A Cocktail Of Classics: PACAPONG

Stop me if you've heard this one before. Pac-Man, a Pong paddle and a Space Invader walk into enter a bar. The barman asks "why the long faces?" and the Pong paddle says, "these aren't faces, they are sentient creatures and they are my friends." He adds that he wouldn't categorise either 'face' as long.

PACAPONG is the game that happens when the three of them have a few drinks and then go home and put their bits inside one another. It's extremely good.

Made as part of the current Mini Ludum Dare, which takes Pong as its theme, PACAPONG is two paddles, one ball-shaped creature, a maze, some ghosts, a few power pills, alien invaders and hours of two-player joy. You'll have to play huddled around a keyboard but the game is so simple to pick up you could probably pay with your cat. Hell, it's so simple you could probably play with your dog.

It's devilishly clever in its simplicity though. On one level it's Pong with a tweak to the pacing that allows for smarter tactical play, but it's also a mechanically astute rewiring of three iconic slices of gaming history.