Pac-Man clones

In computer gaming, Pac-Man clones are unauthorized versions of Namco's popular arcade game Pac-Man.
Arcade clones
One of the most notable clones was Hangly-Man (a mangling of the Japanese pronunciation of hungry man ( HangurÄ« 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 notable clone was New Puck-X, which used an altered design of the original board, but, otherwise, the gameplay and graphics were identical to the original game.
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 , when in an underwater scene, a fish is shown eating a ghost-squid.
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 were changed. The Galaxian bootleg was also sped up significantly.
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).
Contemporary home computer / console clones
In 1981, Commodore UK released a near-perfect port of Pac-Man produced by HAL Laboratory of Japan called Jelly Monsters for the Vic-20 (there was another Vic-20 clone called Cosmic Cruncher). The same year a company with a similar name called H.A.L. Labs, founded by Brian Fitzgerald in the USA, released a clone called Taxman for the Apple II. 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.
In the early 1980s, Gobbler, Snack Attack, and Super Puck Man were popular Pac-Man clones for the Apple II home computer line.
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.
A clone of Pac Man was released for Apple computers called Maniac, and was developed by Best Before Yesterday. When a stage is complete, the player will get an opportunity to play a game similar to hangman. Michael Sembello's hit song Maniac plays in the background. A "turbo" feature in the game can be acquired, with the sound effect accompanying it.
PacPC And Ms. PacPC
Recently two Windows-based clones of Pac-Man have surfaced that are intended emulate the gameplay of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man.
Since they are not derived from the original code of the games, it is possible to complete more than 255 levels without reaching a kill screen.
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. The game was also released by in the UK as .
* 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. The game was also released by in the UK as Mini-Munchman.
* Packri Monster by Bandai, one of the few handhelds to feature an intermission like the original game.
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.
In 1995, SemiCom released Hyper Pac-Man, a clone similar to Pac-Mania with some Bomberman-style elements. This was followed up by a sequel called Twinkle; in this version Pac-Man is orange and wears sunglasses.
eGames has released several 3D clones of Pac-Man, including 3D Maze Man, 3D Frog Man, 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.
In 2008, Robert Hurst resurrected his 1984 Pac-Man clone called Quikman for the Commodore VIC 20 and released it to the public on . Retro Gamer magazine issue #59 provides an in-depth review of its making.
In January 2010, the University of Winnipeg's Division of Continuing Education placed a hidden Pac-Man clone on their website (accessible via the "Konami Code") promoting their technology courses.
On May 21, 2010, Google replaced the logo on their homepage with a Pac-man themed image, which also functioned as a fully playable game, for the 30th anniversary of the game's release. It was the first Google logo to be interactive and the first theme to change the functionality of other parts of the google interface. Google has decided to keep this as a special page on May 23, 2010.

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