| Maze Games |
New and varied life-forms now inhabit the Pacman maze. John Gilbert investigates.
PACMAN is part of what the video historians like to call the arcade maze craze. The game is set in a maze where a hungry little round creature eats dots and power pills scattered through the corridors. The monsters are ghosts which hunt the little man and will eat him if he is not agile enough to escape.
If, however, the Pacman eats a power pill it can chase and eat the ghosts. The original game was introduced to the home computer market by Atari, primarily on its VCS video system and then on the 400 and 800 computers.
The first versions for other computers, variously called Puckman, Gobbleman and Scoffer, arrived shortly afterwards and since then new versions have been released almost every month.
Not surprisingly, the ZX-81 did not escape the craze. The authors of Zuckman, from DJL Software, claim that it is the first version of Pacman for the ZX-81. The game runs in 16K and is written in machine code, which gives the scrolling routines and Pacman a smooth movement. That is something unusual on the ZX-81, as most games flicker slightly.
The game adheres as closely as possible to the original and the limited graphics of the ZX-81 do not matter much. One snag with playing the game on the ZX-81 is the membrane keyboard. Moving a Pacman around the screen using it can be difficult but not impossible.
At the beginning of Zuckman the ghosts speed on their victim and if you panic trying to find the keys and do not press them properly you are liable to lose a Pacman or crash the machine. Once you have a fair idea of the game, however, it is surprising how quickly you can move the Pacman around.
Zuckman is available for £5.95 on the 16K ZX-81 and Spectrum. Super Glooper is a version of Pacman, also for the 16K ZX-81, which is retailed by Sinclair Research. Glooper's task is slightly different from normal. Instead of gorging himself with power pills he has to paint the maze. Obviously the ghosts will not tolerate Glooper's antics - perhaps they do not like the smell of paint. The ghosts will try to kill Glooper as usual but if he can get round the maze and paint all the walls you have won.
The game is very amusing and is well worth £4.95. The program will load in less than two minutes, so you will not have to wait six minutes to play the game.
The launch of the Spectrum provided software houses with an excuse to try to produce the perfect Pacman which simulated the Atari version as closely as possible but Atari guards its rights over products jealously and investigated the products of several firms in the ZX industry.
The Abbex Spookyman game is the most famous of the Spectrum versions. It also looks most like the original. Most games, until now, have included only dots and power pills in the mazes. Abbex has included dots, power blobs, diamonds, hearts, clubs, mean-looking ghosts and a cute little Pacman which looks like a diamond turned on its side.
The keyboard is divided into three sections with left control on the left, right on the right, and up and down in the centre. The controls are very difficult to master but, once you have done so, usually with the aid of both hands, you will be surprised at the agility you can attain.
At times the game is almost impossibly fast but Abbex estimates that the highest score possible after every screen has been cleared is 22,400. If you manage to reach 10,000 points you will receive a bonus life. We managed to go that far only once.
Spookyman can be played by one or two players. If two play they take turns to control the Pacman. Their individual scores and the highest score are included at the top of the screen.
There are two unusual features in Spookyman. The first is that you can reset the high score at any time between games; the second is that you can use a joystick. The game is compatible with the Kempston joystick and once you have seen it in action it is almost a necessity. Spookyman is available from Abbex and costs £4.95.
Gulpman is another variation on the Pacman theme. The round Pacman is replaced by a little man running round the maze and the ghosts become frowning faces which smile only when they have caught Gulpman.
The game is very complex and you can switch to any of 15 mazes in which to play. It is also possible to change the tempo. At tempo one the speed is bearable but at tempo 10 life is not worth living.
The little man can fight back slightly more easily than in other games as he approaches with a fully-loaded laser gun. If the ghosts get too close you can blast them away but only until your energy runs out. It seems as if the space age is over-running everything. Gulpman is available from Campbell Systems and costs £5.95.
Hungry Horace, from Sinclair Research, has developed a reputation as a fun game; in fact Horace is almost a legend. The game is a great improvement on the original and has remained at the top of the software top ten for some time.
Horace is a large purple blob which has sprouted arms and legs. He wanders around the maze which looks like a park, eating everything in his path and trying to avoid the guards who act like ghosts and try to capture him. He can scare away the guards by using the alarm bell situated somewhere in the maze.
If Horace reaches the exit of one of the mazes he can enter the next maze and continue to the next exit. The mazes become more difficult as Horace proceeds further in his adventure and we managed to reach only the third maze. With a large amount of skill, however, it should be possible to go further.
Hungry Horace, for the 16K Spectrum, is available from Sinclair Research and costs £5.95.
Although the arcade industry in the States, and now in Britain, is declining it is good to see that games concepts like Pacman are being transferred to micros.
Some of the Sinclair versions of Pacman seem as good as, if not better than, the original Atari version. Games such as Hungry Horace are setting-up an interesting mutation in the Pacman concept. They also seem more interesting than the original version because they have added to the idea of Pacman. So far as the consumer is concerned it is to be hoped that concepts such as Pacman will not be destroyed within the industry.