Previous Next

When the very, very first Acorn Electrons rolled into high street stores, they were modern, state-of-the-art machines, and the software division of Acorn Computers had already put together a range of games to help maximise the chance they would sell. Snapper was one of these. It didn't come free with the machine (Well, not at first anyway, later in time five Acornsoft games were bundled with it!); it was one of the range of £10 games you picked up to go with your £200 computer so that, when you got it home, you had something to play with.

As you can likely guess from its name, it's a conversion of Pac-man. It has a maze of dots, four creatures that roam in given patterns, and four flashing dots which turn the creatures blue, and make them edible, for a short time. Actually, Snapper on the Electron is sort of like a conversion of a conversion, because originally Jonathan Griffiths wrote it for the BBC Model B and then just modified the code a bit for this Electron version. The history of the original Snapper on the BBC is well worth reading up on, because that version existed in two versions - one in which the sprites and ghosts were almost 100% identical to Pac-man, and a later one where they were modified to the "creatures" that we see here.

Whether you prefer running away from ghosts or creatures however, you won't find a lot to criticise in Acornsoft's version of the old favourite. It runs very smoothly, is as addictive as you might expect, and gets progressively tougher. By the tenth 'sheet', eating the flashing dots gives you about one second's respite.

There were a great many Pac-man clones on the Electron, but none reached the level of class that this early title exuded. But I must confess that I find Snapper so easy now that it somehow manages to simultaneously bore me and tempt me to keep playing. If you're looking to collect it, it's production run hit the tens of thousands, so don't let anyone try to kid you that it's rare. At least, not on cassette. Snapper is actually quite unique in being a game that was also released on cartridge... and that version is not only seriously rare but considered very desirable. Both versions come in the Acornsoft, 'graph paper' style, oversized cardboard boxes that made them look like "the future".

Pac-man is a winning formula even on modern systems today. There's a good reason for that, so when you've got this excellent version of it to play on the Electron, you shouldn't disregard it simply because it's not rare. It's well worth a game or two and, if you fancy adding it to your collection, the tape version generally goes for around £1 and the cartridge version for anything between £30-£50 (Nope, not a misprint!).