Snacks'n'Jaxson FAQ/Walkthrough
Version 1.0.0 by
[email protected](anti-spam spoonerism)
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
2. CONTROLS
3. LEVELS, POINTS AND STRATEGY
4. VERSIONS
5. CREDITS
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1. INTRODUCTION
Snacks'n'Jaxson is a bizarre and unique trak-ball game which manages to be
disgusting without ever featuring anything close to violence. In this 1st-
person-perspective game, you control a clown with a stretchy neck whom you
are viewing head-on. Jaxson D. Box, for that is his name, needs to eat
breakfast, lunch, dinner and a midnight snack. Food is floating around, and
he can sneeze it into the corners while his rubber ball nose bounces. He must
collect all of one type of food before his nose re-attaches to his face. If
you work at it right and have a bit of luck, you can bounce the rubber ball
nose off his body a few times without risking the ball crashing into the
window behind him, losing a life.
Each meal consists of six courses and is progressively bigger than the
previous one--the courses for the first day's breakfast start with just one
slice of bacon, then you get two of the next course, up to six. Lunch takes
two through seven. Along the way chefs may come out of side panels in the
wall to either catch the rubber ball(good) or leave soap or jalapeno
peppers(bad, as Jaxson coughs on them, leaving the rubber ball to bounce
freely.)
Getting through the various meals in a day without using a continue cheat
takes effort and practice as you may need Jaxson to bounce his ball off his
body while he sits in bed to make sure you can collect all the food. But if
you are playing with an infinite lives cheat, feel free to camp out on the
sides until you can pick up all foods easily.
Snacks'n'Jaxson is one of those games you have to play if bizarre retro stuff
interests you, and as tough as it can be to get through it, you won't miss it
once you're done. You can only laugh at it after you've finished with it. And
don't worry--although the first level is obnoxious and slow going, you really
won't want to go through with the second. It's a pity. There may have been an
idea there, but this game definitely fell short of other nonsense fun games
like Mappy or Pooyan or Circus Charlie. Perhaps it was the creepy squeaky
laugh, or the lapel button that made faces, or the bad clown clothes. Or
maybe the concept was just too contrived and the creators said "Gee! We gotta
use more of this trak-ball stuff! It's the wave of the future!"
2. CONTROLS
Because an actual Snacks'n'Jaxson machine uses a Trak-ball to control things,
it is tricky to replicate this on the keyboard. Left-ctrl in MAME causes
Jaxson to sneeze, which kicks food to the corners. This is helpful when you
want to collect it all. It also can get you 250 for each jalapeno and soap.
As Jaxson's face moves to the center of the board, his neck retracts, which
is useful for catching things. Jaxson can smack the ball against your
viewscreen, which gets points and may kick the ball into the side, or if he
is lucky he can kick it into one of the holes on the side. It's possible to
make a quick diagonal zoom around anything on the edges Jaxson doesn't want
to eat, but it's tricky. In general, if you go to the side too quickly,
Jaxson slows down as his head can't move around that quickly, so keep him in
the center. Think of his head as being on a spring that can bounce quickly,
or on a pogo stick--it's not so easy to move sideways while in midair. This
basic physics bit is the only part of the game that is remoetly realistic.
Oh, and the foods served generally correspond to the meals you eat them in.
3. LEVELS, POINTS AND STRATEGY
First, the menu:
|breakfast |lunch |dinner |midnight snack|
-+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+
1|bacon |cheese |hamburger |chicken
2|eggs |corn |corn |peanut
3|pancake |fries |chicken |ice cream bars
4|waffle |hot dogs |ice cream |cupcake
5|toast and jam |ice cream bar |pineapple |popcorn
6|eggs |strawberry |steak |twinkies
Breakfast may be random but the rest isn't. 125 for each piece you eat, 5000
for surviving the day, minimal points for bumping into the chefs before they
leave soap or a jalapeno. 25 for bouncing the red ball. Extra man at 20000--I
find that I get about 7000 for the first level, then more for each subsequent
one.
Add 1 extra piece of food for lunch of each type, 2 for dinner, 3 for the
snack. Jaxson's button tells you what course of your meal you're on.
For the bonus stages you get no points for surviving, only for whatever you
do. Fortunately as weird as this game is, it doesn't go OOPS HAHA YOU LOST A
LIFE during the bonus rounds.
Bonus 1: bouncing the ball. Watch the shadow and try to judge where it will
wind up when it is next to Jaxson. It swerves more as you get closer to the
end.
Bonus 2: blocking baseballs. Chefs throw baseballs in from the side. The
baseballs don't move up and down, and they don't curve either, but they can
drift towards the center, especially as they go faster. 125 per baseball
blocked.
Bonus 3: juggling. A baseball, a green ball and the red ball. You simply
block them from going out the window. Maybe you can bounce a few of them
against Jaxson's body so that you don't have to guard them all. 125 per ball
bounced.
Bonus 4: all you can eat. The rubber ball nose bounces, and you must block it
from hitting the window while you eat all the peanuts in between. Peanuts are
replaced quickly as you eat them, and there are about 15 of them on the board
at all times, so you can always sweep around one edge to get a lot of them.
It's easy to survive the 30 seconds, but you only get 25 points per peanut.
On the second day a cuckoo clock appears on the right side and inhibits
Jaxson. Oh, and breakfast starts with five pieces of bacon. But this game has
probably given you indigestion by this point anyway and it's not worth
playing any more.
The high score list is as follows. It's pretty easy to top it with practice,
but to get an extra life, you need a bit of luck or skill.
JUNK FOOD JUNKIES
DJR 9000
BNM 8000
G L 7000
HAD 6000
RDX 5000
DJR 4000
BNM 3000
G L 2000
XAD 1000
RDX 900
The simplest bit of strategy is to have Jaxson in the bottom center when he
sneezes first to release the clown ball from his nose, whether it is after
losing a life or starting a level. That assures you it will bounce off the
his body the first time it comes back. You can probably ignore it.
You should always sneeze when you see soap or a jalapeno, because it only
takes a bit of time, but if you can push a cook off the board while you are
moving around, that saves a fraction of a second.
Pull Jaxson back to the center if you can, or if a piece of food is not
particularly close to the edge, then have him spring at it. Also, don't pay
attention to the red ball until it bounces, although you will want to try to
hit it square in the center if it is against Jaxson's body after you complete
a round. Where on your face you hit it affects the angle it comes back at. If
you are very good, you can bounce it against the wall to start, and that buys
time, but then you don't have the luxury of buying time later with more food
on the board, when you'd really hope the ball would bounce against Jaxson's
body.
Don't play past level 2, for your sanity. It's a creepy near-impossible game
without a trak-ball. Fortunately, the cheat for infinite lives should be
enough to get you through one day of Jaxson's life. The general survival
strategy is to move Jaxson down and give yourself two chances to pick up all
the food. If you miss one in the corner, just sweep in a circle and get the
last one later. You can't use save states, but you won't need the--you can
keep trying a course of the meal over until you get it right.
At the end of day 1, there is one last piece of weirdness where a monkey
comes out and eats a banana, and you get 5000 bonus points.
End of FAQ Proper
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4. VERSIONS
1.0.0: sent to GameFAQs 11/28/2007, complete
5. CREDITS
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 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.
Thanks to Pugsy for his MAME cheat page which helps me make short work of a
game, whether I just want to play it or FAQ it too.
