Acornsoft’s Classic PacMan Clone
Snapper was one of the many quality arcade conversions that Acornsoft created for the BBC Micro, being a very faithful example of Pac Man. Anyone who remembers the early 80’s will have experience of Pac Man clones on every platform, many of them pitifully poor (yes Atari 2600 I’m talking about you).
Most consoles or home computers of the time did not have the graphical capability, and just couldn’t to replicate the complex maze structure. So the results were often a compromised mess that whilst playable, did not give you that “arcade at home” feel that gamers at the time craved.
The AcornSoft range of “Big Box” games were probably the most successful home computer recreations of original arcade games available in the early 80’s, the best of them being Snapper.
Arcade Clones on the BBC Micro
This is where the BBC Micro shone due to its graphical capability being much closer to dedicated arcade boards of the time. Strange in that the BBC was an experiment in education, to teach IT in schools, and not designed as a games device.
The Snapper rendition of Pac Man released by AcornSoft was so faithful that Namco took offence, and later versions of the game replaced Pac Man with a sort of grapefruit in a hat, and the ghosts with generic monsters.
All other aspects of the arcade game are retained in Snapper, including the power pills and bonus items (with the Acorn bonus item a nod to BBC owners), and even the ghosts eyes escaping back to the central area after being eaten.
Rather than the ghosts in the BBC version having set patterns, they patrol their own corners of the maze, before breaking out to home in on the Pac Man. As the game progresses the ghosts become more aggressive, breaking out of the pattern earlier to chase you.
Snapper was a great PacMan conversion due to the graphic and sound capability of the Beeb and a world away from the famously rubbish attempt on the Atari 2600. Given the similar hardware of the Acorn Electron, Snapper was also released as a launch title for the BBC Micro’s younger sibling.
Playing Snapper Today
After restoring an old BBC Micro complete with period Cub colour monitor and solid state drive, one of the first games I wanted to play was Snapper. While there are some very good emulators around, there’s nothing like playing on original hardware. The beep as the BBC Micro turns on, the blinking cursor, the weight of the keys, the glow of the monitor, takes me back to 1984 and lunchtime computer club.
No joysticks for me, the “Z X” for left and right, “: /“ for up and down is the only way to play on a BBC Micro. It’s as good as I remember, smooth controls and very authentic graphics and sound, just like the arcade.
Magic.
BTW, there were two releases of Snapper, and two of Defender… They had a run in with the original arcade companies due to the graphics.
The screen shots you show are for the original version.
Defender had a name change too. The first release was called Defender, it then became Planetoids.