I felt that the Mac didn't have a Pacman game that was good enough to fit my taste. The old MacMan doesn't work under MultiFinder, and the newer MacChase doesn't have any really good animation. (No little chewing character or nasty-looking enemies.)
MacChase has one thing that is really good: the ability for the user to edit the game layout from inside the game. This feature is also in Bachman, but only in the registered user version. What you have is the complete game for playing the built-in levels and any Bachman scenario files, but the game does not include the editor. Registration is $10 (60 swedish crowns or equivalent). Cash preferred.
The game mechanics is as a Pacman-style game is supposed to be: you control Bachman in a maze, hunted by nasty enemies while you try to clear the level from all the small markers laying everywere. If an enemy can touch Bachman, the poor Bachman will be eaten, but there are of course power pills ("turners") to enable Bachman to eat the enemies instead.
However, Bachman has some features that you might not expect. The graphics is "pseudo-3D", not as flat as classic Pacman games. There are bonus objects ("overdrives" and "treasure chests"), teleporters, plus Bachman's ability to shoot biscuits at the enemies to delay them. Well, you'll notice all that when you play.
Do you wonder why it is named Bachman? Well, if you consider the names of some objects mentioned above, and the music played between levels (hint: "Not Fragile"), you might find it as logical as I do.
Start a new game with "New game" in the "Game" menu.
If you use the keyboard, you control Bachman with any of the combinations 'ed,.', 'hjkl', '4568', '4862' or arrow keys. All combinations are always active. You can choose between "normal" control and "try to be smart". Most playtesters find "try to be smart" to be hard to use, but it is good for the expert (me) in some situations (i.e. zig-zag passages).
You can control Bachman with the mouse, but this option is mostly included as a curiosity. I find it much harder than keyboard control.
It is recommended that you set the screen to 2-color mode and check "fast graphics", especially on machines not faster than an LC. "Fast graphics" will not work on some screens, though.
You can "allow background tasks", but this will not really guarantee that any important tasks (e.g. downloading) runs fast enough or at all. I recommend you to play with "allow background tasks" unchecked.
4. EDITING
The editor is not available in this version of Bachman.
5. CREDITS
Many thanks to Eva L Ragnemalm, who made many of the nice sounds.
The testing and valuable comments from the playtesters is much appriciated. Most notable playtesters: Folke Söderström for bug hunting, Christer Pettersson for valuable ideas for the editor and Christer Ericsson for the discussions about the graphical design, sound manager coding and more.
6. REGISTERED VERSION
I don't *really* charge for just playing the game - but the game will be fun for much longer with the editor, and by paying the fee you also encourage me to make more.
If you send me $10, you will get the registered version of Bachman plus recent versions of as many of my other games that I can fit on a floppy. See also the registration form file. Shareware authors can E-mail me for special deals (like: I get your program, you get mine).
7. SOURCE CODE
The full source to Bachman is *not* available. However, there is something even better. I have made a toolkit of the libraries I have used for Bachman and Slime Invaders. It is named Sprite Animation Toolkit (SAT), and is currently (april 1992) in beta test. As soon as I have got some feedback from the testers and made necessary changes accordingly, it will be available from various Mac archives.
8. AUTHOR's ADDRESS
If you have comments, ideas or bug reports, please send it to:
Internet:
ingemar@isy.liu.se
Snail mail (for registration or if you don't have Internet access):
Ingemar Ragnemalm
Arrendegatan 102
S-58331 Linköping
Sweden
Don't worry about not having registered yet. If you think it is *almost* worth registering, tell me why it is just "almost" and I might fix it.
POST SCRIPTUM
Just when I was ready to release Bachman in april 1992, no less than two other Pacman-games showed up:
• "Pacman" by an anonymous programmer, a perfect clone of the original arcade game.
• "MacMan" by John Butler, which is *not* the same game as the old Macman mentioned above.
Both these games are pretty good, so the claim that there is no good Pacman game for the Mac is no longer as valid as when I started the project. However, Bachman has several features that makes it very different from the others. I hope you will enjoy it.
