB large, I can only imagine that it is because of the music. You could compress it and probably make it mono instead of stereo?
I like the simple 3D graphics, the height field seems not to change the physics but it looks nice :-)
Overall a very cool game, keep up the great work!
Anyway, thanks for the tips. I will keep those things in mind if I do a post-jam version of this game.
An "easy mode" could just be making the time you get for each tower be a bit higher. :slight_smile: