Pac-Man (Arcade)

Pac-Man is the story of a yellow circle that runs from ghosts and eats dots, fruit, and keys(!) in 255 identical mazes. The game(s) became inescapable, not only being brought around the world in various forms, but also ported to nearly everything imaginable (including, infamously, the Atari 2600). It's easier to list which platforms haven't received a port or clone (e.g. the Unisonic Champion 2711).

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Prerelease Info Bugs

Unused Graphics#

An unused explosion present with the rest of the graphics. It was removed in Pac-Man Plus and replaced with the 3200-point score sprite (see below).

The graphic is present with what may be its correct palette in the Character Slideshow of Namco Museum Vol. 1, under the name "Blast". However, this palette is not present within Pac-Man itself. Jr. Pac-Man would be the only game in the series to ever use the explosion, albeit with two different palettes and several flipped rotations.

Present in the graphics data are three types of dots: the regular ones, the Power Pellets, and an unused medium-sized type in between. The medium dots also appear in the code of Pac-Man Plus and Ms. Pac-Man, but go unused there as well. They were later incorporated into Jr. Pac-Man for when a bonus item runs over a regular dot.

Easter Egg#

Pac-Man	Pac-Man Plus

Enter Service Mode, then quickly toggle it off and on. A video alignment grid will appear on the screen. Hold P1 START and P2 START and toggle Service Mode off and on again. If done correctly, the grid will stay onscreen. Now, using the joystick, press Up (×4), Left (×4), Right (×4), Down (×4).

The words "MADE BY NAMCO" should appear on the screen in red Power Pellets (yellow in Pac-Man Plus).

Version Differences#

Pac-Man Plus#

An "official" conversion kit released by Bally Midway in 1982. While fliers for Plus claimed it to be "A whole new game of surprises!", in reality it's just a small modification of the original Namco code.

• Vulnerable ghosts are now shorter and have what appears to be a green flag sticking out of their heads, possibly to signify that they surrender.
• When moving horizontally, the Ghosts' eyes are one pixel closer together (a change also present in Pac & Pal). The sprites of the ghosts moving upwards also had their eyes moved down by 1 pixel.
• Pac-Man's (and Super Pac-Man's) sprites are touched up. Most notably:
  • Pac-Man has a slightly smaller mouth.
  • The third frame of Pac-Man's death animation removes 2 pixels from the bottom.
  • The last frame of the death animation is mirrored.
  • The life icon has been made more circular.
• Blinky's "exposed" sprites from the second intermission had a missing pixel near his bare skin filled in.
• Some of the game's font (such as the letter "G" or the number "6") has been changed slightly.
• Most of the bonus items (barring the Apple and Galaxian Boss) have been redrawn to resemble different foods and beverages, such as a Coca-Cola can.
• The maze has been changed to teal green instead of blue.
• The point values of eating an edible ghost are yellow instead of blue, and a "3200" graphic is added (see below for why).
• Gameplay starts at the fastest speed, increasing the difficulty right off the bat.
• Eating a bonus item causes ghosts to turn both edible and invisible. Invisible ghosts are worth double the normal point values (400-800-1,600-3,200) and their vulnerability time lasts longer than a Power Pellet.
• Eating a Power Pellet is unpredictable, causing one of the following events to occur:
  • All four ghosts turn edible, as in the original game.
  • Only three ghosts will turn edible, with the fourth changing direction.
  • Beginning after the first intermission, the maze walls and all of the remaining dots turn invisible for the duration of the Power Pellet, making it harder to traverse the maze.
  • Sometimes, both the invisible maze and the 3 ghosts turning edible will happen at the same time.

Revisional Differences#

The version of Plus found on Arcade1Up machines changes the logo on the Coca-Cola can to "PAC", while the Legacy Edition cabinets simply feature a blank coke can. This was likely done to avoid legal issues with Coca-Cola.

Original	Arcade1Up	Arcade1Up (Legacy Edition)

Oddities#

Whenever the ghosts turn back from their edible state, the text at the bottom of the ghost house changes to teal green, just like the color of the maze. This can be seen with the "GAME OVER" text and the 5,000-point graphic on Levels 19 and 20, as well as Levels 21 and beyond, where the bonus items don't affect the ghosts anymore.

Regional Differences#

Pac-Man Name#

Japan	US

Quite possibly the most famous regional difference in video games. In the Japanese version, the game and titular character's name (written as パックマン, lit. Pakkuman, in Japanese) is rendered in English as Puck Man (or Puckman). When the game was set to be released in America, Namco wanted to change the name to avoid any potential vandals changing the "P" on the arcade cabinet's logo to an "F." While they had initially toyed with changing the name to Snapper for the release (as seen in an early Namco game catalog), then-Namco president Masaya Nakamura decided on the name Pac-Man, another valid way of writing パックマン in English that would allow them to adopt the name in Japan for consistency's sake without having to change the original Japanese spelling.

Nevertheless, this had a smaller impact on the game itself than you'd think, as the only instance of the name being used in-game is the text indicating the score threshold for receiving extra lives. This also likely partially explains the presence of the hyphen in the new title, as a way to keep the new name the same character length as the original one.

Ghost Names#

In the Japanese version, the ghosts' character names are Oikake (おいかけ, chase), Machibuse (まちぶせ, ambush), Kimagure (きまぐれ, fickle), and Otoboke (おとぼけ, playing dumb), fitting their behavior. They are also given nicknames: Akabei from aka (赤, red), Pinky from pinku (ピンク, pink), Aosuke from ao (青, blue), and Guzuta from guzuguzu (ぐずぐず , adjective meaning "slow" or "languid"). Their names are different in the American version, now matching the pink ghost's nickname. The formatting on the names were also changed, with the character names now being preceded by a dash, the nicknames being left aligned and the names no longer having dashes between them.

On a related note, the Japanese version features Namco's classic logo on the attract mode screens, while the American version has a more standard copyright string for Midway in its place. Future rereleases of the American arcade version use the Japanese logo.

Japan	US

Alternate Ghost Names#

The board has a DIP switch called "Alternate Ghost Names". In the Japanese version, this would change the ghosts' character names and nicknames to a different set, presumably intended for export versions due to being written in English. In the American version, the alternate set is dummied out and replaced by one-unique-letter strings in alphabetical order. Interestingly, the Japanese alternate character names are used in all versions of Pac-Man Arrangement (1995).

Japan	US

References#