Classic Namco Daily

"Perfect Patterns" for the first two mazes in Game 2 of the 2600 version of Pac-Man.

The 1982 book How to win at Pac-Man demonstrates that the 2600 version does have deterministic pathing, though the maze being so radically different means it has little resemblance to the arcade version in that respect.

Screenshot of the Famicom version of Pac-Man (1984, Namco) showing a full maze.

Screenshot of the Arcade version of Pac-Man (1980, Namco) showing a full maze.

While Namco's early Famicom ports were exceptional, they were far from arcade perfect. While the proper pathfinding of the ghosts is implemented in Famicom Pac-Man, the maze was scaled down (now having 192 dots vs the arcades 244), meaning the 'perfect patterns' of the arcade no longer work.

Boxart for the NES port of Pac-Mania (1990, Westwood Studios/Tengen)

Cartridge PCB for the NES port of Pac-Mania. On the top Right, 'MIMIC-1' is etched into the PCB.

The MIMIC-1 would be used pretty extensively by Tengen, though for the purpose of keeping things on the Namco side, I'll say that it was used for the 1990 Tengen-comissioned and Westwood Studios developed NES port of Pac-Mania!

A photo of the licensed Tengen NES release of Gauntlet with the cartridge PCB taken. On the top right of the PCB, there's a chip that says "109 Japan" on it. Photo credit: @nicole.express‬ https://nicole.express/2022/the-center-point-can-not-hold.html

Namco's 109 mapper was one of the very few third-party mapper chips to be used in any licensed third party NES releases, featuring in Tengen's licensed release of Gauntlet (the unlicensed version would use a clone known as the MIMIC-1), Karnov, R.B.I Baseball, and Ring King (AKA Family Boxing).

Famicom Boxart for Karnov (1987, SAS Sakata/Data East/Namco)

Boxart for the Famicom release of BurgerTime (1985, SAS Sakata/Data East/Namco)

Boxart for Family Boxing (1987, SAS Sakata/Data East/Namco)

Data East and Namco shared something of an odd relationship during the Famicom era. Though Data East did self-publish under for Famicom several of their titles, such as BurgerTime and Karnov, were released under Namcot's label. Among these titles, Family Boxing even used the Namco 109 mapper chip.

The final until the upcoming release of Pac-Man Double Feature, of course.

Gameplay screenshot of Pepsi Invaders (1983, Atari).

And before anyone says anything, 1983's Pepsi Invaders was not sponsored by Coca Cola, but was a directly commissioned modification of the 2600's version of Space Invaders to be handed out at Coca Cola's sales convention. The game saw no commercial distribution.

Front of the arcade manufacturer flyer for Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours (1992, Namco)

Back of the arcade manufacturer flyer for Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours (1992, Namco)

A gameplay screenshot of Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours (1992, Namco). During Lap 1, the game is bright and sunny.

A gameplay screenshot of Coca-Cola Suzuka 8 Hours (1992, Namco). During Lap 4, the game is much darker, with the skybox depicting a starry and somewhat cloudy night sky.

Namco's Coca Cola: Suzuka 8 Hours was the first ever video game to be sponsored by the Coca Cola company, based on the homonymous motorcycle endurance race sponsored by the company each year. The game features some light simulation of the endurance aspect, featuring a day-night transition.

Slide Show title screen. ==Transcript:== ATARI SLIDE SHOW COPYRIGHT 1984 ATARI (Source: https://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/slideshow/slideshow.htm)

Pac-Maziac screen (Source: https://www.atariprotos.com/5200/software/slideshow/slideshow.htm)

A recently unearthed Atari 5200 tech demo cartridge named "Slide Show" provides a static glimpse of some video game concepts for a touch tablet peripheral.

One concept is labeled "Pac-Maziac" and appears to be a pitch for a Pac-Man maze builder game.

A screenshot of the Japanese titlescreen of Pac-Mania (1987, Namco) There's text reading: To enter select mode Push start button! While pushing Jump One player only!

A screenshot of the stage selection menu from the Japanese release of Pac-Mania (1987, Namco) It allows the player to choose from Block Town (Easy), Pac-Man's Park (Middle), Sandbox Land (Hard), and Jungly Steps (Very hard)

A screenshot of the US titlescreen of Pac-Mania (1987, Namco) There's text reading: Push start button! One player only!

A screenshot of the stage selection menu from the US release of Pac-Mania (1987, Namco) It allows the player to choose from Block Town (Easy) No Bonus, Pac-Man's Park (Middle) Bonus 70,000, Sandbox Land (Hard), and Sandbox Land (Hard) Bonus 150,000 Round 6 Jungly Steps is listed though is (Unselectable)

Pac-Mania was altered fairly heavily when brought over to the US from Japan, though one of the most obvious changes was that the level select now appears by default, rather than having to hold the jump button when starting the game, as well as offering score bonuses for starting on later stages!

A screenshot of the Super Cassette Vision version of Mappy (1986, Namcot/Epoch)

A screenshot of the Super Cassette Vision version of Sky Kid (1986, Namcot/Epoch)

A screenshot of the Super Cassette Vision version of Pole Position II (1986, Namcot/Epoch)

Epoch's 1994 console, the Super Cassette Vision was something of an also-ran in the Japanese console market, releasing as it did in the same year as the Famicom and SG-1000. However, despite a tiny library of thirty games, the last three were Namco ports: Mappy, Pole Position II and Sky Kid.

a timeline of Nakamura/Namco games
thetastates.com/eremeka/erem...

A photo of

Before Namco, a history🧵:
On June 1st, 1955, Nakamura Masaya would found Nakamura Seisakusho Co., Ltd. Starting with only ¥300,000 (roughly 13.5k USD today), he purchased and installed two hand-cranked mechanical rocking horses on a roof garden of a Matsuya department store in Yokohama.

Japanese arcade sales brochure for F-1 (1976, Namco)

Arcade sales brochure for F-1 (1976, Namco)

Namco's F-1 as seen in Ladies And Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains (1982, Paramount)

In October of 1976, Namco released F-1 to the Arcades, with it coming stateside only a month later courtesy of Atari. Designed by Namco engineer Sho Osugi, it built directly on his prior work with Racer, improving on the tech and shrinking it slightly to allow it to be installed in more locations.

A photo of Ohnogi Nobuyuki working on music taken from the 1986 issue of BEEP magazine.

Screenshot of the first bonus stage of Mappy (1983, Namco)

Born January 27th, 1956 in Shizuoka, Japan, Ohnogi Nobuyuki composed the music for many early Namco titles, starting with Rally-X's high score music, before moving onto bigger titles like Galaga and Mappy, the latter of which he actually designed the bonus stages of!

But if people are interested in seeing something but its never presented to them, I would like to make it so they can see it.

Not that getting attention has ever really been a big goal of this page, I run it for my own satisfaction out of a desire to get to share a little bit of videogame history from an incredibly important creator whose works are very dear to me.

Also, just as a general thing, would people mind more reposts? Never to replace the daily posts, but just to share posts that people might have missed? I've refrained out of fear of clogging people's feeds, but I've noticed that reposts do tend to actually get quite a decent bit of attention.

write this, and frankly its absurdly cumbersome. I will try to repost stuff here and there, but there won't be any new proper posts for a little bit. With some rest, regular wrist exercises, and conservative use of my wrist braces, I should be fine fairly soon. Thanks for your understanding.

Classic Namco Daily will be taking a brief hiatus, I have developed some RSI and have been advised to minimize typing and use of the mouse as much as possible for a few days and restrict it to an hour or two a day for a couple weeks after that. I'm currently using a dictation program to (1/2)

One of those rare cases where all the regions' boxes are good because they're all Klonoa

Japanese boxart for Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (1997, Namco)

US boxart for Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (1998, Namco)

PAL boxart for Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (1998, Namco)

Boxart comparison for the PS1 release of Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (Kaze no Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - 風のクロノア door to phantomile
JAP/US/PAL

I can understand that, I just feel that it was a worthwhile upgrade for the repeated games, but again, like I said, depends on what you personally value more. It's mostly an academic discussion these days, since you can freely choose whichever you'd personally prefer.

The shimmering from the compressed resolution in 50th is definitely a deal breaker for some, and I get it.
Both are definitely some of the better comps on the system though, I can agree there.

I ultimately prefer the 50th Anniversary version, since that one uses proper emulation. Having to play Dig Dug and Pac-Man with scrolling screens is never a preferable compromise to shrinking the screen imo, but I think it ultimately depends on what compromises you're willing to accept.

Really wanted to show this one off, but couldn't find any higher quality scans, unfortunately. It's not the greatest way to play any of these games, but it's serviceable, I was able to beat Pole Position on it at least!

Japanese boxart for the first Gameboy Advance Namco Museum (2001, Mass Media/Namco)

Japanese boxart for the GBA Release of Namco Museum (Namuko Myūjiamu - ナムコミュージアム) 2001, Mass Media/Namco

Yup, I posted about that when I posted about Namco Classic! A lot of fans consider it part of the 'Family' line of Namco sports titles despite not being named as such because it features her on the box!

Boxart for Family Tennis (1987, Namco)

Famicom Boxart for Family Tennis (ファミリーテニス) 1987, Namco

Image details for one of the Xevious poster scans, with a resolution of 13986 x 9834 (no typo there)

You can find these on archive in *absurdly* high resolution, so hopefully someone comes along to translate it one of these days.
archive.org/details/Xevi...