PakPak Monster (パクパクモンスター Pakupaku Monsutā) is a game released for the Epoch Cassette Vision in 1982. It is a Pac-Man clone and a loose follow-up to Pak Pak Man, a handheld LCD game also released by Epoch.
Gameplay[]
The game is similar to Pac-Man, but features a strange, clock-like maze and only 8 dots, which must be run over several times before they can be eaten. The game requires the player to alternate between one other dot before being able to continue eating away the other; preventing the player from running over the same dot repeatedly.
There is also a Power Pellet in the top-left corner, which is collected the same way as the dots. Occasionally question marks will appear on the screen; when eaten, they will give the player a random amount of points.
The game's overall appearance has been altered somewhat. The ghosts have a more alien-like appearance, but Pac-Man himself looks about the same, save for being a more orange-ish color. The dots are replaced with X-es, and the maze is comprised entirely of flat squares.
Legality / Licensing[]
While the game appears to be a clone of Pac-Man at first glance, it is possible that the game had some form of official license. Several Epoch products based on Namco properties from the same time period (including certain variants of Pak Pak Man) have been identified as licensed, while others were seemingly not.
A game titled Galaxian - named after the 1979 Namco arcade game - was released on the Cassette Vision a few months prior to PakPak Monster. This release was reportedly under Namco's approval;[1] however, developer Masayuki Horie has suggested that this licensing agreement came after Galaxian was already released for the Cassette Vision, implying it was initially unauthorized.[2] It is unknown if PakPak Monster received a loose "license" from Namco in this way.
Trivia[]
- A fan-made homebrew version for the MSX was also released.[3]