Snack Attack
Encyclopedia
Snack Attack is a 1982 computer game for the Apple II family of computers, created by Dan Illowsky and published by Datamost
.
arcade game
which had begun its rise to popularity two years earlier. The player controls a small, white character, moving it through various maze-like levels, gobbling green and purple dots and avoiding the four roaming ghosts. The game's instructions refer to the dots as "gumdrops" and the ghosts as the "Gumdrop Guards." The player uses the J, K, W and S keys to move the character left, right, up or down.
Many of the cheap Pac-Man
knock offs were rotated 90 degrees, to handle resolution limitations. Later levels involve a concentric maze which looks similar to the maze from a popular Atari 2600 game. As the player progresses the levels repeat and the speed of the monsters increases. The power-ups are sparkling squares that twinkle. There are smiling pumpkins which appear from time to time which replace the various fruits of the legitimate original. After eating a powerup sparkley, the Snack-Man goes from having herbivore like teeth, only capable of eating it's pellets to carnivore teeth, giving the Snack-Man the ability to chomp the roomba-like monsters.
Among the variety of clones, this one scores extra points for originality of the game sprites, and the revised premise of the game. Replay value is high because even though both the protagonist and the antagonists are slow moving, it is generally pretty easy to stay on top of the action and win.
Snack Attack II for the IBM PC Compatible series has quite a few noticeable differences. The SnackMan looks relatively identical between iterations, but the ghosts suffer a lot, especially if you cut your teeth on the Apple version. Rumors of a IBM PC Compatible Snack Attack II remake, which utilizes the Composite CGA graphics, and would recreate an almost identical feeling of an Apple game have surfaced. A homebrew developer is making plans to use the functionality of Composite CGA to give a DOS platform an Apple look to it, and incorporate that into the remake.
A follow-up title, Snack Attack II, was co-authored by Michael Abrash and Dan Illowsky and published in late 1982 by Funtastic. The game is quite similar to the original, but with various improvements and enhancements.
Datamost
Datamost was a software design company founded by David Gordon and based in Chatsworth, California. Datamost operated in the early 1980s producing games and other software mainly for the Apple II, Commodore 64 and Atari platforms, with some for the IBM PC...
.
Gameplay
Snack Attack closely imitates the well-known Pac-ManPac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
which had begun its rise to popularity two years earlier. The player controls a small, white character, moving it through various maze-like levels, gobbling green and purple dots and avoiding the four roaming ghosts. The game's instructions refer to the dots as "gumdrops" and the ghosts as the "Gumdrop Guards." The player uses the J, K, W and S keys to move the character left, right, up or down.
Many of the cheap Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
knock offs were rotated 90 degrees, to handle resolution limitations. Later levels involve a concentric maze which looks similar to the maze from a popular Atari 2600 game. As the player progresses the levels repeat and the speed of the monsters increases. The power-ups are sparkling squares that twinkle. There are smiling pumpkins which appear from time to time which replace the various fruits of the legitimate original. After eating a powerup sparkley, the Snack-Man goes from having herbivore like teeth, only capable of eating it's pellets to carnivore teeth, giving the Snack-Man the ability to chomp the roomba-like monsters.
Among the variety of clones, this one scores extra points for originality of the game sprites, and the revised premise of the game. Replay value is high because even though both the protagonist and the antagonists are slow moving, it is generally pretty easy to stay on top of the action and win.
Snack Attack II for the IBM PC Compatible series has quite a few noticeable differences. The SnackMan looks relatively identical between iterations, but the ghosts suffer a lot, especially if you cut your teeth on the Apple version. Rumors of a IBM PC Compatible Snack Attack II remake, which utilizes the Composite CGA graphics, and would recreate an almost identical feeling of an Apple game have surfaced. A homebrew developer is making plans to use the functionality of Composite CGA to give a DOS platform an Apple look to it, and incorporate that into the remake.
Sequel