I wanted to review AR-Man quite a long time ago, but I didn’t because it required a large area to play and I wanted to play it in a nice place, not outside my building. I know, not a great excuse, but the good news is that I’ve played it and I’m ready to share my experience with you.
What is AR-Man?
AR-Man is Pac-Man game for iOS, realized in augmented reality (AR). I have to admit that I liked the idea of becoming a Pac-Man in AR.
The goal of the game is to try to collect as much dots as possible by eating all Pac-dots in the maze, gain a higher score and do that without getting eaten by the maze monsters. There are three monsters roaming around the gameplay area. The gameplay area is built like a maze, and it’s up to the player to navigate himself carefully so he can avoid intersecting with the monsters.
There are also Power Pellets that provide Pac-Man with an ability to consume a monster once he intersects with it. This ability is active for a short time after you consume it. It’s better to keep it untouched unless needed.
Unlike the original Pac-Man, in AR-Man, if you get caught by the monster it’s game over—lthere are no lives.
AR-Man features a global leaderboard for “Best Score” and “Best Time”. The best time if for those who are able to complete the game by collecting all dots. I’m actually 1st place in the world with 2,855 points but I wasn’t able to collect all pellets and therefore I don’t appear in the “Best Time” leaderboard. Being first just shows me that not so many people played the game, not that I am a good player or anything.
AR Experience
The design of the game is nice. It spawns a large maze after the initial surface scan. The problem is that there isn’t any way to change the game size. The reason for that is that the game was designed as a room-scale game, with the player playing as Pac-Man and moving within the maze.
This game also adds another mechanic. The player is not allowed to intersect with the maze\s walls. It is an augmented reality (AR) game after all, and this is done to prevent the player from physically crossing the walls and obtaining all dots. In AR-Man, Pac-Man has a health bar. If you touch a wall, your health is reduced and if your health pool is depleted, it’s game over. Of course, the game can’t recognize your physical body, so instead, it positions a 3D ball that represents the player.
Check out this gameplay video.
This design actually has negative implications. When I rotate the device to look around, the ball rotates as well, so the problem is that when I do that, the ball almost always touches one of the walls and I then lose health. I tried looking straight forward while holding the iPad in front of me, but I found myself occasionally intersecting with the walls. So what I did was always look down to see where the ball is positioned, stopping, looking around to see where the ghosts are, and then look down and continue moving.
This just ruined the flow of the game and actually the entire gameplay experience in augmented reality. I was never able to collect all the pellets because it was just too hard to play like that, even very annoying.
The fact that large-scale games are much less accessible, especially when you are required to stand and physically move around, add bad gameplay controls and you can understand why many people probably just uninstalled it after playing it for a few minutes. It would be less frustrating if there were lives, but they aren’t, one mistake and it’s game over.
Maybe adjusting the game’s location when the user intersects with the wall so the player cannot pass through a wall in any way. This might make the game less frustrating but it doesn’t solve the core issue of the game’s design. It’s a big flaw in this game that, in my opinion, it just doesn’t suit Augmented Reality. I really tried giving this game a chance, but I became more and more frustrated and after like 30 minutes I just stopped playing it.
Conclusion
AR-Man turned out to be a very frustrating experience in augmented reality. I am not saying that there isn’t a good way to create a Pac-Man game that will play well in AR, but this isn’t the right way.
The game is just flawed from its core gameplay controls. I love Pac-Man and it will always be one of my favorite classic games of all times. I came to this game open-minded, hoping to enjoy a Pac-Man in a very different way. The sound effects and level design reminded me of the classic game. However, the initial “Wow, this is cool!” reaction turned into a “What the heck is this?!” feeling.
You can play the game without looking down the whole time, but it takes time to get used to, and I think by the time you get used to it, you’ll stop playing this game because of frustration.
If you want my opinion, you can easily skip this game. It’s really not designed well for AR and doesn’t translate to a fun gameplay experience.
You can download AR-Man from the App Store here.