This is the ‘Secret Santa’ version of Puck!, a game in the style of arcade ‘Pac’ games.
In this game you control our hero, Puck!, who is trapped in an enchanted garden maze on the evening before Midsummer day, and who must collect all the fairy dust left behind by his evil captors, the fairies Cobweb, Mustardseed, Peaseblossom, and Moth, in order to use its magical properties to escape the maze and enjoy Midsummer Night with his friends!
Puck! is under an enchantment which causes him to repeat his day if caught by a fairy before he has collected all the fairy dust! However there are magical mushrooms scattered to the far corners of the maze, which will protect Puck! from the fairies' touch for a few seconds when he eats one. But fairy dust, being magical, is only visible for a short time and keeps disappearing, so Puck! must remember where in the maze there is still some fairy dust remaining to be collected!(So this is not Pacman or Ms Pacman despite a superficial resemblance – the only thing that’s the same is the layout of the mazes. Puck! is as much a game of memory as it is of fast reflexes…)
Cartridges with this game were given to some members of the Facebook group "Vectrex Fans Unite!" as their Secret Santa gift from the author - a downloadable bin file will be made available (free) for everyone else to enjoy, a week after Christmas.
The game was written as a collaboration between Graham Toal, and Chris ‘Malban’ Salomon who wrote the fast graphics code which allowed us to create a flicker-free game boasting lots of graphics, which was thought not to be possible when the Vectrex was released in the 80's with its own Pac-style game, “Clean Sweep”. To achieve the best quality display, Puck! requires an initial calibration step, which only has to be done once as it is stored in a small memory chip on the cartridge. (I'll add a video of how to do the calibration shortly.)
The best way to play this game is by using one of these cartridges or a compatible flash cart: the binary file for which can be downloaded here. Some flash cartridges that implement banked memory will not work with this version of the ROM, so for those there is an alternative binary file available which does not save the calibration info, that you can download here. Our source code is also online for programmers to modify and expand on.
The Puck! experience can be enhanced with a Bezel Overlay or a wrap, from Vectrex Overlays!
There's no specific overlay for Puck!, because expecting users to align the graphics to the mazes would be asking too much (and there are four different mazes, so you would need four overlays!), but if you want to use an overlay, a generic green one would be appropriate. Instructions on how to make a simple overlay from ‘theater gels’ can be found on Vectrex Fans Unite!, our community's Facebook group.
You can use the image below (printed at 300 dpi) to make a label for the cartridge, and a box design by Alex Fitch that you can make at home will be added soon. The authors (Graham Toal and Chris Salomon) give permission to hobbyists to make cartridges for personal use containing this game. The game may also be included on combination multicarts. For any other use, please check with us first.
The Secret Santa version of Puck! was written over a period of eight weeks and was finished just in time to be sent to the Secret Santa recipients! However development continues, and an enhanced version will be released some time in 2025. Watch this page or subscribe to the Vectrex Fans Unite! group on Facebook for notification of the new release.