Panic is a rewrite of the "Apple Panic" game from 1981.

Apple Panic is a platform game inspired by Space Panic. The object is to dig holes and pound the apples through the holes. Your character is controlled by keyboard commands. You can walk left/right along platforms, climb up/down the ladders and dig or fill holes in the platforms made from green bricks. If an apple monster touches the character, you lose. The character can jump down through holes without problems, but monsters become trapped in them. Once a monster is stuck in a hole, you have 17 seconds to hit it repeatedly with the shovel until it falls down. If you wait too long a monster will be able to free itself, refilling the hole in the process. Orange monsters die on the next floor if they fall down. In later levels you have to deal with green and blue monsters. Green monsters require falling through two vertically lined up holes while blue monsters need three vertically lined up holes. You earn extra points if you drop one monster on top of another (which kills both monsters). To make matters worse, you have a time limit to kill the monsters of a level. The time left is tracked by a bar at the bottom of the window. The various levels use four different ladder layouts, but there are always five platforms in which the character can dig.

The following commands are accepted: