Puckman Pockimon

Puckman Pockimon
Developer	Genie
Console	Arcade
Date	2000

Puckman Pockimon, also known as Jing Ling Jia Zu (精靈家族, roughly translates to "creature family") in Chinese, is a pirated arcade made by Genie.

Overview

File:PuckmanPockimonGameplay.jpg

Puckman Pockimon's gameplay.

The game plays similarly to a standard Pac-Man game with sound effects from Ms. Pac-Man. The game can be played co-operately, with the first and second players controlling Pac-Man and Pikachu respectively. As with Pac-Man, the goal is to collect all the pellets in the level while avoiding enemies that patrol the level. They can take on the appearance of the traditional ghosts Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, and two "Pokémon", a blue rabbit creature (which resembles the first enemy in Gamtec's Pocket Monster) and a green caterpillar resembling Caterpie. None of the enemies seem to follow any player-tracking system like most Pac-Man games and the enemies simply switch between tracking the player(s) or taking detours. Once the player reaches Stage 11, every stage thereafter uses a consistent enemy selection: Blinky > Rabbit > Pinky > Inky.

There are a total of eight worlds with four levels each, divided by timed bonus levels which give chances for extra points and lives. During these bonus stages, the player can tap the fire button to accelerate, which is also possible in main stages after collecting a Wing powerup. Other items include traditional Pac-Man fruit (which do not increase in value as the game progresses), poison that reverses the player's movement direction, and a Yin-Yang symbol that refills all the pellets on a stage.

Unlike regular Pac-Man titles, pellets eaten do not count towards the player's score until after the level is completed. If playing in two player, the player that eats the higher number of pellets takes all the points. For every board that is completed, the player will be shown a digitized photo of an Asian girl, out of sixteen available. Once all sixteen are shown in order, the game loops back to the first one.

Gallery

Puckman Pockimon cabinet.

Instruction card. Note the bad grammar and "GENIE 2000", the creator of Puckman Pockimon.

Flyer for the game. Note the Chinese logo. This version also has a IBS copyright, while it was Genie themselves who distributed the English version of the game.

An example of an intermission.

Size comparison between a maze in Puckman Pokimon and the original Pac-Man.

Puckman Pockimon Chinese title screen.png

Chinese version title screen, displaying "精靈家族", "GENIE 2000", and an 2000 "IBS CO.Ltd" copyright.

Trivia

• The game has many connections to Pocket Monster on the Famicom, as it uses the same dancing sprite from it's ending when the second player is absent and there is at least one credit in the machine. The rabbit-like enemy from that game also appears in Puckman Pockimon.
• The game may be incomplete, as the game ends after an aquatic-themed level with no boss or hard level.
• The song played in the tutorial is also used as the 3rd stage theme of the bootleg A Bug's Life (Mega Drive version).
• So far, there are two known English and Chinese language versions of the game, both of which are emulated on MAME. The English version is under the name "Puckman Pockimon (set 1)", while the Chinese version is under "Puckman Pockimon (set 2)" according to the MAME directory. The Chinese version also seems to be distributed by a company known as "IBS". An alternate ROM set named as "Puckman Pockimon (set 3)" contains yet another company name called "Sun Mixing Co".
• The score freezes at exactly 500,000 points, which can be achieved in a full single-player playthrough.
• The Chinese title "精靈家族" appears to be derived from the then-current Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese title for Pokémon at the time, which is "寵物小精靈/宠物小精灵".
• This game was the first (albeit unofficial) video game featuring Pac-Man and Pikachu present in one way or another, pre-dating Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U by 14 years.