Mac-Man, the Macintosh, and the 1980s: When a Pac-Man Clone was the Best "Killer App" a Gamer Could Own

Although everywhere now, computers were once akin to mystery machines…cryptic devices the average person really didn’t understand. Why was a home PC necessary for the average family? Was a $2000 (or more) device really necessary for doing one’s taxes or composing a letter? And for those who did purchase one of these Home Office Boxes, many found themselves confounded by the typical IBM Compatible’s unfriendly screens of DOS command lines flashing from a sea of black. Eww. Let’s go back to calculators, please.

My parents harbored similar misgivings in these bygone late’80s days, only investing in a home computer when the dual stars of budget and ease-of-use finally aligned. And in this case, it was the Apple Macintosh’s line of graphical-user-interfacing (GUI) computers…along with a neighbor willing to sell his already vintage 1985 model…that finally convinced them it was time to enter the PC-age. This ten-year-old boy had been given the future, even if the “future” meant black-and-white graphics on a boxy 9” screen.

But, for someone who had barely pecked at a typewriter before, this strange, beige box was a welcome asset—not because I could now type up my homework or play in MacPaint, but because the box, having been purchased already used, came with a slew of preloaded jewels. Read: Games. Being a poor kid with just a lowly Nintendo Entertainment System, the gift of new titles powered by the computer’s proclaimed 68000 16-bit architecture was exciting. Except, as I soon found, these games were nothing like the NES titles I took for granted.

Nothing resembling a Mario or Mega Man here. No shooters or brawlers or even an adventure game was installed. Instead, I found a lot of arcade knock-offs. A lot of simplistic, shareware-style amusements often programmed by some obscure enthusiast or an ephemeral, fly-by-night company. Some of these games were actually pretty good—just not what any self-respecting NES-kid would want. Nevertheless, there was one specific title that I loved more than any other…and never really forgot.

A Pac-Man clone.

A game called Mac-Man.

Mac-Man's developer, Nuvo Labs, was very proud of its included joystick adapter.

The big apples turn the baddies black and thus munchable...but sometimes, it's best just to keep snacking on the tinier fruits.

One "innovation" is that the baddies don't spring from a central base, but rather, have their own personalized booths at each corner of the maze.

Mac-Man received some very-nice packaging and, apparently, had a second release. It also came with a much-ballyhooed adapter that allowed players to easily connect an Atari-style joystick.

Mac-Man isn’t anything revolutionary or marvelous. Really, it’s just a very playable parody of Pac-Man, with the eponymous hero replaced by a sentient Mac-intosh computer. This happy-go-hungry personified piece of Apple tech behaves just like a Pac-Person; he swerves through mazes, munching dots—er, apples—while being pursued by a tetrad of enemy PCs. But these aren’t random computers, either: named Big Blue, Ma Bell, Dumpy, and Junior accordingly, they represent Apple’s biggest competitors of the era (Big Blue, for instance, was a common nickname for IBM). In those days, Apple’s success wasn’t yet guaranteed. (Indeed, even with the Mac’s vast superiority to its contemporaries, Apple wouldn’t find true validation—and vindication—until it introduced the iPod in 2001).

Everything gameplay-wise, for better or worse, is predictable enough. Gobbling all the apples means ascending to a different maze in which the running and gobbling continues onward. Mac-Man’s pursuers can be temporarily thwarted by eating one of four power apples placed in each corner of the maze. Bonus items, like joysticks and diskettes, can be had for extra points. And, should enough stages be completed, short cinema scenes will play with a symphonic and visual panache that exceeds the minimalist intermissions of its Pac-Man source material.

Even by 1989 standards, Mac-Man was a thin experience, serving more to demonstrate how quickly gaming tastes had changed in a scant few years versus being a true milestone in Macintosh gaming. But, at the time, with little else available, Mac-Man was a fun, well-conceived treat that trumped, at the very least, the rather blasé NES version of Pac-Man, and lightyears beyond the terrible Atari 2600 port I also owned. The game had personality, good sound…and more than anything, felt too inspired to be merely dismissed as just another Pac-Man clone. To me, Mac-Man might as well have been Apple’s Macintosh mascot. Indeed, with so little to play on Apple’s pint-sized machine in 1986, many early adopters probably saw him as exactly that.

And yet, jettisoning ahead to 2026, Mac-Man is the definition of a forgotten game—of abandonware that most wouldn’t bother to play even if they were somehow gifted a copy. But such is the case with early “Macintosh gaming”; the phrase, even today, is often seen as an oxymoron. And Mac-Man was the price Apple fans always had to pay in exchange for enjoying that intuitive, click-and-get interface. Early DOS users got uglier graphics, inconsistent sound, and uncertain performance…yet somehow, always got the better games.

For the curious-minded, Mac-Man can be emulated in a window right here (click on the Mac icon that says "Wow, emulate this in browser now." It’s not the best way to experience the game, as there’s lag and, at least for me, no sound…but it still offers a decent peek into what early Macintosh gamers had to play in the mid-‘80s. And for those satisfied enough with just a quick video (or 2), this gent has the game running natively with its original sound intact.

Someday, maybe a wistful Apple user will deign it time to make the long overdue (albeit unofficial) Mac-Man 2. This time…with color! And, despite the sacrilege, make it available on those gross Windows machines.--D

The game features a rather standard scoreboard, although the scores as recorded here from a previous save are pretty entertaining.

As an homage to its arcade sensibilities, the basic interface makes use of faux-arcade buttons. It's a nice touch.

Since the "dots" themselves are fruit, it only makes sense to use something else for the special items. What else? The famous loading watch, of course! And a diskette! A joystick! Hmm, what other special items might Mac-Man be hiding?

Mac-Man's intermissions are a fun treat and a definite graphical upgrade from Pac-Man's own bleak proceedings.

My family's first computer was a used version of this...but it did have Mac-Man already installed!