Pac-Man
88PurrfectSadkitty Score
93KitSuperintelligent review
—CriticsOnly 1 so far
79Players266 ratings
Pac-Man is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. It is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. Players control Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called Power Pellets causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
Kit's verdict · 9.3/10
Forty-plus years later, the chase still makes your palms sweat.Kit · Sadkitty Games
Loved
- Learnable in five seconds
- Each ghost has its own personality
- Huge depth for pattern players
Not so much
- One maze for the whole game
- Gets punishingly fast on later boards
Play it if anyone who likes short, tense runs and chasing a high score.
Skip it if players who need variety, story or progression to stay hooked.
Cheats & codes
No cheat codes
Pac-Man doesn't have cheat codes. The tips and secrets below are the next best thing.
Tips
Play it better
- Learn the ghosts: Blinky (red) chases you directly, Pinky (pink) aims a few tiles ahead of you, Inky (cyan) is unpredictable, and Clyde (orange) backs off when he gets close.
- Ghosts can't turn upward at the two junctions just above the ghost house or the two just above your start point, so those spots are safer than they look.
- Pac-Man takes corners faster than the ghosts, so twisty routes help you shake a tail.
- Ghosts slow down in the side tunnels, so use them to escape when you're cornered.
- Wait to eat a power pellet until several ghosts are close, then chain them for 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 points.
- Fruit appears below the ghost house after you eat 70 dots and again after 170 dots, so plan your route past it.
- On later boards the power pellets barely turn ghosts blue or don't at all, so treat them as an escape, not a weapon.
Secrets & unlockables
Hidden in plain sight
Tap a secret to reveal it.
Did you know?
Trivia
- Designer Toru Iwatani said the shape came from a pizza with one slice missing.
- In Japan it launched as Puck-Man, and it was renamed for America because vandals could easily change the P on cabinets.
- Billy Mitchell recorded the first perfect score of 3,333,360 points in 1999.
- Iwatani wanted a game that would appeal to women, which was rare thinking for arcades at the time.
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