Taxman(Apple II) FAQ/Walkthrough by Andrew Schultz
[email protected]
version 1.0.0 copyright 2007
Please do not reproduce for profit without my consent. You won't be getting
much profit anyway, but that's not the point. This took time and effort, and
I just wanted to save a memory of an old game and the odd solutions any way I
could. Please send me an email referring to me and this guide by name if
you'd like to post it on your site.
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OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION
1-1. DRAMATIS PERSONAE
1-2. THE CUT SCENES
2. LOGISTICS
2-1. CONTROLS/AI
2-2. LEVEL SPECIFICATIONS
3. STRATEGIES
4. VERSIONS
5. CREDITS
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1. INTRODUCTION
I don't suppose Taxman is any more distinctive a Pac-Man clone than any of
the other ones out there. It's got the Pac-Man maze, the same ghosts, and the
same scoring and even roughly the same monster AI. It has different little
gizmos to grab under the monster cage. And of course it has a bunch of cut
scenes. I always wondered what they were. I kept playing and saving and re-
saving states until things looped.
Taxman is certainly better than Gobbler/Jawbreaker or the disastrous Atari
2600 port but then it's nothing special and is runs into the same limitations
as Pac-Man did, without wowing anyone with its novelty. It's fun to play for
a while, though, and though you may have to use save states, it's nice to see
all the interludes. I was glad enough to find the disk image for this but
then I was also very glad to find when the cut scenes (finally) looped.
1-1. DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Here are the ghosts:
Orange Fusor/Gunner
Red Redjac/Runner
White Gollum/Punner
Green Smugpuff/Sheila
1-2. THE CUT SCENES
The cut scenes occur after the following levels.
2: Taxman is chased by Fusor. They both jump over a ramp but Fusor lands in
the pit below and Taxman goes on.
5: Fusor chases Taxman but is tripped up by a blue line that magically
appears. A 16 ton weight drops on him.
10: Fusor chases Taxman, who goes right and springs a pressure sensitive
plate which kicks him up. He goes off to the right. Fusor stands below the
plate that was sprung.
23: Ghosts come at Taxman from all 4 directions. He fires and paralyzes them
one by one.
25: back to 2. I assume they loop from here. The interludes would appear to
loop every 23 levels. I got past 28.
2. LOGISTICS
2-1. CONTROLS/AI
;
(left) (right)
/
You can play with up to 5 players and you can telegraph the next direction
you want to go in. You need to run into a wall to wait. You can turn pretty
quickly, but on the later levels, a turn costs you a bit of time, and you go
slower than the enemies chasing you.
In fact Taxman is very nasty about you getting caught but very generous about
enemies not getting caught. The enemies essentially move randomly when they
are blue and can even do so when they are not. They seem to be pretty good at
waiting for you to commit yourself before you make a move. So if you are
being chased along the bottom you need to go all the way. They can sense when
you are right near them. However, they also seem to change direction at
intersections if you are diagonal from them.
As in Pacman, enemies do not go up from just above their original pen. They
also go slower through the tunnels and don't "see" that you need to go to the
other side of the tunnel. Enemies switch direction when you grab a power pill
until the pills don't turn them blue again.
It's best to keep enemies lumped together as long as possible, and the best
way to do that is using the tunnel.
The green guy is rather stupid and often loops in the UL, as a FYI. If he
does, then you can maybe play with 3 guys running against you.
Enemies tend not to go down to the very bottom, but they string you out
instead. So go into the power pill corner to make sure they all follow you,
if you MUST go to the bottom.
2-2. LEVEL SPECIFICATIONS
L1-4 start:
............
. . . .
.d ..a c.. ..b
. . .
...............
(grab the power pill after d)
L1 long pause when enemies change--you should be able to bag a few 800s and
maybe a 1600
bug(100)
L2 long--see L1
jet(200)
L3 medium the guys come out of the tunnel fast. Faster paced level.
cactus(500)
L4 medium
cactus(500)
............
. . . .
.d ..a b.. ..c
. . .
...............
L5 medium--may have to cut above pattern above early or eat the power pill.
That's ok. The important part is to clear the bottom.
tie fighter (700)
Interlude: orange guy stopped by blue line then 16 tons is dropped on him as
taxman runs across the screen unimpaired
L6 very low
tie fighter (700)
Now a problem here is you can't get the tie fighter after executing the
pattern! You don't have the time to eat anyone. In fact you need to execute
the exact moves to get to the power pill. Just go above it and juke and watch
which way the white guy goes. Loop around him. Then let enemies follow you
through the tunnel then grab side dots.
L7 med high. A break from level 6. You can go back to the normal pattern.
Enemies stay blue long enough to rab the goodies for a while.
hat stand (1000)
L8 med low--you can kick the white guy after grabbing the lower left power
pill and the hat stand is yours. Then proceed as in level 6.
hat stand (1000)
L9 low--you can't grab the white guy here but he doesn't block the 1st bomb
bomb (2000)
L10 low
bomb (2000)
L11 med low You need to be precise about the introductory pattern here. Don't
worry about eating the white guy--you can just run through to get the car.
car (3000)
L12 med low You need to be precise about the introductory pattern here.
car (3000)
L13 med-low White doesn't come down for you. But you'll want to wait as long
as possible before getting the DL power pill so that you don't get trapped by
the enemies. By now it's clear the goodies are your main bonus just as in
Pac-Man. So use the power pills to deflect enemies or gobble one before
taking a trip down.
glass (5000)
L14 low See level 13.
glass (5000)
L15 low follow the white guy after eating the pill to get the big bonus. The
enemy patterns change here and you don't have much time to mess around, and
the enemies now go faster than you when you're gobbling. So you need to use
the tunnels and hiding places when you can. Don't follow an enemy too closely
either as they tend to flip at regular intervals--on the other hand don't
despair if you seem trapped. Maybe you can wiggle out when an enemy flips.
firebird (5000)
L16 See level 15.
firebird (5000)
L17 low
PGRJ (5000)
Guys leave kennels to the left. They don't go up from kennel area. Use side
tunnels on later levels to slow them down. Follow behind a monster enemy. Use
a power pill to kill off a last stray bit lying around. You can leave one
small bit on the bottom for last. Better to clean dots than speculate after a
flashing monster. A good pattern to start is to get the power pill, follow
the white guy and go up when above the pens, then down.
L18 very low
PGRJ (5000)
L19 v low
smokestack (5000)
L20 see 19
smokestack (5000)
L21 at this point the dot doesn't change enemies to blue or change their
directions. You need to use a slightly different pattern. Go up the 2nd right
after clearing the bottom right area then R U R(through tunnel) and get the
goody. The white guy can't quite catch you. Then use the tunnels and hideouts
to chip away at the top bits. Remember the power pills don't do anything, so
take them into account as any other dead end. You'll want to lead enemies
both ways through the tunnels to carve out their specific areas.
Scales of justice(5000)
For the map above this is a,b,c,b.
L22 see 21
Scales of justice(5000)
L23 none
bottle(5000)
L24 none
triangle(5000)
L25 none
triangle(5000)
Back to 2 for cut scene
L26 none
gift box(5000)
Every level after 26 has the gift box and there is no change in
strategy/pattern.
3. STRATEGIES
For level 13+ the goodies will be your main bonus, so focus on clearing your
enemies out and making a path to under te pen. Be sure none of them are
tracking the other side. It's useful to go through the tunnel to distract a
couple of them.
Clear out the bottom first. Loop a, b, c and d. These are the spots that are
tough to clear otherwise. Redjac reverses pretty easily. May need to cut out
and get power pill before d.
On later levels, telegraph moves the wrong way ahead of time then reverse.
You are a bit faster in the open field but this will give a huge advantage.
Circle around guys coming at you, and let 2 trail if you know other guys
won't come at you--then let them in the side tunnel. Wait for monster to mve
at intersection before committing. Remember if you are trying for levels
points are a nonissues since you only get 1 extra guy.
When going to the very top, fake to the outside to get to the dots that go to
the inside. That is the other tough sector you need to clear out.
2 kinds of greed in any Taxman game--grabbing the power pellets too early and
too late. As you get later into the game, they won't matter much, so just
take what you can get and if two enemies are lumped together, remember the
time you buy as they retreat is more important than the points. A 3rd type of
greed is trying to eat too much when slightly faster enemies are behind you.
They can really jump you quicker than you think, so just take out one loop
before moving along.
Before enemies never turn blue you can just use one power pellet to deflect
them and clear out an UL/UR.
For the later levels you can also leave the DL long passage 'til last as you
may be very likely to get trapped there--unless you can sucker all 4 guys
there at a time. Also go back and forth in the tunnel if all enemies are on
one side.
Whenever you can, duck briefly into a side passage to pretend to enemies
you're going one way.
2 interesting bugs: sometimes you go through enemies at the very top, and
player 1 keeps getting 300 bonus each time the sample game runs through.
If you're having real trouble getting through a level, use a save state after
clearing a big chunk, but make sure monsters aren't right behind you.
Al Amaloo's gamewinners.com site has a poke for infinite lives, if you know
how to do that.
End of FAQ Proper
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4. VERSIONS
1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs/honestgamers 7/29/2007, complete.
5. CREDITS
ftp.apple.asimov.net for having the disk image of this old fun game.
honestgamer for the chat that led to this FAQ.
Thanks to the people whose names I forgot, who gave me the disc(well they
gave my parents the disk and I got wind of it, so my parents couldn't pitch
it) and even if I remembered them I'd forget where to put the umlaut. I do
remember their last name had an umlaut.
Thanks to the usual GameFAQs gang, current and emeritus. They know who they
are, and you should, too, because they get/got some SERIOUS writing done.
Good people too--bloomer, falsehead, Sashanan, Masters, Retro, Snow
Dragon/Brui5ed Ego, ZoopSoul, War Doc, Brian Sulpher, AdamL, odino, JDog,
honestgamer and others I forgot. OK, even Hydrophant in his current not-yet-
banned message board incarnation. I am not part of his gang, but I want him
to be part of mine.
