| Scarfman | |
| Publisher: | The Cornsoft Group |
| Designer: | Philip A. Oliver |
| Platforms: | TRS-80, TRS-80 Color Computer |
| Released: | 1981 TRS-80 |
| Genre: | Maze |
Scarfman is a clone of Pac-Man written by Philip A. Oliver for the TRS-80 computer and published by The Cornsoft Group in 1981. A version for the TRS-80 Color Computer followed in 1982 as Color Scarfman, which uses 64x64 low resolution graphics.
Oliver also wrote the Enhanced BASIC Compiler for the TRS-80 Model III and 4.[1]
Scarfman is a game in which the player is Scarfman, trying to eat the dots in a maze filled with them along with five power capsules, avoiding the five monsters that roam the maze. Unlike Pac-Man, there are five monsters instead of four. Eating a power pill causes monsters to lower their eyes, indicating that they're vulnerable. The eyes shift to the normal position when the pill's effect wears off. In Color Scarfman, eating a power pill causes the ghosts to remain vulnerable - indicated by turning blue - until eaten or the level ends.
Dan Ekblaw reviewed Scarfman in The Space Gamer number 54. Ekblaw commented that "Overall, I would say that Scarfmans defects outweigh its good points by far. I've found that this game loses its novelty after a few weeks and will spend the rest of its days sitting on a shelf".[2]
In a 2012 retrospective, Gamasutra wrote that the "chirp-chirp-chirp chomping sound effect is maddening. But it does play like Pac-Man, more or less".[3]