Super Pac-Mon Alpha

1997 · MS-DOS · Commodore 64 · JessCREATIONS*,Co.'s

History: "Super Pac-Mon" is based on Namco's "Super Pac-Man", a sequal to the enormously popular "Pac-Man" series that (oddly enough) never caught on with players. In fact, it was so overshadowed by the original and "Ms. Pac-Man" that nobody bothered to translate it to the more popular home game systems. True, there were a few computer versions, including ones for the C64 and IBM PC by Doc Shloopie's Big Thunder Prune Juice- er, Thunder Mountain, and a Atari 400 prototype which is enjoying fair success on the grey market as a bootleg, but none of these games are readily accessible. That's why I've decided to take a crack at translating the game myself. The Scenerio: As usual, Pac-Man's running around in a maze, cramming everything that's not nailed down into his vacuous gullet. This time, however, everything's been super-sized... the dots are gone, replaced by the food targets which graced the center of the screen in the first game, and there are light green steroid pills which bloat Pac-Man to three times his normal size. Even the play mechanics are more complex... Pac-Man's got to open doors with keys strewn about the maze, and the center target acts as a slot machine which awards luckier players with huge point bonuses. Like the previous games, there are intermissions every three rounds, but these are accompanied by bonus rounds which allow Pac-Man to race through the maze without being persued by monsters. And... that's about it, really. So, How Do I Play The Demo? Simply type SPACMAN at the A:\ prompt and you're there, dude! 386 owners may want to note that the game will play rather slowly with all four monsters... I know this because I'd designed it on a 386SX-20 and found myself toggling off three of them to alphatest it. I *could* pull a Kurt Dekker on you and force you to play the game at its usual speed, but since I know what you're going through, I've added an option which will allow you to toggle off up to three of the persuing monsters. Just press 1, 2, or 3 at the load screen and that's how many enemies there'll be for the duration of your alphatesting (in other words, if you toggle off monsters, you'll have to exit the game with ESCAPE and reload SPACMAN to regain them). Conversely, if you own one of those ridiculously fast Pentiums, simply press "d" (note that this is a lower-case "d") and the game will add a 1/50th second delay to the main loop. This delay works from the PC's internal timer, not a dummy FOR/NEXT loop, so it should run at a reliably uniform pace on all newer PC models. It's been my experience that the game runs best on a 486DX-33 with the delay turned off, however. How Much Of the Game Is Finished? Technically, all of the actual game is finished, and is completely playable. I need to hammer out some bugs, add options screens and intermissions, and somehow implement a super speed button (this has been giving me problems). Also, I *may* add SoundBlaster and joystick support when I update the finished product. I'll probably have to better structure the game too, 'cuz as it is the source code's a COMPLETE mess. Controls: You can control Pac-Man with the directional keys. I highly recommend turning off NUM LOCK and using the rosette located on the numeric keypad... this set- up more closely approximates the joystick control of the Namco original than the T-bar on newer keyboards. The coin-op had a speed up button, and I'm afraid to say that this feature is not yet a part of "Super Pac-Mon". It may be added to the beta version of the game, but unlike "Super Pac-Man", the button used to activate Super Pac-Man's speed bursts will most likely toggle them on and off. Also, for the best results, you may want to press the direction keys in anticipation of turns instead of holding them down or waiting for the exact moment to make your move. Scoring: You're giving the following points for the following items: FOOD TARGETS: POWER UPS AND ITEMS: Apple- 10 Key- 50 + opens 1-3 doors Banana- 20 Energizer- 50 + power up Donut- 30 Steroid Pill- 100 + super power up Burger- 40 Jackpot Prize- 200 or 2000 Fried Egg- 50 Melon- 60 BLUE MONSTERS: Coffee- 70 Cake Slice- 80 1st: 200 2nd: 400 Maguro Sushi- 90 3rd: 800 4th: 1600 Cherries- 100 You'll get points for any remaining time in the bonus rounds, too (although that's usually not much).