Monster Muncher - Vic 20 unexpanded

Monster Muncher

A game originally created by Matthew Smith (Manic Miner & Jet Set Willy) in 1983. Published by Spectrum Games (who went on to become Ocean) in limited numbers, the game has only recently been found by the Games That Weren't. There's quite a story behind it but now it has thankfully been archived. 

The game

The game is mostly playable. You can eat the dots and gobble the monsters. It has three lives and the monsters can gobble you. Unfortunately it is not possible to complete a maze and when you are out of lives, restarting carries on your score.  There are also some bugs here and there. All that said and done it is an impressive game being written completely in BASIC and Matthew is said to have put it together in a matter of hours.

There are some good techniques and ideas in the implementation of the game which help with the speed and simplicity. 

The enhancements

I wanted to fix some of the games problems. Primarily so you can complete a maze, but I've also fixed some of the bugs and added a couple of little things I hope add to the experience. A list of changes I have made follows and the download contains both the enhanced version and the original version kindly archived by the Games That Weren't.

• Game split into two parts to allow all of the enhancements.
• It is now possible to complete a maze
• Losing a life no longer resets the maze back to the start
• Bug where muncher will eat a dot twice when not powered up
• More sounds and a starting jingle has been added
• It is no longer possible to eat respawned monsters
• Improved how monsters move around the maze
• Closed the monster 'home' so they don't get stuck inside
• Fixed monsters leaving an image of the muncher instead of a space
• Reduced time the Bonus Apples are active. Decreases with each level
• Dot no longer 'lost' when eating a monster who is on top of one
• Monsters will now change direction and run away when you eat a power apple
• Can see last score on game over, and score will reset to 0
• Monsters won't respawn when gobbled until the effect of the bonus apple runs out
• A monster can now get you if it moves into you (as opposed to you moving into the monster)

There is one small bug feature remaining, when you are powered up you can sometimes go through a monster if that monster is moving at the same time in the opposite direction. With only 10 bytes remaining I decided to leave this for now. There is scope to optimise for size and fix the issue but maybe another time.