K.C. Munchkin (Magnavox 1981)

[Commentman4887]

the second k.c. is so much better.................. I love this system, the footbsll game for this system is better than madden lol

[Halpin2006]

KC Munchkin was very popular up to 1982, and a lot of video game fans were bummed that it was no longer for sale after the lawsuit. I remember playing it myself. After he ate up all of the centipede's body, he gleefully laughed "Incredible!":

[StephensStuff]

Well, its better than Atari did with Pac-Man...seriously

[ToddSweeneyOnce]

I'd still rather play pinball machines.

[DavidFullam]

Tons better than the 2600 Pac Man.

[jcrowley1985]

So atari sued magnavox over this issue, but didn't magnavox sue atari a few years earlier when atari suposedly copied the Odyssey 1?

[DavidusMaximusWin]

this is the exact same game...

[WillisFilms1]

Although really, this looks better than the atari version of pac man.

[fiveortenbren]

I had this back in the day. My father worked for Amperex, which was the North American division of Phillips in Hicksville Long Island. All the kids at school would bust my balls because I didn't have Atari, I had Odyssey. I had this game for about a year before Atari dropped thier GODFORSAKEN excuse for a home version of Pac Man. I remember my dad would never talk about the "big lawsuit" I would read about in the paper ha ha ha....Thanks for posting this man, brings back memories.

[amberthesuperfox]

was this one of those plug and play games my brother brought one the games anoy the mess out of me

[brgvt97]

My high score on K.C. Munchkin is 3,232. I used to keep records.

[erjefe1]

@brgvt97 Nothing special. I used to pass 9999 and on for about four to five hours of non-stop playing (no pause) up to being really exhausted. xD

[brgvt97]

@erjefe1 I never indicated it was anything special.  I'm merely stating a number. You're reading too much into it.

[mikedamian2]

@brgvt97 Hahaha mine was 3751, and then he got stuck in the bottem, i don't even know any of my records now on MW2, but i still remember that record in 84' LOL

[krirre]

i would rather play this than WoW

[MotherPunker970]

oh wow that looks just like pacman man!lol xD

[mentalrectangle]

I think this game looks awesome and I'm 24.

[Blaketoberfest]

"...until Atari sued their ass."

Don't you mean Namco? Namco owns the rights to Pac-Man, not Atari.

[Umma6umma]

@Blaketoberfest Atari had the rights to produce a home video game version of Pac-Man.

[KilleRotom]

@Umma6umma Nope, you've got it all wrong!

Atari had the rights to produce a SHITTY home version of Pac-Man

[UglySean]

@Blaketoberfest Blake was right. Atari bought the rrights to the home version and challenged all opponents. Some say it's a shame as reviews have often quoted KC Munchkin as superior to the Atari VCS/2600 Pac Man. The 8 bit computer version was close to the arcade version, I've had a hacked version that played and sounded virtually identical to the arcade. But Atari did apparently force this off the market.

[vfonli]

This game ruled!

[disconnexions]

I spent hours playing this game. I loved when you could change the game boards manually. Lots of fun with that function.

[devuurheer]

i still got lots of these games including this one but the system doesnt work anymore

[pspboy7]

Yep I had this game when I was a kid, and a slew of others, like Quest for the Rings, which was da bomb back then.

[RREDDWARFF]

what lame kindergarden crap. grown people play this shit?

[tomcamp6023]

@RREDDWARFF This is what games look liked when you just a sperm. Without this there would be no Playstation 3 your stupid litttle brat.

[RREDDWARFF]

@tomcamp6023 I'm 35 dipshit.

[tomcamp6023]

@RREDDWARFF . Then grow up and act your age and learn something. DA

[RREDDWARFF]

@tomcamp6023 Act my age? Your the one playing the little child game you nerdy dicktard.

[JackRed666]

I think I have better chances at this than Pac-Man which I can only get so far.

[danrichards23]

wow, that really sucked. did people like them back then cause it was all they had or did they play for a while and went on with their lives?

[Akira625]

Ironically, KC Munchkin was more successful than Atari could've ever hoped for with Pac Man.

[andersbiro]

My first video game... and this still rocks!

[wenaljen]

my mom was wrold champion an even has pictures

[SuperMetroid4567]

Its basically pacman but really crappy looking and with moving power pellets

[andersbiro]

Are you out of your mind? This pacman clone was way way superior to the other home consoles like Atari 2600

[mattbyou]

Moving power pellets what a trip

[chrisz31974]

This reminds me of some game, I can't think of the name of it for some reason.

[gamesDAMNED]

This sounds like really trippy club music. Is it just me, or do most of these early videogames seem like re-enactments of the designers' acid trips?

[DjJohnnyM68]

i might would've liked this game had i ever played it in the 80s, but since i didn't there isn't any nostalgic value to me. Played 2600 version, 5200 version and the arcade back then.. Pac Man is really good on the Jaks Pacific handheld tho..

[pokemario6456]

Looks only half of a Pac-Man clone...not sure, really.

[bisexualbuffthug]

Atari bullied magnavox with their money because magnavox was picking up in sales with k.c. munchkin. I don't beleive it was violating any of atari's patents. These days the lawsuit would have been dismissed.

[gustafapan]

K.C. Munchkin makes Pacman look like a blob with a big mouth. K.C is a much cooler character, and it's not the same game, just the same basic idea. (The colors are cooler than in Pacman, for one thing)

[FrumpyShakes]

Would of been a snowballs chance in hell for magnivox to win the lawsuit, it really is pac man right down to the goddamn bowtie on the head.

[Umma6umma]

Magnavox actually won the initial lawsuit, which determined that the differences were enough that the game could be sold. Magnavox lost on appeal, and had to pull the game.

[bisexualbuffthug]

No it's his cousin!!! LOL!!

[the13joker]

wow i used to have this game. and K.C. Crazy chase , and Pick Ax Pete was my favorite.

[pancakejarsrfun]

It's like a pacman clone..... but it has many original ideas in it. So..... I guess this doesnt count as a ripoff.

[sonick808]

god i love this game. we would sit for hours in my friend's basement in the early eighties and play this. I had the 2600, another friend the atari 400, yet another the intellevision and of course another the odyssey2. OH, and we also had a C64 in the "circle of nerds".

Man, nothing can top these old games, so soulful compared to today's stuff. I'm building a woodgrain/shag/rain lamp/orange and brown 70's room to put all my old consoles in to recreate the experience. second childhood ?

[sk8terfreak1312]

cool game man!

[jackmarshak]

Pacmans metally challenged little cousin that nobody in the family likes to talk about.

[bigpoopie69]

This doesn't remind me of anything at all. NOTHING!!

[Zfinster]

certainly not pac-man

[picesdavid]

trivia note: If you were wondering where the name came from, it was an inside joke from the game developing group at Magnavox, a take off on the name of the company president of the time: Kenneth C. Menkin.

[JimmyDonut42]

Kinda always wondered why such an off the wall name. Thanks!

[uggla03]

does anyone remember when you could make your own maze.

think i made it into 2 different rooms hard to think that far back

[JimmyDonut42]

Totally!!! I remember getting home from kindergarten and spending hours trying to make the "raddest" map.

[Britton001]

My fave game for the Odyssey2. My cousins had the voice modulater for this and it'd talk to you while you played.

[blastik1000]

wow, what memories.  Had the Odyssey when I was eight years old. I spent my youth playing this and Pick Axe Pete!

[sestrensaz]

holy hell! We had this console when I was a kid and this game is all I used to play! Along with that battle game where you can be a fighter, tank or submarine... gawd i cant remember what that was called but me and my brothers had literal WARS when playing that game! Ah good times, thanks so much for this video!

[RpKingman]

I like the level where the board is in 4 pieces with a walkway off screen and the revolving door of doom.

[rghfghf]

i got that game!!! love that type of pac man

[Link4587452]

Pac-Man after too much drugs.

[testiclesDOTca]

AHHHHHHH Memories!!!!

[DeathLock420]

Looks more fun then pac-man.

[kurizzos]

Never played any of the Odyssey system games.

But this look more fun than Pac Man from Atari 2600.

Things move around more here then u could config the maze.

[nicknook68]

You scored 55 points AND YOU DIDN'T TYPE YOUR NAME IN FOR THE HIGH SCORE!?!?!? I used to live for that sh*%!

[hombretopito]

damm music is awesome, which chip does this machine used to use?

[Umma6umma]

The O2 used a pretty versatile Intel chip that served both as the video and audio chip. It was only 1-channel mono but I guess the shift register was pretty awesome and let them really manipulate the audio nicely.

The guy who programmed this game (and the majority of all the other games for the O2), Ed Averett, moved from Intel to Magnavox to make games and thereby sell more systems and Intel chips!

[bassmajor]

@hombretopito

I don't really think that's supposed to be music, it's just a recreation of the sound that pac man made going around the maze :D

[jim82068]

u dummy why'd you eat the colored dot last!!!

[uggla03]

I had this game loved it

[MagicAlDF]

At the time this was made courts had never ruled on video game copyrights. You could patent the rules of a game but the concept of video game characters being like fiction was untested.

K.C. Munchkin came out a year before Atari 2600 Pac-Man and was obviously technically superior and better gameplay. Yet Atari was the one that had paid for the legitimate Pac-Man license. Fortunately the case dragged on so long lots of people had time to get K.C. Munchkin, the absolute best home video game then.

[Umma6umma]

Actually, Pac-Man and K.C. Munchkin came out the same year, 1981

[MagicAlDF]

Correction noted. Further research shows K.C. Munchkin did get a head start with a January release while Atari Pac-Man followed in March. I'm sure it seemed like a year to Atari. :-)

[MagicAlDF]

@Umma6umma correcting our corrections, K.C. Munchkin came out October 30, 1981 according to records cited by The Odyssey2 Homepage. An April 5, 1982 Time magazine article says Atari's Pac-Man came out "in mid-March". So K.C. Munchkin did not come out a year before Atari Pac-Man but it did come out THE year before, most importantly, in time for Christmas 1981, leaving Atari scrambling. Atari released Ms. Pac-Man a few months after Pac-Man with many problems fixed, proving Pac-Man had been rushed.

[cadorbolin]

I recently discovered O2 games through emulation, and I must say, KC Munchkin is one of the greatest video games of all time. Considering that the O2 had only 64 bytes of RAM, the programmer of this game was a genius.

Sure, it is a Pac-Man clone, but it is superior to it in many ways.

[cadorbolin]

When I think about it, I don't think it was a blatant clone or rip-off. The concept may have been inspired by Pac-Man, but because of the O2's limitations, the programmer had to work around them and make innovations that really make this game unique and special in it's own way.

[sickmellon]

what a blatent pac ripoff. I d however enjoy many maze games that came from the pac style. This has it's merits but it looks sub par to the pacman. Ladybug is an excellent pacstyle maze game that adds a large degree of strategy to the genre, very good.

[Umma6umma]

Well, you have to keep in mind that Ladybug in the arcades only came out the same year, with a port to the greatly superior ColecoVision coming a year later, so you have to cut the O2 some slack.

[AutomaticGood76137]

what did atari have against this look-like pacman game?

[Umma6umma]

It was probably a combination of a) Atari paying through the nose for the console Pac-Man rights and then b)having Magnavox come out of the wood-work with a near-clone of the concept that blew their own official version clear out of the water.

[AutomaticGood76137]

So Basicly Atari is a sore-looser (srry if i spelled wrong)

[toasteee252]

actually the video game crash has more to do with "other" companies and "other" systems making atari adaptors and bootleg atari cartridges and flooding the market with blatant rip offs. This one is a bit different, but still the same thing, it is too close to pac man to be considered original. btw, the Big N has sued more people and companies for unfair so-called copy write infringements than any other video game company. While they flodde the market w/ atari bootlegs, judges looked the away.

[OldLancelot]

In this sequel, you could edit the maze, wich was so funny at that time. It was even possible to surround the monsters with a circle wall. 1981 cheating...lol

[VideyoJunkei]

I had this game and system-at the time, I was real impressed with the fine detail on the monsters-the moving 'frill' at the bottom, the eyes looking where they go,the ghost flashing, etc. Ed Averett was the programmer and was really able to get alot out of this honestly weak system. There is another version of this rom where the yellow ghost is blue instead-they seem to play the same?

[bisexualbuffthug]

This game has nothing to do with pacman. Atari was greedy and felt like it was the god of every other game maker and company in the world so they felt that if anybody made a video game that they felt looked like but better then their own games they would lose fans. The judge should have ruled in oddssey's favor instead of atari's since atari released that fugly primitive looking pacman version.

[tomakalinus]

With its changing maze and moving power pellets, this "ripoff" Pac-Man is tons better than many legitimate Pac-Man seques. Thanks for the memories!

[EYEluvGAMES]

I was 13 when I got this for Christmas. All my friends had Atari and preferred to play my Odyssey 2. I am 39 and still own it along with Munchkin, Krazy Chase, Pick Axe Pete, and a bunch of others. Man I miss those innocent days.

[valsadie]

Pick Axe Pete--*that* was the game!

[Nihim]

PICK AXE PETE DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE....only game more confusing is Monkeyshines

[sickmellon]

monkeyshines rocked! still does! I'd put my favorite though as killer bees, simple yet elegant. one of those games that makes you want "just one more try" over and over again.

[VicGeorge2K6]

K.C. Munchkin got sued off the market just so Atari could release a weak 2600 version of Pac-Man? What a real trade-off that must be!

[protometal]

All my friends had an Atari 2600, but I got the Odyssey 2. Not so bad, as I had KC Munchkin!

[Andythemandy2]

Are any of you looking to buy this back or sell this console and game? B/c I want it! I grew up playing it and ours no longer worked on our tv so we ended up giving it away... big mistake.

[evilmetaltwin]

i never had this system, but i love the classics!!

[KGKaiju]

Thanks for sharing. It is great to see someone else that is interested in these vintage games!

[snowboardin522]

WOW!! Does anyone remember Pick-ax-Pete??? I would love to play that again. I had one of these when I was 10 too.

[johnesco]

Move, jump (over boulder), catch key as it was rising, land in door...  YEA!

[hothogalex]

Wow..thanks for this post. Brings back great memories. I had odyssey and I loved it. It was so much better then Atari yet it was the underdog.  Everyone seemed to own Atari!

[MiyamotoRules]

I agree with newyorkfish. K.C. Munchkin was better than Pac-Man! I totally loved how you could create your own mazes. You could totally cheat by trapping the ghosts and preventing them from getting you!

[Jaxguy35]

I got an odyssey for christmass when i was

10 years old, this was the only game i had

for it along with a racin game.

[newyorkfish]

I wish KC Munchkin were ported over to the Atari - it was way ahead of it's time for a 2K game!

KC Munchkin was always better than Pac-Man.

Thanks for the memories!

I was so young back then - a mere teen.

[ZEROEVILDARKCOOL]

MIDWAY SHOULDA sued THEIR ASS

[ronaldcasio]

yeah.. i agree with you.. you could create your own mazes...

[ronaldcasio]

i used to lay this all the ..thanks for the vid

[Umma6umma]

No problem, it's quite a thing to behold. A better home Pac-Man game than Atari ever made.