Jr. Pac-Man



Despite the massive success Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man had enjoyed in the early 80s, Super Pac-Man didn't generate as much profits as Bally Midway had hoped. Pac-mania was cooling down across the country, but Midway was ready to give it one more try, with or without Namco's blessings.

GCC, the original designers of the add-on to Pac-Man that would become Ms. Pac-Man, constructed this new version of Pac-Man, outdoing all of their previous efforts. Following with the family theme established by Ms. Pac-Man, and later Baby Pac-Man, they titled this game Jr. Pac-Man, and gave the intermissions and the bonus prizes a slight teenager theme.

Jr. Pac-Man has a lot more work cut out for him than either of his parents. He must clear seven different mazes which are each twice as big as the mazes found in the earlier titles. To compensate for the expanded size of the mazes, GCC implemented a very smooth horizontal scrolling to the game. Additionally, Jr. Pac-Man had a cutely animated propeller beanie, there were no more escape tunnels, but most mazes featured two additional power pellets over the original four. Bonus prizes now moved about the maze, and had to be caught before they collided with, and destroyed, one of the corner power-pellets.

Marketing this sequel without Namco's approval ultimately lead to the termination of Namco's licensing agreement with Midway. And unlike Ms. Pac-Man, Namco has never recognized Jr. Pac-Man as an official Pac-Man product. It was ported to only a handful of systems, including the Atari 2600. Many players of this version consider it the best official port of a Pac-Man game done by Atari, despite the fact that the mazes scroll vertically instead of horizontally.

Story
Like his father, no one really knows why Junior must eat all of the dots in these expanded mazes, but eat he must. However, the intermissions tell a compelling story of forbidden love between Jr. Pac-Man, and a young ghost. The video game equivalent to Romeo and Juliet.

Gameplay summary

 * You control Jr. Pac-Man through each maze with the joystick.
 * You must eat every dot and energizer to advance to the next stage.
 * You must avoid contact with the ghosts while they are their normal color.
 * If you eat an energizer, the ghosts will turn blue, and you may eat them for bonus points until they turn back to their normal color.
 * The mazes are larger than the size of the screen, and will scroll into view as you move through them.
 * A bonus item will appear over the ghost pen and travel towards an energizer. Eat it for points before it touches an energizer and destroys it.
 * When a bonus item passes over dots, they grow in size and slow Jr. down when he eats them.