Deca2K9 - Pac-Man Plus [Official Discussion Thread]

This thread is here for discussion about Pac-Man Plus. Please use this to discuss any issues, strategies, tips and even ask questions in regards to this title. ^^

Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

Pac-Man Plus
ROM Set = \"PACPLUS\"
Difficulty=normal
Starting lives=3, one (1) extra life at 10K

Deca 2009 Scoreboard
TG Scoreboard

pacplus? really!?!? :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by permafrostrick

pacplus? really!?!? :D

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Iwas quite surprised how high it ranked myself! Definitely was expecting Turbo Outrun before this and... it never even made it!


Mr. Kelly R. Flewin

no, not that...just a nice little gift. :P

my recent play on pacplus has stirred up a lot of interest on the title so it isn't 100% surprising a handful voted for it. I didn't even vote and this title made it.

I've played maybe a total of 10 Pac-Man games in my entire life so I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this game. Does anyone want to give a little history on the game? How is this game different than regular Pac-Man? Looking at scores, this game must be much more difficult than regular Pac-Man but in my few plays it feels like the same game. Does anyone have any suggestions on how a person who is totally clueless about the game could become at least competent? Should I go learn Pac-Man before I attempt Pac-Man Plus?

One of the things I'm enjoying about the DECA is that it's forcing me to play some games that gets me outside of my comfort zone. Since I've only previously played two of the ten picks in this years DECA, I look forward to the challenge of learning how to play some new games.

Pac-Man Plus is, at heart, Pac-Man... but with twists... such as changes in monster behavior, slight speed differences, not every monster turning blue every time, mazes and monsters that turn invisible at points in the game, etc.

It came about due to incredible demand for upgrade kits for Pac-Man back in 1982. People were making Pac-Hacks left and right, and Midway was suing them all... but started getting flack for it since they didn't sell a legal upgrade kit themselves, so they made this so operators could refresh a popular game that wasn't making money anymore due to the skills of those who were still playing it.

Interestingly enough, Pac-Man Plus did NOT do well at all. Perhaps it was just trumped too badly by Ms. Pac-Man already, or at a glance people didn't see the difference... or enough of one at a glance to drop a quarter in there.

I honestly always liked the game, and played it a lot for the short span of time where I could find it everywhere. I was a big fan of Pac-games in general (still am) but there were features in this title that appeared in no other Pac-Man game, clone, or bootleg... and I dug that about it.

I voted for it because I like it and I volunteered to referee it because I know it well :D

Enjoy! I'll be very interested to see activity on a game I consider a hidden gem.

For one thing, it doesn't let you use patterns (well, it does, but since the \"fruit\" turns the ghosts blue for different amount of times, you'd have to have to memorize a ton of patterns until you get to the point where they quit changing). The game speed starts out as if you were starting on the apple screen on a regular Pac-Man. I don't know if there's actually any difference in the monster AI, just that sometimes one doesn't turn blue on an energizer (often at the worst time for the player). I don't think they were that common, I only remember seeing a couple BITD, whereas Ms Pac-Man was everywhere (and still is!)

Seems a lot of people say it wasn't that common... which I find odd, as I knew of almost no location that DIDN'T have it back in the day... just not for a long period of time in most cases. Keep in mind, though, that almost every arcade I frequented back then had more than one Pac-Man machine, so they got the Plus kits so they could freshen up a machine.

By the end of 1983 most of them had been converted to Jr. Pac-Man or another hot kit like Mr. Do! or just got dragged off to the warehouse altogether.

Many even got converted BACK to Pac-Man... due in part to the epoxy encased add-on board that came as part of the kit. Instead of an open add-on board like Ms. Pac-Man used, the Plus add-on was encased in a shell so that bootleggers couldn't just take the chips and copy the kit.

When things went wrong on that board due to age or heat, people couldn't repair it because they couldn't get to it, so they turned it back.

Oh No....Pac-man. :cry: