Bagman Comes Back (C64)

This game is a tribute to Bagman, an arcade game released by Valadon Automation in 1982.

This version is made up of 8 completely new stages.

The game runs perfectly on both PAL and NTSC models of the Commodore 64.

Gameplay

The objective of the game is to maneuver the bagman through various mine shafts, picking up money bags and placing them in a wheelbarrow at the surface of the mine. The player must avoid pursuing guards, moving ore carts, and descending elevators.

The player can temporarily stun the guards by striking them with a pickaxe or by dropping a money bag on them when they are below the player on the same ladder, or by sliding a bag on them when they are further down the same slope. The guards can also be stunned by placing the wheelbarrow at the top of the ladder or elevator while they are going up.

The pickaxes can also be used to break down walls that obstruct the passage. Keep in mind that the bagman can hold the same pickaxe for a few seconds, after which it disappears. The initial duration of each pickaxe is 8 seconds, but if the player drops a pickaxe before it expires and then picks it up again, the duration resets to 4 seconds each time.

The bagman can jump into an ore cart after grabbing a ceiling handle as well as he can jump off the cart by moving the joystick left/right or by moving it up/down when the cart is on a ladder.

The action button is used to perform the following tasks:

• Pick up and drop money bags
• Pick up and drop pickaxes
• Grab and release a ceiling handle to avoid the ore carts or jump into them
• Placing a money bag in the wheelbarrow
• Pick up and drop the wheelbarrow

Points are scored for each horizontal step the player takes, for each money bag placed in the wheelbarrow, and for each guard stunned.

At 30000 points and then every 60000 points, the player earns an extra life, for a maximum of 6 lives.

Options

There are 3 difficulty levels to choose from: Easy, Normal, Hard.

On PAL models, you can choose to play the game at native PAL speed (slightly slower than the original arcade game) or at NTSC speed (matching the speed of the original arcade game).

Controls

Joystick in port 2.

Joystick lever = Move the bagman in the four directions.
Fire button = Action button.

While playing, press F7 to pause or F1 to stop the game and go back to the title screen.

While the best scores are showing, press F1 to reset the ranking.

History

Version 1.0

• First release.

Version 1.1

• Rarely, the random number generator could produce an incorrect sequence.

Version 1.2

• The maximum number of extra lives expected could be exceeded.

Version 1.3

• Now, on PAL models, you have the option to play the game at NTSC speed, which matches the speed of the original arcade game.
  
• The in-game instructions have been removed, they can be found on this page.
• Fixed an issue with entering a top score name using the joystick.