Buddasworld

Nostalgia Alert!

I was lying in bed, half asleep, pondering the AI techniques and implementation used for Pac Man, with some weird idea about writing it in Javascript for myself. I know it’s been done a hundred times before pretty well, and even documented.

Then I recalled my first interaction with video games when I was very young, and my dad got me a Philips G7000 machine with a selection of Videopacs (games).

This fancy keyboarded beast from the late 70s used cartridges for games, and my favourite was Munchkin - what I believe to be a more skilled version of Pac-Man thanks to its maze walls which disappear when you move and re-appear when you stop, plus the pills move around the maze! The sound was even fun too.

Even more surprising was my find tonight of a fully working emulator for Windows, Linux and even Mac called O2Em!

Grab the mac version - go full screen by installing the Emulator Enhancer add-on too.

The games I remembered all seem to be available too as ROM images, just 2Kb downloads. I grabbed KC Munchkin as a test.

Munchkin needs re-creating in JavaScript, who has some spare time?

Can’t be bothered installing an emulator - here’s what Munchkin plays like