Video Game Board Games [part 1]: PAC-MAN (Milton Bradley, 1982)

 

Collectors are a weird type of people. There are psychological forces that drive them that would require many, many posts just to scratch the surface, written by people smarter and more boring than me. One thing that has always interested me about collectors is that some people only collect one specific thing, while some have lots of interests and sub-collections.

One sub-collection for me is vintage video game items, specifically from the golden era of video game mania in the early 1980's.  I try hard to keep it to a minimum, but I am absolutely incapable of walking away from any vintage Pac-Man item that I run across, or any board game based on a vintage video game.

Pac-Man, of course, was the poster child for arcade games.  He was also merchandised to the hilt, which was a separate phenomenon in itself.  To a grade-schooler back in those days, Pac-Man was quite simply the coolest thing in the world.  Then word came down that we would receive a "proper" home version, for our Atari 2600's, that we could play at home.  Excitement hit a fever pitch...until the game came out, when disappointment hit a fever pitch.

If you were there, then you haven't forgotten either.

People wanted to be able to enjoy the fun of arcade games in their homes, or at least a reasonable facsimile, whether it was a digital watch, an LCD game, a crappy Atari cartridge, a Saturday-morning cartoon or...a board game!

Now, this was an idea that had potential--a playable version of your favorite video game, that you could play at home, with your family or friends.  And, once again, Pac-Man led the way. 

And the turquoise Pac-Man was never seen again!

Milton Bradley wisely went the extra mile by designing a game that actually allowed all players to be Pac-Man (of four different colors!) that went around the maze eating dots (well, the instructions only refer to them as "marbles,"...come to think of it, there was never a clear universal term for them.  In the cartoon they were all "power pellets," but it seemed like every iteration called them something else). This was accomplished by a clever design, wherein your Pac-Men could chomp up marbles as they landed on them, storing them inside themselves as he went.  You were supplied with a container of matching color to dump them into after each turn, as the object of the game was to be the player who had accumulated the most marbles.

But as we all know, the maze also contains ghosts! Since there would be up to four Pac-Mans roaming around, MB supplied only two ghosts for the game, which were controlled in an interesting way.  Since each turn involved rolling two dice, one would be used for the player's Pac-Man, while the second die would be used to move the ghost monsters around. This was of course strategic, because landing on another player's Pac-Man sent them back to their home spot, and cost them two marbles.  Each game randomly included a pair of ghosts the same color, available in the same four colors as the Pac-Mans and their trays (although having a yellow ghost the same color as Pac-Man is just weird).  Somehow the game I ended up with many years ago included three sets! Somebody bought this game three times:

So, how are the yellow marbles (ranting once again: I was told as a kid that only the big ones were the  "power pellets, " which in some places were referred to as "energizers") used? It's kind of strange.  The instructions call them only "yellow marbles," and say that, when you eat one, you get the "Ghost Gobbler Privilege," which apparently lasts as long as you want it to, until you finally eat a ghost, which gains you the marble that was under that ghost, and sends him back to the middle of the board.

I think it would've been cooler if a pair of blue ghosts were supplied with the game, and you could switch them out until somebody ate one (hey, I have enough to do that, I should try it).

Overall review: So was the game successful, in bringing the spirit of Pac-Man home as a board game? I am happy to say it was, although in the spirit of criticism, here are a few cons:  

1) Since the game was very heavy on parts, some were bound to get lost over the years. (This is not a bad thing at all, just true.)

2) You need a very stable playing area, as it's very easy to upset a fully set-up board, and I'm sure some sibling fistfights broke out over that.  

3) The marbles are glass (and not Hungry Hippos plastic), and they are very pleasing to handle and roll around, but I'm sure that they looked delicious to very small children.  The yellow ones look like shiny, delicious Lemon Heads! Mmmm, Lemon Heads!

Stay tuned for future posts featuring more vintage board games based on vintage video games. I have a decent collection but there are far more than you'd think, and some are very rare! 

Instructions, found under the box lid!

GODZILLA 1985 Video Flyer/Order Card (1986)

 

Here is an interesting piece--this is a flyer announcing a special price to order GODZILLA 1985 on home video.  While "flyer" is probably not the correct word to describe this, it's hard to imagine exactly how it was used.  It is printed on glossy cardstock, is one-sided, and measures 8 by 5 inches...so it's too big to be packed into regular VHS releases of the day.  Back in those days, local newspapers had "Sunday Supplements" that would often contain items like this, so perhaps that's one idea.

You can tell right away that the marketers on this side of the Pacific were attempting a "wacky" approach to sell the film (I mean, it had a Love Theme after all), and in hindsight, it's really too bad that they didn't just let the film be itself...well, the American version of itself.  Case in point:

Yikes. At least this is the only place that this synopsis appeared!  If you wanted to order the movie, it would set you back $14.99 plus a whopping $4.00 (for the time) shipping, making a grand total of $18.99.  Just from what I've seen, I'm going to say that this was a very decent price for an official release in 1986, because the big Hollywood titles were still pretty expensive at that time.  And this was an official, SP tape, and not a low-quality bargain bin thing.  And, Betamax was still available, too (although this film would be the last Godzilla Beta tape in the U.S.)!

This is definitely a fascinating artifact that I've never run into before--if anybody has any other ideas of how this piece would've been distributed, leave me a comment!

The Things I See: Goodwill and Other Horrors

These sort of photos pile up after a while.  It could be a regular feature, if we didn't have other business to attend to around here.  But hey, why not? "Enjoy," he said, in quotes........

Yes, this is the actual thing they give you at Chik Fila to put on your table when you are expecting food.  And not only did somebody steal it, but they donated it to Goodwill...and GOODWILL SOLD IT.

I am not an expert, but I don't think this is the sort of thing you can learn from a book. Unless you are a serial killer.

"Would the person who lost their Diplodocus please come to the check-out area? Thank you."

It's interesting what people put in frames. I could've done a whole post on bizarre or dumb things left in frames, but here are a couple:

This person treasured the Columbia House Record And Tape Club so much, they framed a newspaper ad from the 1980's.

And this person was so enamored with this embarrassing typo (really two, if you count the inability to understand what an ellipsis is), they immortalized it in a frame.

This obviously wasn't Goodwill, but it sort of sums up the current state of Amazon pretty well!

And now, a special one that's dear to my heart. Do you ever stumble onto a random act of hidden hilarity that someone's left behind? Have you ever committed one? There had to be a first person who added words to a traffic sign or bathroom paper towel dispenser and made them hilarious. I think there should be more of these in our daily lives.  Case in point, I picked up a random paperback at Goodwill, thumbed through it quickly, and just happened to see this:

Thank you, whoever you are.  Your work is immortalized here for all time.

And now, we conclude with a speed round of  bizarro products:

1) A slightly used spitoon. Hey, somebody may need that.

2) And here is a GYYAAHAAGGHGHH let's just move on.

3)Admittedly, this is from a Wal-Mart, but this particular store is very, very....desperate.

4) This one is cool, my buddy has one of these. We put some wilted lettuce, a box of paper clips, and a tarantula into it, and it came out ham! It's pretty handy.

And finally, the grand finale...hide the children:

5) As you drive home tonight, just take a moment to think about how somebody returned a used urinal to Wal-Mart.  And they took it back.  Hooray for Current Year!