Pac-Man clones

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In computer gaming, Pac-Man clones are unauthorized ("pirate") versions of Namco's popular arcade game Pac-Man.

1 Arcade clones
2 Contemporary home computer / console clones
3 PacPC And Ms. Pac PC
4 Handheld clones
5 Recent clones
6 See also
7 References

[edit] Arcade clones

One of the most notable clones was Hangly-Man (a mangling of "Hungry-Man"), a variant of which was Caterpillar Pac-Man made in 1981 by Phi. In the latter, one plays as a caterpillar, and the ghosts are replaced by spiders.

Another popular clone was Piranha, which replaced Pac-Man with a munching fish. The maze was replaced with a coral reef, the ghosts with squid. (In an earlier variant, they were little more than ghosts with extended sprites for the tentacles). A brief reference to the game was even included in the Pac-Man TV series, when in an underwater scene, a fish is shown eating a ghost-squid.^{[citation needed]}

In 1981, Leisure and Allied released Ghostmuncher/Galaxian, a dual bootleg of Pac-Man and Galaxian. One could change the game with a dip switch. In this bootleg, the colors, sounds, and names of the ghosts have been changed. The "Galaxian" bootleg is also sped up significantly.^[1]

Data East released Lock'n'Chase in 1981 as a response to the game. Here Pac-Man was replaced with a thief stealing coins from a bank vault. The ghosts were replaced with police, and the thief could temporarily block passages with doors. A popular port of this game was released for the Mattel Intellivision in 1982.

Soon after the release of the original Pac-Man, many other maze-themed video games entered the arcade market (Make Trax, Thief, Lady Bug and Mouse Trap being the most prominent).

[edit] Contemporary home computer / console clones

In 1981, H.A.L. Labs released a near-perfect port of Pac-Man for the Apple II called Taxman. As part of its settlement with Atari, H.A.L. surrendered the original Taxman code to Atari. When Atari's Atarisoft imprint released an official Pac-Man for the Apple II not long afterward, they simply used Taxman with a new title screen. After the settlement, H.A.L. Labs returned with Taxman 2, which retained the Pac-Man-inspired play mechanics, but set the game in different mazes.

Acornsoft, a division of Acorn Computers, released an exceptionally accurate clone of Pac-Man called Snapper for the BBC Micro in 1981 (and later for the Acorn Electron in 1983). After allegedly receiving a cease and desist letter from Atari, Acornsoft modified the game, changing the character graphics.

The 1981 Magnavox Odyssey² game K.C. Munchkin was withdrawn after Atari successfully sued its creator, citing blatant and undisguised imitation of the Pac-Man characters.

In 1982, Greg Kuperberg created PC-Man, published by Orion Software for the IBM-PC, with 4-color CGA graphics, tricky gameplay and intelligent ghosts. Because the original arcade game used portrait orientation of the CRT, Greg rotated the original levels by 90 degrees to fit the PC screen. The game appeared as a boot loader diskette and later in a DOS version. By using a disk editor on the booter disk, one can find traces of a deleted personal formal application letter by Greg, now a math professor.

Texas Instruments released a clone called Munch Man for the TI-99 home computer line in 1982, in which the player lays down a "track" (or "links", in Munch Man parlance), as he progresses through the maze instead of eating pills — a change made by TI to avoid possible lawsuits from Midway.

While many text mode clones have spawned since, the earliest such one known is Pac-Gal by Al J. Jiménez in May 1982. It had a later version from Sep 26 that year named "Pac-Girl" which added a "champion board" layout.

[edit] PacPC And Ms. Pac PC

Recently two Windows friendly version clones have surfaced which emulate gameplay of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac Man perfectly. In this version of each the cheat code is "eggs" and press enter during game play. Then press F1 to skip levels , F2 to gain extra lives , F3 for Fruit Bonus , and F12 to become invincible. On these versions you can get past Level 255 on Pac PC.

[edit] Handheld clones

Several handheld versions were released in 1981, most using VFD technology. The playability of most handheld games of this age was limited by today's standards, since each ghost and Pac-Man position was represented by an immovable fixed-cell character that lit up accordingly. Game titles included:

PacMan by Tomy. Because Pac-Man always faced to the left, the player had to move left to eat dots and would pass through them while moving to the right.
PacMan2 by Entex
Pac-Man by Coleco, the official adaptation of the game. It was shaped like a miniature Midway arcade cabinet.
Epoch Man by Epoch — LCD-based. It can be seen in the 1983 film, National Lampoon's Vacation.
Packri Monster by Bandai, one of the few handhelds to feature an intermission like the original game.

[edit] Recent clones

In the 1990s, Microhard/Magic Games released Funny Strip. This was a maze game and a clone of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man featuring nudity.^[2]

Also in the 1990s, Best Before Yesterday released a game called Maniac, which merged Pac-Man with the game of hangman against a time limit. To pass a stage, you had to guess the word, not clear the maze of dots. The game also featured a host of selectable powerups and a number of original songs as background music. One powerup featured the quote "Thunderbirds Are Go!".

In 1992, Creative Dimensions released a Pac-Man clone called CD-Man. CD-Man ate dots and ran from enemies such as spiders and sharks.^[3]

In 1993, Christophe de Dinechin wrote a Pac-Man clone for the HP-48 series of calculators.

In 1995, SemiCom released Hyper Pac-Man^[4], a clone similar to Pac-Mania with some Bomberman-style elements. This was followed up by a sequel called Twinkle;^[5] in this version Pac-Man is orange and wears sunglasses.

Comedy Central's South Park inspired a free online game at the official website much like Pac-Man. The game entailed Eric Cartman running around a maze eating "Cheesy Poofs" in place of the standard beads.

Cartoon Network released two free Pac-Man inspired games online. One featuring Fred Flintstone collecting rocks while avoiding bowling balls and another featuring Brak's Head collecting beans while avoiding Zorak heads.

In 1998, The computer game Starcraft was released, with a custom scenario titled "Wakka Wakka" that was as close to a Pac-Man clone as StarEdit.exe (the game's scenario editor) allowed.

In 1999, ESD released Multi Champ Deluxe. Multi Champ Deluxe is an adult-oriented, multi-game system in which the player chooses a girl and then one of six games, with the object being to win the game to save the girl. The games include a clone of Pac-Man.^[6]

In 1999, Atari 2600 homebrew game company Ebivision started working on their own homebrew port of Pac-Man, but were later afraid that Namco would sue them for it. They turned into a Pac-Man clone that's called Pesco.

In 2000, Genie released Puckman Pokemon^[7] which teamed up Pac-Man and Pokémon. Player 1 controls Puckman and Player 2 controls Pikachu's head.

Also in 2000, a Hong Kong original Famicom game called Hot Dance 2000 includes a pirated version of Pac-Man (with the original Japanese names) in addition to Dance Dance Revolution-style games.

eGames has released several 3D clones of Pac-Man, including 3D Maze Man, 3D Chomper, and 3D Ms. Maze. These were made without license, and prompted a lawsuit including Hasbro, Atari America and Elorg. The games have been discontinued as a term of the settlement.^[8]

Grandpa Pac-Man was an unofficial sequel created by Lafe Travis Games for the PC, and is available as freeware. Grandpa Pac-Man has 13 mazes to master, 12 intermissions, and 30 different prizes to gobble up.^[9]

In 2003, an open source Pac-Man clone called Njam was released. The source code is freely available under GPL license, and besides regular gameplay it features two multiplayer modes where players can play either together or against each other. It also has networking support, so up to four players can play simultaneously. The game is available on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and many other operating systems.^[10]

DirecTV's new interactive channel, Game Lounge, features a game called Hot Wheels Monster Truck Smashdown. A red monster truck takes the place of Pac-Man, and other monster trucks replace the ghosts. The game plays very much like regular Pac-Man.

Topfield Digital Set Top boxes also feature a Pac-Man clone, along with one of Tetris and another of Brick as part of their extras included in their menus.