Lady Bug has a few differences from Pac-Man, though. The characters are all insects. The bonus items are vegetables rather than fruits. The maze has no Wrap Around passages. And most significantly, there is no Power-Up that lets you eat the enemies; instead, the maze has turnstiles which can be flipped to block the movement of the predatory insects, and hearts and letters which give different bonuses depending on whether they are red, yellow or blue when collected.
This game was adapted by Coleco for the Intellivision and ColecoVision, and by Champ Games for the Atari 2600 as a homebrew game in two editions, an easier home version and an arcade edition.
Notably, this is the first known video game to have a playable female character.
Tropes present in this game:
- Action Girl: In fact, Lady Bug is the first playable female in video games.
- Adapted Out: The S-P-E-C-I-A-L bonus reward from the Intellivision version, due to memory constraints.
- Bonus Stage: The Vegetable Harvest Screen, added to the home versions in lieu of a free game credit.
- Endless Game: You play until you run out of lives.
- Lady Not-Appearing-in-This-Game: There are, in fact, no attractive insect-girls in this game. On a completely unrelated note, it only did "all right" in arcades. Just saying.
- Maze Game: Of the Pac-Man variety.
- Playable Menu: The high score name entry screen has the player enter letters by walking over them.
- Poison Mushroom: Skulls kill any insect that runs into them.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: The ColecoVision version replaced the arcade original's free game credit from spelling S-P-E-C-I-A-L with a Bonus Stage, since the home version didn't require quarters to play it.
- Score Multiplier: Points are multiplied after eating blue hearts.
- Spelling Bonus: Spell E-X-T-R-A for an extra life, or S-P-E-C-I-A-L for a free game credit or a Bonus Stage (see Pragmatic Adaptation).
- Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: The death animation involves a pair of wings and a halo floating off the top of the screen.