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 quickly became extremely popular, being ported to dozens of systems including, most infamously, the Atari 2600.

Unused Graphics


An unused explosion present with the rest of the graphics. It was removed in Pac-Man Plus.

The graphic is present with what may be its correct palette in the Character Slideshow of Namco Museum Vol. 1, under the name "Blast".



Easter Egg
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 you've done it right, the grid will stay onscreen. Using the joystick, press Up, Up, Up, Up, Left, Left, Left, Left, Right, Right, Right, Right, Down, Down, Down, Down.

The words "MADE BY NAMCO" should appear on the screen in red Power Pellets.

Pac-Man Plus


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


 * Blue ghosts are now shorter and have a leaf sticking out of their heads(?).
 * Bonus items have been redrawn to resemble different foods (for example, the first bonus item resembles a Coca-Cola can).
 * The maze is cyan instead of blue.
 * Ghosts are faster and more aggressive, 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!
 * 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.
 * The maze walls turn invisible for the duration of the pellet.
 * The maze walls and all remaining dots turn invisible for the duration of the pellet.
 * The ghosts turn edible and invisible, like with the bonus items.