Jaw Breaker

Seems to be confusion about Jawbreaker’s history.
Not sure, but here’s my take.

John Harris developed a great Pac-Man clone, Jawbreaker, for the Atari 800 in 1980. When Atari purchased the licence for Pac-Man, they began to threaten law suits against clone developers. Thus, Harris created a different Jawbreaker for the 2600, which was eventually ported to other computers.

The C64 port is cute for a few tries. The 5 levels seem a little claustrophobic. On the other hand, I could play the original Jawbreaker for hours.

Charming. But quite a different game from the Atari 2600 version.

Love the original Atari 8-Bit and Apple II versions of this game. This one however, is a pile of junk. 4/10 (and I'm probably being generous in that assessment).

Jawbreaker II - created by Chuckles, C64 version by Doug Whittaker. Well executed but terribly tedious. As flawless as it is pointless. Chuckles surely improved since this one.

L/R controls out once in a while, otherwise it's a pleasant game.
6/10

Whoa! When I first played this game guess what came to mind its a pacman clone. Ugh!

Bought it on sale at a mall. Thought it was a Pacman clone. Ew, I'd rather eat broccoli...

Doesnt look much much than enlarge clone of Pac-man.

Some games are just a waste of time. This is one of them.

In its original Atari 800 life, there were *two* versions of Jawbreaker. The original was basically a slavish Pac-Man clone; after Atari turned its legal eyes on companies marketing Pac-clones (including, infamously, K. C. Munchkin for the Odyssey2 game system), this revised version appeared. It's actually the better of the two. While still a Pac-clone, Jawbreaker shuns the traditional maze in favor of a series of moving walls with gaps you can pass through. The on-screen graphics are larger and more colourful, as well. This C-64 port is of the second Jawbreaker; I am not clear if the Pac-Man version ever made it past the Atari 800. Your "death" is memorable - in the game, you're a set of false teeth and, when hit by a Jawbreaker, all of its teeth fall out! (Dental phobics take note... ) One of the rare instances when legal action actually *improved* a product.