Panic Park


Panic Park is an arcade game developed and published by Namco in 1997, and released on the arcade system board Namco System 23 in dedicated cabinets with 33" or 50" monitors.

Controls

The game's unique controls are two horizontally moving levers, one for each player. Both levers move in an arc across the front of the game, but will collide when their handles are close together. The levers cause players to physically push each other aside as they direct their avatars to collide on screen, impeding each other's progress both virtually and bodily. This is reinforced by the message, "Push One Another!" in the game.

Gameplay

Solo Play

1-player Solo mode starts with a short practice round; then the machine chooses 5 rounds from a group of 20 minigames. In each round, the player must collect a certain number of items and/or survive attacks to win. The game selects Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty for all but the last challenge. The final round is chosen from a select group of 5 minigames, with difficulty on a graduated 1-15 scale based on the player's performance up to that point. A single player wins the game if a majority of the rounds are won.

Panic King

In the 1-player "score attack" Panic King mode, one minigame is offered as an endless challenge; the player gets two chances to beat the highest score recorded for that game, and can enter their initials for a win. The Panic King challenge is selected according to the game's internal clock.

VS Play

2-player Match Mode begins with a short practice round, followed by 5 competition rounds selected from the full set of 25 minigames. For each round, the game sets Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulty. 1 point is scored for a win on each round. If turned on, an extended play feature may allow 2-player games to be extended with an additional buy-in. The final winner, if any, is determined by the number of points awarded in all rounds.

List of Minigames

When collected, large coins are worth 10x.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Panic Park on their July 1, 1998 issue as being the third most-successful dedicated arcade game of the year.