Junior edition: Jr. Pac-Man / Track & Field / Midnight Magic | NES Works Gaiden 75

Our survey of the Atari 2600's post-crash library begins with a trio of games that you could hardly call unprecedented. There's precedent for all of them! But frankly, they all hold up pretty well even today and demonstrate a collective commitment to quality that bodes well for this latter-day phase for the 2600. (It helps that the wizards at GCC developed two of the games appearing this week.) Sure, Jr. Pac-Man looks a bit meager in hindsight next to NES classics like Super Mario Bros. 3, but bear in mind that these carts shipped in 1986, when the NES and Master System were still mewling pups in the U.S. market. In that light, you can actually see the appeal of the 2600 as a reasonable, low-cost competitor to the NES.
You can learn more about the Intellivision's history during the INTV days by preordering The NES Era Vol. III: NES and the Peak of 8-Bit, a comprehensive photographic atlas of every console game released for NES and its competitors-including the Intellivision-at the height of their power, from January 1988 through the advent of 16-bit systems in August 1989. Take a deep dive into the prehistory of NES with this limited-edition oversized (12x12"!) photo book: limitedrungame...
Production notes:
Video Works is funded via Patreon ( / gamespite ) - support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its KZbin debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more!
Atari 2600 footage captured in RGB from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 4K with RetroTink 4X.

[@Faction.Paradox]

Hearing Pac-Man passing on original sin via Catholic guilt is the kind of curveball which makes one feel alive in these troubled times

[@etheweirdo_art]

I think profoundly Catholic take on video game design is one of my favorite phrases I've heard

[@YouSuperJ]

It caught me off guard at first but makes perfect sense

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

It really explains the 80's. That was how it felt for me.

[@dzltron]

I love that you added your initials as NES in the Atari game.

[@sarat6488]

your videos and books are greater than the sum of their parts, able to envelope me in a fuzzy bubble of nostalgia. Your contextual commentary, gameplay footage, vintage television coverage, and scans of magazine spreads evoke strong memories, and for 13 minutes and 40 seconds it's the 80's and I'm 10 years old again.

[@KLGChaos]

Jr Pac-Man brings back a LOT of memories. I remember waking up one night and seeing my dad playing it and realizing he had bought it for my birthday. Loved it as a kid.

[@fangjokerLS]

There is something endlessly entertaining about how Pac-Man as a franchise went a little crazy after the first game and Ms. Pac Man.

[@vectorbeam]

I liked the NES-era Atari 2600/7800 games quite a bit as a young teen. Track and Field, Crystal Castles, Defender II, Jr. Pac-Man and Solaris were some of my favorites from 2600 at that time. Atari was finally learning to program as consistently well as Activision had done in previous years. Yes, the NES was generally better, and I played it simultaneous to Atari at this time - but I had to rely on my mom or my older brother to buy those more expensive games. With my paper route money, I was able to afford the budget titles from Atari all on my own and it was great to be able to bring home something new on a frequent basis. With the NES and the advent of home computing, there were definitely new and exciting ways to play games in the mid 80s, but I was an Atari loyalist - the quality arcade conversions for the 7800 and decent, budget titles from 2600 were enough to keep my Atari fired up regularly for a few more years.

[@TrickyMcnickle]

I freaking loved Jr. Pac Man. I hate that it never comes up on compilations.

[@belboz]

The dots referred to as "fake power pellets" in Jr. Pac-Man - the ones that slow you down as you eat them and don't turn the ghosts blue - don't appear randomly. Every standard dot one of the bouncing bonus items touches as it bounces around the maze becomes one of these penalty dots, and if you don't eat the bonus item quick enough, the bonus item will collide with an actual power pellet and destroy both itself and the power pellet.

[@JustinKolata]

I think those might've been called doughnuts (forgive my memory if I'm confusing weather that was the official name or just my personal interpretation). Also, they are worth 5 times as much as regular dots, making it a risk/reward mechanic, where you can go for a higher score at the cost of eating slower and possible loss of power pellets.

[@SimpletonPortuguese]

I think I never left a comment in one of your videos. It's finally time. Just to say your content is always wonderful. Thank you.

[@feralstorm]

Definitely some of the better of Atari's releases originally intended to be let out years earlier before the Warner selloff. It's worth noting that several decisions on these games come from the 2600 hardware's own strengths and weaknesses, such as the reworked, mostly-symmetrical table layout of "Midnight Magic", and Jr. Pac swapping to a vertically scrolling layout (2600 can't do full screen horizontal smooth scrolling, but vertical scrolling is relatively simple to program.) It's a credit to the Track & Field designers that they used the Atari player/missile sprites so well to 'fake' a good horizontal parallax scroll effect. (Not to mention including a dedicated controller to avoid the joystick-busting waggle that was the bane of Activision's 'Decathlon'.

[@nicktheneshero9010]

Really great video! I noticed a few inaccuracies in the Jr. Pac-Man segment. 1) Tod Frye wasn't rushed or denied data space for his conversion; Atari actually offered to put the game on a 8K ROM, but Frye declined as the main issue he had was the lack of memory on the 2600, not cartridge space. The single biggest cause of that port's poor quality was Frye's decision to give it a 2-player mode. 2) Baby Pac-Man runs on Dave Nutting Associates' Astrocade hardware, not Galaxian hardware. 3) Pac-Man Plus doesn't have remixed maze layouts; it has a single layout identical to the original Pac-Man. Huge fan of your work! I'm super excited for this detour through Atari games!

[@JeremyParish]

Noted.

[@EndymionMkII]

Oh my God seeing the footage of 2600's Pac Man Jr reminded me I did play it as a child when my siblings dusted off their 2600 and i was able to play it and really liked some of the games i tried on the console.

[@jpdunphy1]

Significant nostalgia for Midnight Magic. My dad was not a gamer, but he did enjoy Video Pinball. Before we finally got our NES in 1988, Dad and I picked up Midnight Magic at Toys R Us. He couldn't get into it (too complicated. Apparently something that is "barely pinball" was just enough for him), but I loved it. Was able to snag a new in box copy of it a couple years ago for not much money!

[@absolutezeronow7928]

The VCS version of Pac-Man also had some deliberate creative choices by Tod Frye who wasn't a fan of the arcade version so it's not as cut and dried as "Atari rushed it". Anyway, the fun is back on the Works series with Atari. Track and Field looks good for a system built in 1977.

[@elphive42]

Honestly, I don’t even think Pac-Man is that bad of a port, by Atari standards. Ghost visibility isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be, and I’ve always had a lot of fun with this version’s switchback layouts and relentless ghost AI.

[@DTM-Books]

I loved Jr Pac-Man on both arcades and on the 2600. It was my favorite "red label" game for the system after Solaris, and it does rival Ms Pac-Man in nearly every aspect. It is certainly a game for the expert players, which will always limit its appeal, but since we're talking about a sequel to the two most successful arcade videogames of all time, that's a wise move. I read an article by someone who loves Jr Pac, and she argues that the game's appeal, what GCC understood that Namco never could, was that the thrill of the Pac series came from narrow escapes from certain death. Understood on those terms, Jr Pac can become incredibly tense and exciting, requiring far more running back and forth across the mazes just to survive. That said, I do wish there were more power pellets and some escape tunnels, and the large mazes were later incorporated into later installments of the series, such as the outstanding 16-bit Ms Pac and Pac-Man Championship. Midnight Magic on 2600 was another triumph for its time, far better than the highly abstract Video Pinball. I played that cartridge far more than it had any right to be played, and have many fond memories of the cartridge in the summer and fall months of 1987. For some reason, Atari 2600 Jr and the Minnesota Twins occupy the same space in my mind. Good times.

[@Nokia3310do]

I don't say this enough but your videos are terrific.

[@JohnSegerclucka]

I love Jr Pac-Man on the 2600. Its fantastic

[@dragonchaserkev]

Midnight Magic is one of my top five 2600. I played a lot of that game and still find it worth playing.

[@billcook4768]

Jr Pac-Man also had a fun mechanic with fat dots that give you points, but slow you down. String incentive to get the “fruit” as soon as possible.

[@JeremyParish]

Yep, mentioned briefly here, though I like it less than you do

[@JoshSmith-ff8dw]

You're a machine. If you miss a week, it'll be the end of an era for me.

[@jeremiahthomas8140]

I played quite a bit of Midnight Magic as a kid. I had Video Pinball, but it did not get as much play. And I had never even heard of Bumper Bash back then.

[@steveafulton]

Another amazing video. Your work is superb. I'd love to see a video that is dedicated to GCC.

[@billkendrick1]

Jr on 2600 also undoubtedly scrolls vertically because you have much finer control of the playfield. It's only 40 pixels wide -- 20 bits bits that can be either duplicated or mirrored. It's "however fast you can race the beam" tall, which could be a single scanline, I believe. Basically, the pixels used for the maze and dots in 2600 Pac-Man games come at a resolution of 40x192. It's much simpler to "scroll" it up and down than left & right. The moment you shift away from the center of a symmetrical maze, you're having to do timing intensive trickery to get around that 20 bit resolution. And it'll "scroll" in enormous chunks (about 4 "small" sprite pixels at a time)! I've never done 2600 programming but am well versed in it's descendant, the Atari 8-bit. (And read "Racing the Beam"-- highly recommended!)

[@JeremyParish]

Thanks for the info! That makes sense and explains why emulated footage of 2600 without aspect ratio corrections looks like ass

[@bryanjensen2614]

Wow talk about memories..we use to play Track and Field except it was on NES and we had neighborhood competitions and everything!! The homebrew version of Pacman on the 2600 is the one that should have been released originally!

[@holdingpattern245]

My impression is that moving your joystick from side to side was a normal thing on home computers, Brits of that era ofte call home computer ports of games like Hyper Sports "joystick wagglers" and even "joystick killers."

[@jeromeellsworth1320]

Pac-Man's sin was obviously gluttony

[@skuzzbunny]

Woooah, i forgot about the Track and Field controller, haven't seen one in AGES.....!!!!!O

[@2dskillz]

That 2600 Track and Field really looks great.

[@GameplayandTalk]

Track & Field looks quite solid!

[@TheLohoped]

If you want to play a really good version of Jr. Pac-Man, check out the fanmade Atari 7800 port released in 2009 by Rob DeCrescenzo, a legend in Atari 7800 homebrew community whose games are now officially sold by the current iteration of Atari. It replicates the original horizontal scrolling layout of the arcade with slightly smaller sprite size to fit on a regular horizontal TV screen and has an option to make Jr. significantly faster, in case you find the original pace too challenging.

[@infraredux]

"Name something... of Ms. Pac Man's... that Junior Pac Man was conceived between!" (see 3:54 for the answer)

[@adamking6645]

No mention on how Atari originally intended to release their conversion of Track & Field in the Summer of 1984, in time for the Los Angeles games?

[@Dwedit]

There's a great video from the Ms. Pac Man development team about how the game was made. It was always Crazy Otto until the last possible second, when Midway decided to publish the game and change the sprites back to be Pac Man themed, and they requested that the girl become the main character. Midway liked how the game had built-in anti piracy (which GCC was doing for themselves).

[@nebulapig]

I wish they would get Jr. Pac-Man on switch.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

I'm sure its in the same purgatory that swallowed Ms. Pac-Man.

[@XJLuke765]

Namco was aware of Ms. Pac-Man and gave it their blessing

[@jaymzjulian]

Midnight magic was the pack in with our Atari, and honestly it set an unrealistic expectation at to how great Atari games would look. Between that, river raid, and pitfall, it did a pretty good cosplay of a grown up console

[@Dark.Shingo]

Excuse me, we used a spoon when playing Track and Field on the NES to run faster.

[@cjcomrie]

oh man, Jr Pac Man, I got this in a dollar store in the early 90s (with a couple of the real sports games if I recall)

[@dpgreene]

Atari returns and makes quite a good impression.

[@broy8172]

i watched the mercenaries vid the other day and thought you couldn't top the KMFDM album cover comparison, but pac-man's catholic hell might've been it

[@ElihuAran]

I love Jr. Pac-Man, but I don't think I've seen a cabinet for it in quite some time

[@MJFallout]

that frogge looks nice.

[@BadoorSNK]

The Track & Field controller assigning directional joystick inputs to buttons in order to make a more accessible and effective interface reminds me of how currently in fighting games, there's a growing popularity in leverless or "hitbox" controllers, which are basically just a regular arcade stick but with the joystick replaced with 4 buttons for cardinal directions, and that often ends up giving players an easier and faster way to do certain fighting game inputs very quickly and easily.

[@HowManyRobot]

It's also how the original Track and Field arcade cabinet's controls were laid out.

[@jamesmoss3424]

The Atari 2600 version of Jr. Pac Man is excellent. 😀👍🎮

[@jasonblalock4429]

Heh, seems like the Track & Field controller would work well with Midnight Magic. Dedicated flipper buttons, rather than having to waggle the joystick.

[@michaelwulfbane]

Interesting about the Track & Field 2600 controller left-right to run implementation. I wonder if that informed Skate or Die's left-right action in some of the games.

[@teruienages962]

"And no one has ever played the coin-op release, likes it." Uhhhh... *raises hand*. I like Atari 2600 Pac-Man. And the first time I ever saw Pac-Man WAS the arcade version. Played it, too. And no, i'm not saying I PREFER the 2600 version or anything, that WOULD be silly.... but I still liked the 2600 version PERFECTLY fine. Even back then, I found it's color palette, it's chonky square shape, it's weird maze design, and it's unique sound effects to be strangely charming and a fun, different take on the game when I was a kid, and legitimately enjoyed it. It wasn't until I was actually 19 years old, bought my first computer and then had gone online in the years since, that I first discovered that other people didn't like it. But I still like 2600 Pac-Man to this day. It still brings up a lot of nostalgia and charm to my mind, when I see it or play it.

[@TheLohoped]

8:27 I'm pretty sure that neither Hyper Sports nor Hyper Olympic let you actually play them on a regular Famicom controller. The games expect inputs from the expansion only and ignore A and B buttons entirely. Regular controller support was programmed later for the international Track & Field release.

[@JeremyParish]

Hmm, strange, I recorded this Famicom footage from Analogue Nt Mini and used the NES pad for some of it.

[@jessragan6714]

Wait, could you use Midnight Magic with the Track 'n Field controller? Or does having to pull back to fire the ball make that impossible?

[@JeremyParish]

Oooh, I should try. But the launch mechanic probably rules it out, yeah.

[@murphiverse]

I know I'm in the VAST minority but I actually liked Atari's Pac-Man back in the day. I didn't understand why it looked so different from the arcade but I thought it was so cool that I could play it at home and it was still fun to play. I remember Ms. Pac-Man being much more fun with the bear (easy mode) play option. Never played Junior Pac-Mac.

[@davidmylchreest3306]

Waggling the joystick was pretty much the control system for any athletics game on the C64.

[@MiguelPaulettePerez-bj8ml]

TGIW, JP

[@goranisacson2502]

As Pac-Man was before my time I've never really dived super-deep into it, only vaguely heard things about rights issues eliminating his wife from canon, and now it seems it's taken his child as well. No wonder it seems he's become a monster in that Shadow Labyrinth game, who could be expected to remain sane in the face of such horror? But more on point, I think Pac Jr (and that Pac and Pal game which I didn't even know existed until now) sounds like interesting twists on the formula, even if the execution is... so-so, is a nice and diplomatic word I suppose. And as I've only ever played Track and Field on the NES, I'm curious now what the buttons feel like on that controller, if they are as hard as the NES buttons and thus wear at your thumbs like they did, or if this Atari controller is also more lenient on your fingers.

[@Mrshoujo]

Oddly enough, I bought Jr Pac-Man & Midnight Magic brand new while in college but got the Track & Field controller sans game at a flea market.

[@Riz2336]

Jr. Pac-Man looked like a big improvement over the standard pac-man release

[@OhBear-j8l]

Nice

[@teruienages962]

Oh wow, I have also incredibly fond memories of Baby Pac-Man too. As soon as you started absolutely crapping on that game, I just had a strong desire to leave the video. Which I think I will now, at the 3:22 mark :/

[@MrTableDesk]

2:31 you got robbed there.

[@ZeroCrystal]

Another great video, but I have to disagree with the downright slanderous description of Baby Pac-Man. Is it janky? Quite. But if the concept was allowed to mature, I suspect that we would have seen advancement in the area of hybrid pinball/arcade games. I think that there was gold in the idea, but no one hung out long enough to make the damned thing work.

[@JeremyParish]

It could have been good... but wasn't. I stand by my statement, your honor.

[@ZeroCrystal]

​@@JeremyParish Fair enough.

[@jbanks979]

One of the games of this vintage I can say “I had that!” And I can also fully endorse 2600 Junior is the least hateful alternative. I’m not sure if I ever remember seeing the arcade version (or pac and pal for that measure) at any point in real cabinet form. Having played the MAME rom, Junior is a nightmare. Three screens of dots, no escape hatches, and the power ups would slow down every dot they crossed before exploding them as an added layer of stress. I’ve never gotten more than 2 screens in (and it’s a shame because I think there are four cut scenes upping the ante from Ms. Three) The 2600 game by stripping down the number of dots significantly per screen if nothing else is the more enjoyable experience.

[@elphive42]

It might be a little misleading to think of the Pac-Man release continuity as being separate between the Midway & Namco branches. Most of the characters from the Midway continuity (including Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man, Chomp Chomp (from the unreleased Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp localization of Pac & Pal), & Pac-Jr.) would become a canonized part of the main cast from Pac-Land onwards. This would continue throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s in releases like Pac-Man World and Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, until rights negotiations with GCC and the 2019 lawsuit with AtGames forced them to replace Ms. Pac-Man with the new Pac-Mom.

[@GRNDZA108]

How have I never seen Pac n' Pal once in all these years?

[@JeremyParish]

You lucked out

[@Athesies]

I like the 2600 port of pac man and ive played the arcade version....

[@madpandahat]

Are all your books still in publication? Starting my collection !

[@JeremyParish]

Many of them, yes. Check limitedrungames.com

[@Ratralsis]

I'm sorry, did you say that Professor Pac-Man was "middling?" Jeremy, come on. Come ON, Jeremy. I eagerly await the day you release a full video covering the game in its entirety in which you defend THAT statement.

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry, I meant “completely butt-ass”

[@Ratralsis]

@JeremyParish Much better, thank you

[@happydeathman]

Let's not forget that Jr. Pac-Man is ALSO an anti-racism love story! That's one of the weirdest sentences I've ever written, but it also happens to be true.

[@GamingTheSystems1]

Will there be an Ouya Works series?

[@JeremyParish]

Become the change you want to see in the world... make it happen

[@theblackrabbit1710]

I hate hearing people dismiss/pass-over Super Pac-Man when talking about anything released after the original. Ms. Pac-Man is far too overrated while the best thing the series ever did after the original is without a doubt, Super Pac-Man. Then I'd have to say the original CE comes in third.

[@pollyisagoodbird]

Baby Pac-Man ran on Galaxian hardware? All this time I thought it was it's own. It's also very underrated in my opinion! I love the idea of using pinball to modify the maze elements, and the simplified layout makes said table easy enough for those who aren't great at pinball but great at video games a chance to pick up and play it, a design choice I feel like made more sense at the time of its release when video games overshadowed pinball by quite a bit. Trying to actually find one to play in real life is a chore, the nearest one to my knowledge is an hour away from me. But having played it multiple times, I think it does a great job spicing up the Pac-Man formula.

[@TSDT]

I remember loving it as a kid, fascinated by the hybrid approach. I had the pleasure of visiting a Pac-man museum exhibit in Japan, where they had a perfectly maintained copy... and was surprised by how bootleggy it felt. I don't remember hating it, but it felt like the scales had fallen off my eyes. So it goes.

[@pollyisagoodbird]

@@TSDT "Bootleggy" is a great description for the video portion. I practiced with an emulated version to get a sense of the ghost behavior, and it's unlike anything the mainline games have shown. But with countless hours of practice I was able to get a better sense of how they moved, and boy are the aggressive. But there's not greater feeling than nabbing a power pellet, luring them into the tunnel, and taking advantage of the speed increase you got playing pinball to rocket through to the other side, eating them all in a single go.