The other day I looked at a small Pacman arcade cabinet, but now, I'm going back to the best
kind of technology.
OLD technology.
Before we had portable game machines like the Gameboy or Watara Supervision the world
was flooded with discrete LCD units, like the Game & Watch or Tiger handheld series.
These little units provided ample entertainment during lunch breaks or car journeys, even
if play-ability was influenced heavily by the time of day or lighting available.
But LCD wasn't the only option.
Before that VFD or Vacuum Fluorescent Display was king, and VFD meant if necessary you could
even play in the dark.
In fact, playing in the dark could even add to the tension, especially when you have the
threat of To Gobble or be Gobbled.
In all honesty, that tag-line is the sole reason I bought this game.
This packaging identifies it as Ogre Eater, but it also goes under the title of Hungry
Monster or Gobble Man depending on the region.
Released by Tandy in 1983, it's actually licenced from Bandai, who released the game in Japan
as Packri Monster.
You can see the Japanese box here, but the North American release reveals the true intentions
here.
How sneaky is that?
Clearly you can tell this is a Pac-Man rip-off, but obviously if challenged legally, "what
are you talking about Gov?
It says Packri Monster".... marvellous stuff.
Tandy clearly decided to be a bit more cautious with their naming.
But the premise is the same;
"Move your monster through the maze, gobbling up points - But watch out for the BOGEY!
Eat Special "Power" Food (I'm not sure what they're suggesting with the quotation marks
there) *cough* drugs *cough*... and Bogey Turns Coward - YOU CAN GOBBLE HIM.
Man, I love this text.
"Increasing Difficulty - Starts with ONE Bogey, Adds up to two and three"
"Fun-Filled Musical Sounds"
So, we've got the bogey man (I presume), Ogres, and the tag-line present across all of Tandy's
versions - "Gobble or be Gobbled"
What's inside?
Some beaten up Polystyrene, A manual, and the game itself.
The manual tells us to "Please read carefully before playing".
I'm sure we'll manage chief.
A whopping 4 double AAs are required to power this Ogre Fest.. or you can use an adaptor,
but that defeats the pure freedom of mobility this game offers.
I love how 80s products always tried to fill the blank space.
Check out this ACTION sticker.
Yeah, makes me feel powerful and important.
It's quite a wide beast, there's little happening on the left, but we do have power and start
buttons just off centre.
Woooow.
This is what I'm talking about.
Instantly memories of 1987 come rushing back.
I'm not sure why specifically that year, but that feels about right.
Yo can see instantly from the demonstration mode that this is very much a pacman-like
game.
The maze may look a little different, the ghosts may be ogres or bogeys or something,
but the premise is identical.
Let's get cracking.
You'll note the LED display is multi-coloured and we have an array of beeping sound effects,
to warm the soul whilst eroding the ears (you can't turn them off either).
I can move my Gobbling hungry monster about to collect the foods whilst evading the ogres.
So many monsters in this game.
Straight away, it's clear that responsive controls are not a thing here.
This joystick control is bloody awful.
If you hit a direction, your monster will head in that direction and keep going until
he hits a wall, or you change his direction.
That's fine, but often it takes 2 or 3 pushes to change the direction.
It's a tad infuriating.
I couldn't tell you if it was like this when new, but I'd hope it was at least, a little
more receptive to my orders.
I tried putting it on the table, which made the whole experience a little more comfortable,
but still did little to enhance the navigational prowess of my little, rebellious monster.
Also, that's not a euphemism.
Thankfully, the ogre's are thick as sh*t.
Seriously, there AI is limited, and most of the time they'll get stuck in a loop somewhere.
However, we're working with a tiny maze here, so its just as well.
Especially once you get past the first two levels and your Ogre count goes up to three.
From here on out, it's just the same thing over and over.
You collect the food, you get the red POWER food, you eat the ogres, you finish the level,
you do it all over again.
You can go from one side of the screen to try and make it more exciting, you can even
choose to hide in the tunnel if you want, but, that's about as exciting as its going
to get.
One thing that's irritating throughout this process is that if you get the POWER food,
an ogre you've already eaten won't turn COWARD, even if he's out of that little middle pen.
I suspect that's a limitation of the logic.
Another limitation is the scoring, if you get over 999 points, which isn't that difficult.
The score resets and you're back to zero.
Given this is a game almost entirely based on the high score, that's a tad irritating.
So rather than keep playing, lets have a look inside this thing, find out what's going on.
The joystick lump falls out revealing some conductive pads underneath on this rather
simple board.
Over there we've got a piezo speaker producing those ear snapping sounds.
This plastic screen cover unscrews revealing all the screen markings underneath, and really
how the VFD works.
Essentially it relies on cathodluminescence, like a CRT screen.
What you can see here is the phosphor prints, which are lit up by electrons when required.
Anyway, under that actual screen is really where the game resides, in the form of a Hitachi
HD38800A27 Micro Controller Unit.
Variations on these were used in lots of these games at the time.
If we look on the back you can see the original Packri Monster branding present, along with
some resistors, capacitors and the like.
Pretty straight forward components, for a pretty straight forward game.
So, what do I think of this thing.
Well, on one hand, it's amazing.
It reeks of the 80s.
It emits bleeping sounds which fill me with an uneasy feeling of pleasure.
It has a glowing screen which makes my eyes widen in the dark.
But on the other hand, the game is crap, the controls are crap, the thing is crap.
And these are ALL the things I want in a game like this.
It's perfect.
Thanks for watching!