You know, if you think about it, arcade bootlegs are a prototypical example of something that would become more common later. User modding of games on PC, to be specific. Though the reasons for doing so were different, it's still that same level of ingenuity and creativity that you can see in both. It's just a shame that now, Ms. Pac-Man is persona non grata, and that big publishers are actually antagonistic toward their fans.
Oh, my gawd, I KNEW there was a "Pac-Man" cabinet where the ghosts got "naked"! When I was little sometimes I'd have to go to work with my Mom at a sports bar. When it was quiet the owner would let me free play the Pac Man cabinet. I remember telling friends my favorite part was when the ghosts got naked because it was so funny, and they all looked at me like I grew an extra head. I feel a little vindicated now. I wasn't crazy, the bar owner was just cheap! 😂😂
Also in the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet, if you input a certain joystick code before selecting Ms. Pac-Man, you'd get to play the original Pac-Man instead.
I know of "conversion kits" that could turn a less interesting (moneymaking) console into a packman clone, even if the game PCB wasn't actually designed to support a game like packman. A set of ROM's was always cheaper than buying a new cabinet. So it was done even if it was illegal.
Lady Bug is similar to another Pac-Man knock-off, Mouse Trap, by Exidy, in that you can open and close doors. Both arcade games were released the same year (1981). I'm surprised Mouse Trap wasn't mentioned in this video, as that was the first game that came to my mind when you mentioned arcade games that were inspired by Pac-Man.
I also remember another reason these bootlegs were made: it was because over time seasoned gamers were learning the patterns of the original Pac-Man, thus meaning longer play times and less income for arcade operators. I remember there was a "How to Win at Video Games" book that was done by Consumers Guide that even said the following. "Beware the bootleg Pac-Mans. Your high scores have caused arcade owners to jimmy with their own machines."
This is true. Same thing with super missile attack. People were starting to figure out missile command, so super missile attack was created as a response.
I remember nearly every single Ms. Pac Man arcade cabinet I ever played always had Ms. Pac Man at top speed. I always thought it was the norm until I played it on Ps1 and other consoles~ Had no idea I was playing a modded version the whole time when I was younger...
The Tengen releases on the NES and Genesis, and Midway on the SNES, are the best ports, because they have a speed option. They also have three options for the mazes, mini, normal, and strange. The game also ends.
There's one detail that you've been getting wrong for a while now. You always mention that romhackers and bootleggers modify the "source code" of the game but that's not the case. "Source code" refers to the original files written by the developers. We almost never get to see those unless someone keeps a copy and releases it after the company that owns the rights to them goes under or there's some sort of leak. Romhackers just reverse-engineer the game and then patch the code/graphics directly.
My favorite Pac-Man clone is Lock 'n' Chase (1981) by Data East which got rid of power pellets/energizers in favor of locking doors temporarily. I also like that game's art direction has more expressive characters than any other Pac-Man clone at the time.
Top quality video as ever. I feared it would be a lazy rehash of the GCC story like everybody else did but absolutely not, fresh and original content, thanks!!!
There is one of these Pac Man hacks that is not available to even emulate it was made for a Laundromat chain I think it was called Loads-N-Suds (I think it has been over 18 years ago when I last saw it) the one I was in was located in the Kickapoo Corners in Springfield, MO back in 2005 (it's long since closed down) It was a simple graphic hack that had a little witch collecting/popping bubbles being chased. The title screen stated that it was made exclusively for that chain of Laundromats, but I can't remember by what company. There is not known if any of the machines are around or if someone dumped the ROMs since it was a kinda obscure bootleg machine.
This would have been cool to see an action. Another hack I wanted to talk about was Cute-See, because there was an interesting story behind it, but there's no known ROM of the game so it would have been an awkward topic for me to cover
You missed some console/pc-only clone games, such as "Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island" which featured innovations such as a moving bridge and a cave to hide in, as well as a couple of dead-end paths.
one ROM version of Hangly Man had only the second maze become invisible after ONLY the first energizer was eaten and it would stay invisible until the end of the level or loss of a life. If one player got the invisible maze, the other wouldn't
Was hoping to see the Semicom games here (Hyper Pac Man, New Hyper Man / Hyper Man 2, Twinkle, Twinkle 2, Pac Man 2)… while they definitely didn’t use source code, they definitely were significantly advanced games cloning Pac-Man
There was one bootleg “Pac-Man” that we don’t mentioned, it’s “Popeye Man”, and it was also an unofficial hack of “Pac-Man” with Popeye as he eats dots and power pellets to eat ghosts for points. There was no Bluto and Olive Oyl in there, and it was not as bad as regular “Pac-Man”. For some strange reason, why was Popeye in a “Pac-Man” game?
Good point, Popeye must have been an easy sprite to make. I was aware of the Popeye bootleg when I made this video, but I decided it wasn't worth covering just because it wasn't that much different.
Ladybug is not a pac man type game. They share the concept of a maze and of eating stuff. That's about it. They are very different games with very different strategies.
HA! Thanks for highlighting my meme! 🤣 Edit: I thought this would simply be another rehash of the Ms Pacman story, but this was mutch more interesting!
another great video, always thought these arcade hacks were super interesting. if you want to cover a topic similar to this one, I'd recommend looking in the arcade game, Crazy Kong and the bootlegs and hacks that stemmed from it and the story behind it how it started as an official copy of Donkey Kong
I'm actually interested in finding out more about this. I've heard of crazy kong, and I actually tried it. Seems really rough around the edges. I'm excited to learn more about this
To clarify, hacks or bootlegs generally don't use the source code of the original game. They're modifications of the game's binaries. Having access to the source code would make everything much easier for bootleg developers, but it's generally private, jealously kept by the company that owns it. So the other option is to modify binaries (ie: the ROM), which is less convenient but works.
@@pojr Even if you manage to decompile the ROM, you would still not get the real source code, but at best a new source code that can be compiled to create new binaries (but with no comments and possibly not very human readable). ROMs don't actually contain the data needed to make it possible to retrieve the actual original source code.
2 subjects I'd like to see more videos on are airline and hotel gaming. As all my home consoles were either Sega or PlayStation for as long as that was the case, some of my flights to/from Florida, and 2 of the hotels we stayed at, were great opportunities for me to delve into as much of the SNES library as they would allow! I first came across the Bonk character in Saturn Bomberman's multiplayer mode but it wasn't until my flight home from Florida in February 99 that I would first get to play a game in which Bonk is the main character: Super Bonk! (Known as Super B.C. Kid in my country of residence) There is some documentation out there on LodgeNet's SNES, N64 and Gamecube offerings but not much on hotels that had PlayStation games available to play. I know OnCommand had systems featuring PlayStation games in America and Australia but here in Europe, some hotels did have PlayStation games but OnCommand were nowhere to be seen and the selections of games varied. I once stayed at a hotel in France where you could play Tony Hawk's 1, Crash 3, Tekken 3 and Fifa 2000 in your room, hotels at airports where you could play Spyro, The Weakest Link and This is Football, one had a BIG selection of games including Atari Anniversary Edition Redux and The Italian Job, but the 2 hotels I found PlayStation games in in 2007 had a VERY WEAK selection: Gran Turismo 2 (disc 1 only, already owned this one by that point), Ace Combat 3 (the best of the bunch) and This is Football (already owned this one since 2002). Despite the Dualshock being the main PlayStation controller since 1998, all hotel PlayStation systems I saw back in the day each had a regular digital 1080 pad! (Except that hotel in London Heathrow where I stayed in 2006, which had a Dualshock)
For Namco and Midway, this wasn't about swallowing pride or doing anything at their own expense for their fans. They wanted to make more money. It was about creating games that offered the best of what the modders were already doing and maintaining control over their own game.
Yep, that's more like it; Taking the power back in brief, in a swift corporate move with something already popular that was done at their expanse. Big-Brain move right there. 🧠
Then again, knowing that this is a Japanese company we're talking about, maybe there was a little bit of pride-swallowing. It's necessary sometimes, otherwise you could end up like Sega.
Nice video Poj… Sega is another company that has embraced the fan-made games community in the past and has actually worked with rom hackers (Look up Christian Whitehead).
Growing up, just a few blocks away was a "bait shop" also had a pool table and video games...and they mostly had the bootleg games...Crazy Kong, a Scrambler clone called Mariner and then there was Piranha and wow, was that a weird one, especially with the terrible controls.
i still remember playing Chinese bootleg versions of NES and SNES with some keyboard of sort because they are way more cheaper than the actual OG consoles with indeed bootleg chinese cartridges as well and i has lot of nostalgia for those plastics and yes really goods memories.....
There's also Pac-Man bootlegs on genesis that have Pikachu and this bizarre clone called Pac-Men where Clyde had multiple eyes and Blinky had one eye and they screamed when pac-man ate them which also plays a scream sound
A Pojr-Man arcade game would have smoke detector sounds, an announcer that says "so..." at the beginning, would need at least 8 keelobytes of ROM space, and most importantly, would only be compatible with the Atari Jag-Wire
It’s funny, you mention Nintendo. I don’t recall the name of the game, but there was definitely a donkey Kong rip off that some company came out with! If they weren’t sued I’d be shocked.
If it's Crazy Kong, they were sued, but not for the reason you think. Crazy Kong was actually an officially licensed clone of Donkey Kong made by Falcon, but it was only licensed for distribution in Japan. Nintendo sued Falcon after they started to ship cabinets overseas.
I love lady bug 🐞!!! I was someone would make a gameboy color version that would be amazing! Collecting retro is getting extremely expensive and the game quality is unreliable. Any suggestions?
First you show footage of Ms. Pac-Man in a previous video when talking about the original Pac-Man game, and just call it “Pac-Man”, now you actually are talking about Ms. Pac-Man, but you still don’t say, “Ms. Pac-Man”, instead, you will only say “an official game in the Pac-Man series”. Why will you not call Ms. Pac-Man by her proper name? It’s like you don’t WANT her to be remembered or something. 😥
Ms. Pac-Man was created by Midway and GCC without Namco being informed until they had it finished and basically showed it to Namco America for approval because the cabinets were ready to ship. Midway was prone to doing that wi6the Pacman IP. Mostly because Namco was slow with official sequals like super Pacman. Baby Pacman the pinball Video game hybrid and Professor Pacman were other game's made by Bally/Midway without advance permission of Namco so Namco Bandai currently doesn't have the Rom rights
![Pac-Man 40th Anniversary Special - Pac-Man Bootlegs [Sneak Peek]](/img/1.gif)
Fun fact: The second maze in Pac-Man: Adventures in Time is an exact recreation of the maze from New Puck-X.
Wow! This is insane
You know, if you think about it, arcade bootlegs are a prototypical example of something that would become more common later. User modding of games on PC, to be specific. Though the reasons for doing so were different, it's still that same level of ingenuity and creativity that you can see in both. It's just a shame that now, Ms. Pac-Man is persona non grata, and that big publishers are actually antagonistic toward their fans.
Oh, my gawd, I KNEW there was a "Pac-Man" cabinet where the ghosts got "naked"! When I was little sometimes I'd have to go to work with my Mom at a sports bar. When it was quiet the owner would let me free play the Pac Man cabinet. I remember telling friends my favorite part was when the ghosts got naked because it was so funny, and they all looked at me like I grew an extra head. I feel a little vindicated now. I wasn't crazy, the bar owner was just cheap! 😂😂
😂 Good thing your mom let you play Pac-Man, it's a family friendly game right?
Good & funny story! 😁
It actually used graphics from the 3rd intermission, where the ghost carries behind its cloak.
Interestingly in Namco Museum for PS1 Volume 1, if you look in the sprite gallery and go to the cloak-less ghost, it’s actually named “Naked” LOL
Also in the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet, if you input a certain joystick code before selecting Ms. Pac-Man, you'd get to play the original Pac-Man instead.
I know of "conversion kits" that could turn a less interesting (moneymaking) console into a packman clone, even if the game PCB wasn't actually designed to support a game like packman. A set of ROM's was always cheaper than buying a new cabinet. So it was done even if it was illegal.
Lady Bug is similar to another Pac-Man knock-off, Mouse Trap, by Exidy, in that you can open and close doors. Both arcade games were released the same year (1981). I'm surprised Mouse Trap wasn't mentioned in this video, as that was the first game that came to my mind when you mentioned arcade games that were inspired by Pac-Man.
True! I wish I mentioned at least to one other example of an official clone
I also remember another reason these bootlegs were made: it was because over time seasoned gamers were learning the patterns of the original Pac-Man, thus meaning longer play times and less income for arcade operators.
I remember there was a "How to Win at Video Games" book that was done by Consumers Guide that even said the following. "Beware the bootleg Pac-Mans. Your high scores have caused arcade owners to jimmy with their own machines."
This is true. Same thing with super missile attack. People were starting to figure out missile command, so super missile attack was created as a response.
I mean namco would make their own official one with Pac-Man Plus
I remember nearly every single Ms. Pac Man arcade cabinet I ever played always had Ms. Pac Man at top speed. I always thought it was the norm until I played it on Ps1 and other consoles~
Had no idea I was playing a modded version the whole time when I was younger...
The Tengen releases on the NES and Genesis, and Midway on the SNES, are the best ports, because they have a speed option. They also have three options for the mazes, mini, normal, and strange. The game also ends.
Yeah I noticed a lot of the Ms Pac-Man Galaga machines had the speed hack enabled. Seemed like more than 50% of them were enabled
There's one detail that you've been getting wrong for a while now.
You always mention that romhackers and bootleggers modify the "source code" of the game but that's not the case. "Source code" refers to the original files written by the developers. We almost never get to see those unless someone keeps a copy and releases it after the company that owns the rights to them goes under or there's some sort of leak.
Romhackers just reverse-engineer the game and then patch the code/graphics directly.
The speed hack version of Ms. Pac is the best way to go. Glad Arcade1Up included the speed up version on their Ms. Pac-Man cabs.
So much fun to play that way, even if it's a different experience from the original game
My favorite Pac-Man clone is Lock 'n' Chase (1981) by Data East which got rid of power pellets/energizers in favor of locking doors temporarily. I also like that game's art direction has more expressive characters than any other Pac-Man clone at the time.
You forgot a Pacman bootleg on the MSX that's just Pacman, except when a ghost touches & kills Pacman, he yelled "OH SHIIIIIIIIIT", and dies
that was a classic
Top quality video as ever. I feared it would be a lazy rehash of the GCC story like everybody else did but absolutely not, fresh and original content, thanks!!!
Thank you! I did make a video about GCC before, and I had to mention them a little bit at the end, but I really wanted to focus on the bootlegs
There is one of these Pac Man hacks that is not available to even emulate it was made for a Laundromat chain I think it was called Loads-N-Suds (I think it has been over 18 years ago when I last saw it) the one I was in was located in the Kickapoo Corners in Springfield, MO back in 2005 (it's long since closed down) It was a simple graphic hack that had a little witch collecting/popping bubbles being chased. The title screen stated that it was made exclusively for that chain of Laundromats, but I can't remember by what company. There is not known if any of the machines are around or if someone dumped the ROMs since it was a kinda obscure bootleg machine.
This would have been cool to see an action. Another hack I wanted to talk about was Cute-See, because there was an interesting story behind it, but there's no known ROM of the game so it would have been an awkward topic for me to cover
You missed some console/pc-only clone games, such as "Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island" which featured innovations such as a moving bridge and a cave to hide in, as well as a couple of dead-end paths.
one ROM version of Hangly Man had only the second maze become invisible after ONLY the first energizer was eaten and it would stay invisible until the end of the level or loss of a life. If one player got the invisible maze, the other wouldn't
7:43 MY GOD
Was hoping to see the Semicom games here (Hyper Pac Man, New Hyper Man / Hyper Man 2, Twinkle, Twinkle 2, Pac Man 2)… while they definitely didn’t use source code, they definitely were significantly advanced games cloning Pac-Man
12:09 truer words have never been spoken
There was one bootleg “Pac-Man” that we don’t mentioned, it’s “Popeye Man”, and it was also an unofficial hack of “Pac-Man” with Popeye as he eats dots and power pellets to eat ghosts for points. There was no Bluto and Olive Oyl in there, and it was not as bad as regular “Pac-Man”. For some strange reason, why was Popeye in a “Pac-Man” game?
Good point, Popeye must have been an easy sprite to make. I was aware of the Popeye bootleg when I made this video, but I decided it wasn't worth covering just because it wasn't that much different.
Ladybug is not a pac man type game. They share the concept of a maze and of eating stuff. That's about it. They are very different games with very different strategies.
HA! Thanks for highlighting my meme! 🤣
Edit: I thought this would simply be another rehash of the Ms Pacman story, but this was mutch more interesting!
LOL you're welcome! And thanks! I tried to keep the GCC section at the end very short, especially because I made a video about GCC previously
Are they really called "newpuc1" and "newpuc2"? Those sound like Mame abbreviations. What do they say on the title screen?
another great video, always thought these arcade hacks were super interesting. if you want to cover a topic similar to this one, I'd recommend looking in the arcade game, Crazy Kong and the bootlegs and hacks that stemmed from it and the story behind it how it started as an official copy of Donkey Kong
I'm actually interested in finding out more about this. I've heard of crazy kong, and I actually tried it. Seems really rough around the edges. I'm excited to learn more about this
I loved Pac-Man Plus. Worked at an arcade that had it.
To clarify, hacks or bootlegs generally don't use the source code of the original game. They're modifications of the game's binaries. Having access to the source code would make everything much easier for bootleg developers, but it's generally private, jealously kept by the company that owns it. So the other option is to modify binaries (ie: the ROM), which is less convenient but works.
I'm glad you pointed this out. Now that you mention it, this makes sense, because usually the source code is not available without decrypting it.
@@pojr Even if you manage to decompile the ROM, you would still not get the real source code, but at best a new source code that can be compiled to create new binaries (but with no comments and possibly not very human readable). ROMs don't actually contain the data needed to make it possible to retrieve the actual original source code.
2 subjects I'd like to see more videos on are airline and hotel gaming. As all my home consoles were either Sega or PlayStation for as long as that was the case, some of my flights to/from Florida, and 2 of the hotels we stayed at, were great opportunities for me to delve into as much of the SNES library as they would allow! I first came across the Bonk character in Saturn Bomberman's multiplayer mode but it wasn't until my flight home from Florida in February 99 that I would first get to play a game in which Bonk is the main character: Super Bonk! (Known as Super B.C. Kid in my country of residence)
There is some documentation out there on LodgeNet's SNES, N64 and Gamecube offerings but not much on hotels that had PlayStation games available to play. I know OnCommand had systems featuring PlayStation games in America and Australia but here in Europe, some hotels did have PlayStation games but OnCommand were nowhere to be seen and the selections of games varied. I once stayed at a hotel in France where you could play Tony Hawk's 1, Crash 3, Tekken 3 and Fifa 2000 in your room, hotels at airports where you could play Spyro, The Weakest Link and This is Football, one had a BIG selection of games including Atari Anniversary Edition Redux and The Italian Job, but the 2 hotels I found PlayStation games in in 2007 had a VERY WEAK selection: Gran Turismo 2 (disc 1 only, already owned this one by that point), Ace Combat 3 (the best of the bunch) and This is Football (already owned this one since 2002).
Despite the Dualshock being the main PlayStation controller since 1998, all hotel PlayStation systems I saw back in the day each had a regular digital 1080 pad! (Except that hotel in London Heathrow where I stayed in 2006, which had a Dualshock)
Great video! I love the old arcade games.
Thanks!
For Namco and Midway, this wasn't about swallowing pride or doing anything at their own expense for their fans. They wanted to make more money. It was about creating games that offered the best of what the modders were already doing and maintaining control over their own game.
Yep, that's more like it; Taking the power back in brief, in a swift corporate move with something already popular that was done at their expanse. Big-Brain move right there. 🧠
Then again, knowing that this is a Japanese company we're talking about, maybe there was a little bit of pride-swallowing. It's necessary sometimes, otherwise you could end up like Sega.
As the old saying goes, imitation is the finest form of flattery.
Shocked you left out K.C. Munchkin.
I was really close to mentioning it at the beginning, but I felt like it would have been distracting to the main topic of the video.
@@pojr That's fair
Nice video Poj… Sega is another company that has embraced the fan-made games community in the past and has actually worked with rom hackers (Look up Christian Whitehead).
Growing up, just a few blocks away was a "bait shop" also had a pool table and video games...and they mostly had the bootleg games...Crazy Kong, a Scrambler clone called Mariner and then there was Piranha and wow, was that a weird one, especially with the terrible controls.
i still remember playing Chinese bootleg versions of NES and SNES with some keyboard of sort because they are way more cheaper than the actual OG consoles with indeed bootleg chinese cartridges as well and i has lot of nostalgia for those plastics and yes really goods memories.....
There's also Pac-Man bootlegs on genesis that have Pikachu and this bizarre clone called Pac-Men where Clyde had multiple eyes and Blinky had one eye and they screamed when pac-man ate them which also plays a scream sound
Hope this guy gets blessed by the algorithm
Your outro music reminds me of late 90s PlayStation games, maybe even Gran Turismo or Ray Storm.
It's a nice track. It's actually from cosmic Carnage on the Sega 32x
Give the fans what they want. Exactly.
Yup!
Neat video. What do you think would be the features of a Pojr-Man arcade game?
A Pojr-Man arcade game would have smoke detector sounds, an announcer that says "so..." at the beginning, would need at least 8 keelobytes of ROM space, and most importantly, would only be compatible with the Atari Jag-Wire
Hangly Man is at my local arcade 😅
“Hangly Man” became “Popeye Man”.
Nice! At an arcade I used to go to, it had an arcade machine that contained a compilation of games, including Piranha
Super fun vid. Thx!
Cool idea for a video.
Thanks! This is a topic I really wanted to talk about
Can You Review Taito Anniversary Collection On Switch???
Hey Pojr. I like your videos, but I can't help but notice the wet mouth noises when you talk sometimes, and when you do the smile.
My bad! I can cut those out of future videos
Ms. PacMan is to Namco is as Counterstrike is to Valve.
Is it Pojr time already?
I really wish the translation for Hungry-Man would have been correct, so it would be like a weird double bootleg.
It’s funny, you mention Nintendo. I don’t recall the name of the game, but there was definitely a donkey Kong rip off that some company came out with! If they weren’t sued I’d be shocked.
If it's Crazy Kong, they were sued, but not for the reason you think. Crazy Kong was actually an officially licensed clone of Donkey Kong made by Falcon, but it was only licensed for distribution in Japan. Nintendo sued Falcon after they started to ship cabinets overseas.
Thanks 👍
I love lady bug 🐞!!! I was someone would make a gameboy color version that would be amazing! Collecting retro is getting extremely expensive and the game quality is unreliable. Any suggestions?
i love the game: O SHIT!. if you died sombody said OOOOOOOO SSSHHHHIIIIIITTTTT!!!!!
yay
I liked the video.
pojr
First you show footage of Ms. Pac-Man in a previous video when talking about the original Pac-Man game, and just call it “Pac-Man”, now you actually are talking about Ms. Pac-Man, but you still don’t say, “Ms. Pac-Man”, instead, you will only say “an official game in the Pac-Man series”. Why will you not call Ms. Pac-Man by her proper name? It’s like you don’t WANT her to be remembered or something. 😥
Someone's desperate to justify lawlessness...
Found the Nintendo exec.
Ms. Pac-Man was created by Midway and GCC without Namco being informed until they had it finished and basically showed it to Namco America for approval because the cabinets were ready to ship. Midway was prone to doing that wi6the Pacman IP. Mostly because Namco was slow with official sequals like super Pacman. Baby Pacman the pinball Video game hybrid and Professor Pacman were other game's made by Bally/Midway without advance permission of Namco so Namco Bandai currently doesn't have the Rom rights