Line #33 VideoGame/PacGuy


1	[[quoteright:150:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pacguy.jpg]]
2	''Pac-Guy'', later known as ''Pea-Guy'', is a parody of ''Videogame/PacMan'' developed by Astral Entertainment in Multimedia Fusion. It tells the tales of the title character and his misadventures to combat evil and save the world, taking RandomEventsPlot to the fullest, with many shout outs scattered about. The series started as ''Pac-Guy'' in 1996, was changed to ''Pea-Guy'' in 2001, and is on indefinite hiatus as of 2005.
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4	The game series consists of the following:
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6	[[folder:List]]
7	* ''Pac-Guy'': The original. Received an UpdatedRerelease known as ''Pac-Guy: Resurrection'' with a different intro, slightly enhanced visuals, and a FinalBoss replacing the {{Cliffhanger}} of the original.
8	* ''Pac-Guy: Atomic Edition'': A GaidenGame with a {{BFG}}.
9	* ''Pac-Guy: Christmas Edition'': The ChristmasSpecial.
10	* ''Pac-Guy 2'': The first episode of the sequel, also known as ''Pac-Guy 2: First Contact''.
11	* ''Pac-Guy 2, Part 2: Pagoon'': The second episode of the sequel.
12	* ''Pac Pack'': A CompilationRerelease published by [=ValuSoft=]. The older version only contains installments from ''Resurrection'' to ''Pagoon'' as well as the shareware version of ''Pacula's Curse'', but free add ons can be downloaded from the official website - ''Pac-Gal'' (a female Pac-Guy), ''Pac-Guy Original Edition'' (the original ''Pac-Guy''), ''Pixel-Guy'' (a spinoff with smaller, pixelated graphics), ''Pac-Guy 2: The Lost Levels'' (leftover content), and ''Pac-Guy Scrambler'' (a remix of the original game, ''Atomic Edition'', ''Christmas Edition'', and the first part of ''Pac-Guy 2''). The newer release contains the add ons already in the disc.
13	* ''Pac-Guy 2, Part 3: Pacula's Curse'': The third episode of the sequel and the only entry not included in the ''Pac Pack''.
14	* ''Pea-Guy: Vengeance or Bust'': A direct continuation of ''Pacula's Curse'' that rebrands the series. It is actually three games in one - ''Pea-Guy 3: Ultimeneinasenshun'', ''Pea-Guy 3: Arena'', and ''Pea-Guy 3, Part 2: The Escape from Castle Ernie''.
15	* ''A-Sock-Ellipse Now!'': Another three-in-one title featuring contest-winning ideas - ''The Magic Land'' (a tactical RPG), ''The Secret of Coolness'' (a puzzle-based 3D third-person shooter), and ''Defeating Dr. Robotica'' (an action-based 3D third-person shooter). Also includes a 7½ minute mini-movie called ''The Search For Kodoe'' along with an [[InCharacterCommentaries In-Character Commentary]].
16	* ''R.I.Pea-Guy'': A disc containing bonus content such as source files and a promo for a RadioDrama (which never materialized).
17	[[/folder]]
18
19	!The following tropes appear in the series:
20	* AWinnerIsYou: Beating the Christmas Edition simply gives you a "THE END" screen.
21	* AbsurdlyShortLevel: The first of The Lost Levels is simply Pac-Guy literally walking over some mountains, with no enemies in sight.
22	* AffectionateParody: Obviously one of Pac-Man. It also acts as such for pretty much anything the developers happened to be fans of.
23	* AllThereInTheManual: The series' official website gave intel on many of the characters featured within, most of which isn't detailed in the games themselves.
24	* ArtEvolution: Early ''Pac-Guy'' games had a great reliance on stock assets and only a small snippet of hand-made, non-preset sprites. As the series continued and soon evolved into ''Pea-Guy'', the original graphics improved while the use of stock assets lessened.
25	** This can be seen as early as ''Resurrection'', which changed Pac-Guy's eyes from simple BlackBeadEyes to more detailed eyes with both irises and sclera. The shading on his sprite also improved between the original game and the remake.
26	* BagOfSpilling: Once you beat a level, any leftover ammunition or other secret pickups is lost.
27	* BeeAfraid: In one maze of ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 3'', Pac-Guy is forced to awaken a hive of bees to hit a switch. The Power Pellets are honey jars dumped onto the ground to distract the bees.
28	* {{BFG}}: Pac-Guy’s weapon in ''Atomic Edition''.
29	* BigEater: Pac-Guy, being a ''Pac-Man'' clone, naturally eats lots of colorful pellets in his adventures. Averted once the series became ''Pea-Guy'', replacing the pellets with buttons that must be pressed to finish the level.
30	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The climax of ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 3'': While Pacula is defeated and most of the land has been restored by the Gia, Pac-Guy's Uncle Patches is frozen in carbonate and Pac-Guy himself is sent falling off a cliff after being stunned by the Mysterious Nasty Lord, resulting in a {{Cliffhanger}} that, if you hadn't known about ''Pea-Guy'', you may not have even known was ever followed up on.]]
31	* BlueWithShock: Noticeably averted. Instead of turning enemies blue, Power Pellets instead give Pac-Guy ammo to shoot and remove enemies with. Played straight with ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 1''[=’s=] fourth level, which has a hidden item that permanently turns all the enemies blue.
32	* BottomlessMagazines:
33	** The first game has two levels where you gain infinite ammo: Levels 4 and 12. in the former, it is a secret item (and can only be obtained by collecting the flashing squares in the correct order), and in the latter, it is available out in the open and is ''required'' to beat the level.
34	** The third and final level of ''Christmas Edition'' awards infinite ammo immediately. It too, is necessary.
35	** The final boss against Pacula in ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 3'' provides infinite ammo.
36	* BreathWeapon: Except for ''Atomic Edition'' and ''Escape from Castle Ernie'' where he's shown with actual firearms, Pac-Guy fires bullets accumulated in the level from the center of his sprite where his mouth would be.
37	* BullfightBoss: Professor Test Tube in ''Pea-Guy: Ultimeneinasenshun'' starts his boss fight by using a tractor beam to drain all your ammunition, forcing you to damage him using the spiked test tubes in his lab when he charges at you.
38	* CelebrityParadox: At the end of ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 1'', Pac-Guy finds a black-colored Pac-Man while he is stranded in outer space who says a few lines of dialogue and disappears. In some versions, Pac-Man is his original yellow instead.
39	* ContinuingIsPainful: You automatically use a continue if you lose all your lives- and get sent back to the previous level.
40	* CoolShades: At the start of Ultimeneinasenshun, Pea-Guy puts on a pair of sunglasses before beginning the escape. The shades remained as part of his design for the rest of the series. In the Secret of Coolness, Witchy Witch steals the sunglasses, believing them to be what makes Pea-Guy so cool.
41	* CoversAlwaysLie: The packaging for both versions of ''Pac Pack'' show ''Videogame/PacMan'' characters, including Pac-Man with his traditional pie-shaped eyes and ghosts trailing behind. The series itself has no ghost enemies outside of the third part of the second game (which aren't the classic bedsheet-styled ghosts ''Pac-Man'' is known for) and Pac-Guy has noticeably different facial features than Pac-Man.
42	* CutsceneBoss: [[spoiler:The Bord King at the end of ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 1'']].
43	* CycleOfHurting: Because only Pac-Guy's position is reset upon death, it is possible for an enemy to creep up on his starting position and steadily kill off the rest of the player's lives. Mostly averted in some of the later installments thanks to their improved enemy pathing and AI.
44	* DigitizedSprites: ''Pea-Guy: Escape from Castle Ernie'' experiments with a faux-3D graphic style and is the first installment since ''Atomic Edition'' to render the main character with a weapon. ''A-Sock-Ellipse Now!'' continues this trend.
45	* EveryTenThousandPoints: In every game in the series, an extra life is awarded at every 1,000 points, though in the earlier games this resets your score afterwards.
46	* {{Expy}}:
47	** Pac-Guy himself is one to Videogame/PacMan- as they are both spherical, yellow-colored creatures.
48	** Kan is an expy of [[Franchise/StarTrek Khan Noonien Singh]]. In addition, the “BORD” are expies of the Borg.
49	* FaceHeelTurn: The official site of the series revealed that the purple Pac-Kid rescued in First Contact ended up becoming Ultimeneinasenshun.
50	* GameOverMan
51	** The game over screen of Pagoon shows Kan’s outline as he cackles.
52	** Getting a game over in Ultimeneinasenshun shows the titular villain sing a song mocking Pea-Guy and his demise.
53	* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: [[spoiler: Until the player finishes Level 12, Kan makes no appearances whatsoever. Only when the player reaches Level 13 does he show up, shoot down Pac-Guy, declare Pac-Guy as "his old nemesis", and announce that he is going to kill him- setting up the stage for the final boss fight. Similarly, he has no relevance in ''Pac-Guy 2''[='s=] plot until the {{Cliffhanger}} ending of the first part.]]
54	* NewWorkRecycledGraphics: The first era of ''Pac-Guy'' titles preceding ''Pac-Guy 2 Episode 1'' all continuously recycle graphics (both original and stock ''Clickteam/Multimedia Fusion'' assets) and sound effects.
55	* NintendoHard: Some stages in the game can become this as (without finding secrets) you're given only enough ammunition to kill each enemy in the maze with no spare ammo or room for error, potentially creating un-winnable scenarios and forcing a GameOver if you miss or waste a shot. Most of the smaller enemies having no clear movement path and the levels being dangerously linear with very few if any branching paths or dead ends only makes this harder.
56	* OrphanedSeries: At the current state of affairs, Pac-Guy/Pea-Guy has dealt with six Nasty Lords (Pacula, Ultimeneinasenshun, Ernie Smellur, Magico, [=WitchyWitch=], and Dr. Robotica); however, it has been mentioned that there are twelve total, leaving a whopping half undefeated, not to mention that Kan is still out there.
57	* PoisonMushroom: Levels 8, 9, and 10 of the original game have fake Power Pellets that blow up when you step close to them. They are only slightly off-color from the real power pellets, making them rather hard to distinguish from one another. An explosive pellet also appears in Level 2 of ''Christmas Edition''.
58	* RandomEventsPlot: The first ''Pac-Guy'' game doesn't develop any sort of constant story till much later in the game. Until then, he's mostly just exploring different areas until he has to go into space, recite ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', and escape from Kan.
59	* RunOrDie: In the final level of ''Resurrection'', Pac-Guy is given no means of fighting Kan directly while he's eating all the pellets on his ship; thus he has no choice but to evade all his attacks.
60	* SequelSeries: ''Pea-Guy'' can be considered this to ''Pac-Guy''. In reality, after Hasbro Interactive (licensors of ''Pac-Man'' games on PC at the time) took legal action against ''VideoGame/ThreeDMazeMan'' and released ''Ultimate Pac-Pack'' (which included three official ''Pac-Man'' installments), Astral Entertainment was worried of facing a lawsuit due to the certain likeness, so Pac-Guy was renamed to Pea-Guy and had a palette change. In-universe, Ultimeneinasenshun had Pac-Guy's name legally changed to Pea-Guy between games, although there is no explanation why his color was changed from yellow to green. Pac-Gal was also replaced with Pea-Gal, although Uncle Patches remained the same color.
61	* SuddenlyVoiced:
62	** In ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 3'', Pac-Guy's dialogue is given voice acting. This continues into the ''Pea-Guy'' series.
63	** Inverted in the case of Kan: He has a voice in ''Resurrection'', but doesn't in ''2 Part 1''.
64	* TakeThat: In Scrambler, it’s mentioned that one of the effects of Kan’s dictatorship is that the only show allowed to air on TV is [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Pac-e-mon]]. (In the Pea-Guy version featured on R.I.Pea Guy, [[SettingUpdate it’s replaced with]] [[Anime/YuGiOh Pea-Gi-Oh]])
65	* UnexpectedGameplayChange:
66	** Levels 8 and 12 of ''2 Part 1'' are a driving and a UnexpectedShmupLevel respectively.
67	** Level 3 in ''2 Part 3'' is a tube shooter.
68	* VillainSong
69	** Pacula sings one before his boss battle, the song being a parody of ''Gangsta's Paradise''. He even gets details related to it listed in the corner of the screen, like in a real music video.
70	** Ultimeneinasenshun has two of these, one that serves as his battle theme, again a parody of another song, ''Stayin' Alive'', and one that he sings to [[GameOverMan celebrate if Pea-Guy is killed]].
71	* WholePlotReference:
72	** Levels 10 through 12 of the first game are one to ''Film/ANewHope'' and ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi''.
73	** ''Pac-Guy 2 Part 2: Pagoon'' is an unsubtle, although abridged, one to ''Videogame/UltimaVIII''.
74	* WireDilemma: In ''2 Part 3'', Pac-Guy winds up in this scenario at the end of one maze in Pacula's basement. [[spoiler:He cuts the wrong one.]]

Context VideoGame / PacGuy