PacMania
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PacMania is a Pac-Man-style game developed and released by Alawar Entertainment in 1999. Later on, Pacmania II and III were released in 2002 and 2005 respectively, with the original PacMania being labelled as "Advanced" mode in those games.
Not to be confused with a game for the NES of similar name and theme.
Tropes used in PacMania include:
- Bedsheet Ghost: While the classic Pac-Man ghosts are replaced by skeleton crocodile-like monsters, one of the new enemies is a ghost that directly beelines for you through walls.
- Extreme Omnivore: Instead of eating fruit to gain bonus points, Pacman eats bags of money. He also eats keys, bumpers, skulls and crossbones, arrows, and even bombs!
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: In Pacmania II and III, keys were only usable once.
- Luck-Based Mission: Due to mechanics changes in Pacmania II and III, keys were lost entirely upon opening a door. Good luck waiting and hoping for over 3 random keys to appear if you run out in level 12 of Advanced mode.
- Nigh Invulnerability: The new boss and ghost monsters cannot be defeated using the old power pellet trick. The powerups that do kill them (skull and crossbones and bombs) are not introduced until about halfway through the game.
- No Plot, No Problem: Just like the original Pac-Man, there was no backstory besides "eat the dots and avoid the monsters."
- Non-Indicative Name: The boss monster is actually fairly common, and can easily be one-shotted using a skull and crossbones or bomb powerup.
- Power-Up Motif: The new powerups are no exception to this classic Pacman rule.
- Scoring Points: There is even a scoreboard upon either finishing all 30 levels or getting a Game Over.
- Sequel Difficulty Spike: More Fake Difficulty than anything, as the levels themselves never changed and only the mechanics did. One change, monsters not teleporting off-screen like the player does, causes level 24 to be nigh-impossible in Pacmania II and III Advanced mode.
- Smart Bomb: The bomb powerup destroys the nearest monster.
- Suspiciously Similar Song: The MIDI files that the game uses for each level copy off of many Real Life songs, such as "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson or "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits, among others.
- Title Confusion: Searching for "Pacmania" will also yield an NES title of the same name by Lukie Games.
- Updated Rerelease: Pacmania II and III, as mentioned above.