And now, the first MAME Mondays write-up of 2024, wherein I subject myself to the coin-op horrors.
Panic sets in when you realize that ladders don’t count as open spaces, meaning aliens can't fall down them when trapped from atop. If I'm going to play a Heiankyo Alien follow-up with emphasis on using verticality (and thus gravity) to defeat monsters, then having only one way to deal with higher-tier aliens (two or more blank pits atop each other) is a problem. Both Space Panic and its predecessor rely on players making the right tactical move to surround themselves with pits, knowing they have limited movement and must guess where the baddies might move. But at least the 1979 game didn't bother with punishing you for not running over to a trapped critter in time; here, that's practically a death sentence since it enrages the monster, meaning now I have to double-put the thing before oxygen runs out.
And there's the rub: with a strict time limit per life and the enemies gaining more advantage from mistimed traps than players, Universal's take on the maze trapping formula feels claustrophobic in ways Heiankyo Alien simply didn't. Sure, I can also fall down the pits I've made to reach safety, and thankfully Kazutoshi Ueda didn't add death from falling here. But the win state's the same as ever. Dodging monsters means nothing if I can't reliably get rid of them, especially if I now have to time not one, but two pit placements against the timer and the AI's whims. Now let's couple this with a rather high time-to-bonus-life factor (3000 or 5000 points depending on DIP switch), plus how mooks will speed up across stages, and we've got an exponential difficulty curve to make long-form play even riskier. I wouldn't say the University of Tokyo's crack game hobbyists had all the acumen of veteran designers, but they at least wanted random arcade-goers to make progress and regularly get high and higher scores. Its slower monsters and time limit meant one could strategically camp at an intersection if desired, or take risks with pit placement to maximize clear bonuses much easier. Compared to Digger, Ueda's game seems downright hostile, and just as aesthetically spare without the gentler ramping-up of its inspiration.
It's impressive how quickly Universal cloned and, in some cases, matched up to outdid the games and developers they copied, but this plan doesn't seem to have worked out with Space Panic. To its credit, the game sold well and influenced the design of Donkey Kong and Lode Runner among others, but those genre evolutions were inevitable. This title's main new mechanic, using physics to defeat and avoid monsters you could previously only corner, feels both under-utilized and skewed against the player at all skill levels. Adding gravity and risks associated with multiple height levels was the logical next step from flat mazes. Other pure maze games like Pac-Man and Lock 'n Chase would find new ways to restrict but also empower the protagonist, adding verbs like power-ups and lockable doors to discourage turtling while reorienting game flow around dashing for safe spaces. In these earliest trap-em-ups, though, the hierarchy's all flat, with only the largest spaces between ladders and intersections having any priority. So there's a disconnect between what Ueda's added to distinguish this from Heiankyo Alien and what designers elsewhere in the industry would do to innovate the maze game genre. Consider that "platforming" came about by accident, the serendipitous result of imbuing the player character with more and better internal logic relative to their environment.
I guess this isn't too bad for 1980, just underwhelming as a missing link between Heiankyo-likes and the complex maze games to come. The concept's just too underdeveloped and unkind to its target audience, even knowing enough people clamored for a new trapping game to plunk considerable coin onto this one. The cleverest thing happening here, I'd argue, is reusing assets to make a unique hi-score entry screen. It feels quite playful to clamber around and dig for the letters vs. just tapping buttons to type my name in. Honestly, I might enjoy that more than the all-or-nothing dynamic of isolating my guy between pits halfway up the maze or running after the aliens, hoping I don't work myself into an ambush. Whereas I can appreciate the primordial beginnings of the genre in Head-On and Heiankyo Alien, this maze game is too small a jump in complexity and too much of a killjoy whenever I'm about to hit a groove playing it. Here's hoping Lady-Bug and the Mr. Do series can make up for this!
Panic sets in when you realize that ladders don’t count as open spaces, meaning aliens can't fall down them when trapped from atop. If I'm going to play a Heiankyo Alien follow-up with emphasis on using verticality (and thus gravity) to defeat monsters, then having only one way to deal with higher-tier aliens (two or more blank pits atop each other) is a problem. Both Space Panic and its predecessor rely on players making the right tactical move to surround themselves with pits, knowing they have limited movement and must guess where the baddies might move. But at least the 1979 game didn't bother with punishing you for not running over to a trapped critter in time; here, that's practically a death sentence since it enrages the monster, meaning now I have to double-put the thing before oxygen runs out.
And there's the rub: with a strict time limit per life and the enemies gaining more advantage from mistimed traps than players, Universal's take on the maze trapping formula feels claustrophobic in ways Heiankyo Alien simply didn't. Sure, I can also fall down the pits I've made to reach safety, and thankfully Kazutoshi Ueda didn't add death from falling here. But the win state's the same as ever. Dodging monsters means nothing if I can't reliably get rid of them, especially if I now have to time not one, but two pit placements against the timer and the AI's whims. Now let's couple this with a rather high time-to-bonus-life factor (3000 or 5000 points depending on DIP switch), plus how mooks will speed up across stages, and we've got an exponential difficulty curve to make long-form play even riskier. I wouldn't say the University of Tokyo's crack game hobbyists had all the acumen of veteran designers, but they at least wanted random arcade-goers to make progress and regularly get high and higher scores. Its slower monsters and time limit meant one could strategically camp at an intersection if desired, or take risks with pit placement to maximize clear bonuses much easier. Compared to Digger, Ueda's game seems downright hostile, and just as aesthetically spare without the gentler ramping-up of its inspiration.
It's impressive how quickly Universal cloned and, in some cases, matched up to outdid the games and developers they copied, but this plan doesn't seem to have worked out with Space Panic. To its credit, the game sold well and influenced the design of Donkey Kong and Lode Runner among others, but those genre evolutions were inevitable. This title's main new mechanic, using physics to defeat and avoid monsters you could previously only corner, feels both under-utilized and skewed against the player at all skill levels. Adding gravity and risks associated with multiple height levels was the logical next step from flat mazes. Other pure maze games like Pac-Man and Lock 'n Chase would find new ways to restrict but also empower the protagonist, adding verbs like power-ups and lockable doors to discourage turtling while reorienting game flow around dashing for safe spaces. In these earliest trap-em-ups, though, the hierarchy's all flat, with only the largest spaces between ladders and intersections having any priority. So there's a disconnect between what Ueda's added to distinguish this from Heiankyo Alien and what designers elsewhere in the industry would do to innovate the maze game genre. Consider that "platforming" came about by accident, the serendipitous result of imbuing the player character with more and better internal logic relative to their environment.
I guess this isn't too bad for 1980, just underwhelming as a missing link between Heiankyo-likes and the complex maze games to come. The concept's just too underdeveloped and unkind to its target audience, even knowing enough people clamored for a new trapping game to plunk considerable coin onto this one. The cleverest thing happening here, I'd argue, is reusing assets to make a unique hi-score entry screen. It feels quite playful to clamber around and dig for the letters vs. just tapping buttons to type my name in. Honestly, I might enjoy that more than the all-or-nothing dynamic of isolating my guy between pits halfway up the maze or running after the aliens, hoping I don't work myself into an ambush. Whereas I can appreciate the primordial beginnings of the genre in Head-On and Heiankyo Alien, this maze game is too small a jump in complexity and too much of a killjoy whenever I'm about to hit a groove playing it. Here's hoping Lady-Bug and the Mr. Do series can make up for this!