01 · Where the idea came from
Every game started with something Sabina liked.
Pac-Man was one of the first video games Sabina remembers playing with her friends at a brewery. She loved racing through the maze, choosing a path quickly, and trying not to get caught.
Later, she tried to turn that feeling into a game she could play in real life. She planned a maze with cardboard and imagined people moving through it like the characters on the screen. It was messy, physical, and super fun.
For this game, Sabina changed the whole world. Pac-Man became a little wolf in a forest. Dots became chicken and ice cream. The ghosts became hunters, and the maze gained mice and ducks that the wolf should protect instead of eat.
02 · Our first plan
We wrote down what the game needed.
Our first plan was short. It listed the characters, actions, rules, and goal. That gave the coding helper enough information to make a first version.
A top-down forest maze with a little wolf controlled by arrow keys, WASD, or large touch buttons.
Chicken worth one point and ice cream worth two. The player begins with ten points and wins by finding every snack.
Mice and ducks that cost one point when the wolf bumps into them, plus hunters that end the run if they catch the wolf.
A reward after every four snacks that slows the hunters for thirty seconds.
Rocket boosts that speed up the wolf and muddy surprises that slow it down for a few seconds.
03 · Parts of the game
Each part has a job.
Engineers often call these parts systems. When we name each system, it is easier to understand what it does and fix it when something goes wrong.
Maze
Where can everyone move?The wolf and hunters move one forest square at a time. Trees make walls, and every open path connects to the rest of the maze.
Snacks
How does the player win?Collect all sixteen chicken and ice cream snacks. Each one adds points, and every fourth snack charges moon magic.
Kindness
Why avoid mice and ducks?They are forest friends, not food. Bumping into one removes it from the path and costs one of the wolf’s points.
Hunters
How does the chase stay exciting?Two hunters choose a path toward the wolf. Moon magic makes each step much slower for thirty seconds.
Surprises
What changes the wolf’s movement?A rocket makes the wolf fast for eight seconds. Mud makes the wolf slow for five seconds, so the next turn matters.
04 · What we changed
We played the game and made it better.
- 1
Remember what made Pac-Man fun
The important part was not copying its pictures. It was the feeling of choosing paths, collecting treats, and being chased through a maze.
- 2
Build Sabina’s forest
We replaced dots with her snack ideas, ghosts with hunters, and plain walls with a moonlit maze made of trees.
- 3
Add a kindness rule
The mice and ducks look tempting in a crowded maze, but touching them costs a point. The player has to look before moving.
- 4
Make four snacks feel special
The fourth snack starts a clear thirty-second moon-magic timer and slows both hunters enough to plan a safer route.
- 5
Change the speed
Rocket and mud surprises make the same maze feel different. One rewards quick reactions; the other asks for patience.
05 · What we learned
Thinking like an engineer
A game can be inspired by another game without copying its world. We kept the part Sabina loved—the maze chase—and rebuilt every character, reward, mistake, and power-up around her wolf story. Her cardboard version mattered too: it showed that a game begins with rules and imagination, not with a screen.
Talk about it together
Questions you can ask while you play
- Which parts of a favorite game are feelings or rules, and which parts belong to its characters and art?
- How slow should a hunter become so the reward feels powerful but the game stays exciting?
- Where should a duck or mouse stand so avoiding it requires a real choice?