GPAC Dementia Defender +3CD - A Pac-Man nutritional clone on the C64, reviewed!

Throughout the years there have been many Pac-Man games mentioned on Indie Retro News, from the Pac-Man Xtreme romhack, to Jr. Pac-Man on the Intellivision and even a Pac-Man game on the Pico-8. Each of these vary in style from the 1980's hit classic, but GPAC Dementia Defender +3CD released recently on the C64 by Laxity with development by GRay Defender, features a far more nutritional scope to the original game.

GPAC Dementia Defender is dedicated to the developer's Mother and Uncle who sadly both lost their lives due to Cancer. This game has a health theme which reminds people to eat healthily and avoid as many potential Toxins as possible. So how does that work exactly in this Pac-Man clone? Well in this game you play as GPAC, a former MD who over the years has suffered with a poor diet due to spending most of his time looking after Dementia patients through his own practice. So the only way to get his health back in check, is by breaking into the nutritional centre and collecting as many supplements and vitamins dots as possible.

But here's with the fun begins, as throughout the game you must avoid your internal demons ( ie the ghosts ) or your health will be affected. Also if you take too long and you don't get the vitamins in time, the doors will be closed and the nutritional value of the vitamins and supplements will start to diminish, hence a lower score. So how do you win this game? Well as it's a clone of Pac-Man, you have to make sure to collect all the dots and grab the major scoring vitamins to deal damage to the Demons(Ghosts), Once that's all done, it's on to the next harder level, although the level design on my play through didn't change.

Overall GPAC Dementia Defender is a very nice game with a great theme to the original Pac-Man, especially with the Laxity trainer, the only thing letting it down is the dominant grey pallet and the lack of in game music.

Links : 1) Source 2) Download