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Baby Pac Man


wiseguyusa

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I've only seen a few working ones, and it is a very challenging game.

 

Could someone please tell me definitively whether or not there are cartoons between levels like other Pac-games?

 

If the answer is yes, would someone please record them and post to youtube or similar video sharing "tube" site?

 

maybe screen shots of the different mazes?

 

Please & thanks

 

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There are only three mazes, which use different colors each cycle...starting with maze seven however, the maze is blackened out, leaving only the dots to show you the way. It is not an open field though. However, not a lotta people have gotten that far. I just happened to have my best game ever snagging extra men with the drop targets.

Edited by Crimefighter
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This game is crap. It's clearly not made by Namco, and the mediocre graphics and random monster patterns reflect this. Look, I wrote a Pac-Man clone nearly twenty years ago, and I studied the arcade game enough to know that there are certain things the monsters just don't do. They almost never reverse direction, with the lone exception being at timed intervals where ALL the monsters reverse. When the monsters hit an intersection in Baby Pac-Man, they just go wherever they please... maybe in the same direction as before, sometimes at a 90 degree angle, or sometimes directly behind them. It makes it impossible to anticipate their behavior and leads to plenty of cheap deaths; deaths exacerbated by the fact that you have to earn energizers in the tedious and barren pinball half of the game.

 

It's not good, is what I'm saying. It could have been better, if Namco had designed the video game half and more thought had been put into the overall design, but that didn't happen. It's a promising concept that sputters out in execution.

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I actually got pretty good at the game by playing the Visual PinMame version. There are a couple of versions out there, and some are not that great, but one (I forget which) is done really well. The video part is emulated of course, so it is a great way to practice without spending a fortune.

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This game is crap. It's clearly not made by Namco, and the mediocre graphics and random monster patterns reflect this. Look, I wrote a Pac-Man clone nearly twenty years ago, and I studied the arcade game enough to know that there are certain things the monsters just don't do. They almost never reverse direction, with the lone exception being at timed intervals where ALL the monsters reverse. When the monsters hit an intersection in Baby Pac-Man, they just go wherever they please... maybe in the same direction as before, sometimes at a 90 degree angle, or sometimes directly behind them. It makes it impossible to anticipate their behavior and leads to plenty of cheap deaths; deaths exacerbated by the fact that you have to earn energizers in the tedious and barren pinball half of the game.

 

It's not good, is what I'm saying. It could have been better, if Namco had designed the video game half and more thought had been put into the overall design, but that didn't happen. It's a promising concept that sputters out in execution.

 

Strongly disagree.

 

The game being so difficult is exactly why it is wonderful in a home arcade. It simply never gets old because it is so hard to master. It's also just a beautiful machine to look at.

 

Wonderful game.

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The lack of randomness in the original Pac-man by Namco was a problem. Memorising patterns was not fun and the randomness in Ms. Pac-man made it more popular. Ms. Pac-man was not made by Namco although it is based on the original code.

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maybe screen shots of the different mazes?

 

Please & thanks

 

Baby Pacman is one game I've always wanted to try out. Recently tried out the 7800 hack of Ms Pacman (not the one in the OP though) which fullfilled a bit of my wishes but there's no pinball part. I was thinking of making one where the pinball part is instead replaced by breakout (as it's much easier to make than a pinball simulation) but I have little motivation to do it.

 

Anyway the maze layouts can be found here:

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Baby_Pac-Man/Walkthrough

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The lack of randomness in the original Pac-man by Namco was a problem. Memorising patterns was not fun and the randomness in Ms. Pac-man made it more popular. Ms. Pac-man was not made by Namco although it is based on the original code.

 

 

This game is crap. It's clearly not made by Namco, and the mediocre graphics and random monster patterns reflect this. Look, I wrote a Pac-Man clone nearly twenty years ago, and I studied the arcade game enough to know that there are certain things the monsters just don't do. They almost never reverse direction, with the lone exception being at timed intervals where ALL the monsters reverse. When the monsters hit an intersection in Baby Pac-Man, they just go wherever they please... maybe in the same direction as before, sometimes at a 90 degree angle, or sometimes directly behind them. It makes it impossible to anticipate their behavior and leads to plenty of cheap deaths; deaths exacerbated by the fact that you have to earn energizers in the tedious and barren pinball half of the game.

 

It's not good, is what I'm saying. It could have been better, if Namco had designed the video game half and more thought had been put into the overall design, but that didn't happen. It's a promising concept that sputters out in execution.

I agree that the unpredictability of the ghosts kinda makes the game "less pacman", as I complain about Neave's remake and the Atari 2600 version of Pacman for lacking the different ghost behaviours which makes me not want to play them.

 

However, I find the deterministic ghost behaviour a problem cause then people start memorizing patterns and beat the game (get to level 256) every time without actually needing to be good at it - they just need good memorization or maybe a walkthrough, which is why I quite prefer Pacman Plus as the alternative to Pacman cause it introduces some randomness so that the pattern method couldn't be used but still retaining the ghost behaviours. I also like how the bonus fruit turns the ghosts invisible so you'd need to remember where they were. The only downside to the game is that you can't wait for the 4 ghosts to get near you and expect to immediately eat a power pellet and be necessarily able to gobble the 4 ghosts.

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So maybe someone could make a "homebrew" hack that works like XBMC and you can toggle between original and homebrew(?)

 

I'm glad that I got my curiosity satisfied without the investment, it sounds like the payoff would have been quite anti-climactic.

 

Very interesting posts! Thanks!

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