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You can get the game for however much you're comfortable paying or not paying from:
Windows version (the one in this video): https://lowcarb.itch.io/bagman-strikes-back-pc-version
C64 version: https://lowcarb.itch.io/bagman-strikes-back-c64
lowcarb.itch.io is aka LC-Games aka Luca Carminati -- on YouTube as @lucacarminati2095 : https://www.youtube.com/@lucacarminati2095
This is the author's second remix of the 1982 maze game Bagman by French company Valadon Automation, and he changes the screen from vertical to horizontal, condenses the options to adjustable Difficulty only--but now with per-Difficulty high score lists, condenses the width of the stages, so now with the wider screen there's no scrolling necessary, and, with assistance from another designer this time, adds 20 new stages instead of the 2021 Bagman Comes Back's 8.
The condensed, non-scrolling stages make a huge difference! In smaller mines, the guards can cover far more of the maze, there's less just walking back and forth, and in effect the whole game is more sped up and intense. Oh and there's also a bonus/time limit now, so you can't just meander about as much as you like! = oo Also there's no more guards scrolling into view suddenly in such a way you find yourself trapped, which is really good. ^_ ^
Can't tell for sure what raising the difficulty does; in Comes Back I'd thought maybe it sped the guards up a little, but now I think that was incorrect. Here, anyway, they seemed the same speed, but it did seem harder somehow--like they're more likely to turn and chase you, or maybe they detect you from further away--and/or maybe they tend to congregate more around the remaining $ bags; for instance when I had one mine down to one bag in the lower right corner, they both kept patrolling right around it! = o I should'a tried going in with the nearby pick axe probably, although I think it might only have had four seconds of use left.
I could NOT remember how to get off a mine cart safely and kept leaping off the front while they were still moving forward, thus getting myself instantly run over by the cart I was just riding! ; D Man I gotta uh yeah learn not to do that, durgh.
The order of stages appears to be semi-random; across my various attempts I got the same three stages or so as the first stage, for instance.
OH! Stages can change color; for instance the stage with the ramps on the right, above that tricky-to-get last bag, was sorta tannish brown at 45:54, but had been reddish brown at 42:00. |
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| | | | Stefano Carminati, credited with "Stage Layout" in the credits, is the author's brother. |
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| | | Oops the Bonus timer was there in the first game, too! And it turns out the way to score big is to make sure you're bagging as many bags into the barrow as possible at as close to max bonus as possible, by well stashing them near the barrow and putting them in in succession rather than just putting them right in all the time, especially the blue bags you have to dig out, which give you triple bonus.
Also, drop the axe before it expires, and don't use it unnecessarily--the guards will run if you wave it at them, so you don't necessarily have to follow and hit them with it, since that will KO the pick axe along with the guard.
The author pointed me to a video of his demonstrating this stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnWU-SIreGw . It sorta turned me off at first as I kinda get that reaction to doing convoluted stuff for score...but it was in the original arcade game and it does give the game a lot more depth, I mean even more than it already had with the complex physics interactions and guard behavior. So, I guess I'll try it. |
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| | | | Or maybe I won't. That might just push the whole thing into too-complex-to-chill territory for my little brain; it seems to not enjoy contemplating going back to it: "I could just be playing Pac-Man!" |
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