A
Pac-Man clone developed in 1982 by
Data East and published by
Mattel Electronics. Versions of it were made both for the
Atari 2600 and for
Mattel's own console, the
Intellivision, and finally for the
Apple II.
In the game, you play a
thief (named Lupin in the arcade version, after a character in a series of French novels which gained popularity in
Japan, where the game was originally made) attempting to steal as much as possible without being caught by the
police. Each level starts on an enclosed maze with four police officers. Gold coins litter the halls, and Lupin must collect all of them before the exit will open, giving him his escape. In addition, "cash bags" and treasures will appear at random in the center of the screen, giving the player extra points. The final difference between Lock 'n' Chase and Pac-Man is the introduction of "door locks"; Lupin can lock up to two doors at a time, blocking the way of policemen or trapping them temporarily.
The Intellivision version of the game is far and away superior to the Atari 2600 version. Graphics are somewhat better, gameplay is better (controls respond more easily, and the "lock door" function is more useful), and the sound is much better. Ergo, if you have both of these old consoles (Lock n' Chase is not currently available in any classic arcade compilation), I highly recommend going with the Intellivision.
As a point of interest, it seems that there are actually two versions of the Intellivision game. The first, because it was published on a 6K cart (that's 6,144 bytes - smaller than quite a lot of writeups here), had a few corners cut; a couple animations were left out, controls were apparently less responsive, etc. After numerous customer complaints, Mattel had the game updated and released an 8K version.
There was also a Lock 'n' Chase game made for the original
Game Boy. It featured about fifty large, multi-screen levels with a few power-ups and such, but was otherwise rather similar in gameplay. It's been far too long since I last played it (about ten years) for me to go into any real detail, but it at least deserves a mention.
Most of this is from memory, but I got a little help from a copy of the manual and the Blue Sky Rangers website: http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/