Pacman

Pac-Man is the 1980 arcade game by Toru Iwatani at Namco — the single most-recognizable video game character ever made, and the game that pulled arcades out of the male-dominated space-shooter era and into mass-market success. The premise is iconic: navigate a yellow disc through a maze of dots, eat all of them while avoiding four ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde). Eat a power pellet and you can briefly turn the tables and eat the ghosts. Hundreds of thousands of arcade cabinets sold, and the character became a global icon within a year. Our Pacman is a free tribute in the same style: a classic-shaped maze, four ghosts with the original targeting personalities, and simplified rules listed below.

How to play

• Press Start, then use the arrow keys to change Pac-Man’s direction. You can press a direction early and Pac-Man turns as soon as the path opens.
• On a phone or tablet, swipe on the maze in the direction you want to go. Swipes queue a turn the same way an early key press does.
• Eat all 236 small dots and 4 power pellets to clear the maze. Dots are worth 10 points and power pellets 50.
• Eating one of the 4 power pellets (the large dots) makes ghosts “frightened” (blue) for about 8 seconds — they flash white just before it wears off. Touch a blue ghost to eat it for 200 points.
• Touching a non-frightened ghost loses a life. 3 lives total. Your best score is saved in your browser.
• Eaten ghosts float back to the pen in the middle and come out again shortly after.
• A tunnel through the left and right edges of the maze wraps around — exit one side, enter the other.

The ghosts and their personalities

Iwatani designed each ghost with a distinct AI personality — one of the first examples of differentiated NPC behavior in video games. Our ghosts use the same targeting rules:

• Blinky (red, “Shadow”): direct pursuer. Always targets Pac-Man’s current position. The most aggressive ghost. In the arcade original, after enough dots are eaten Blinky enters “Cruise Elroy” mode and moves faster — our version has no Cruise Elroy.
• Pinky (pink, “Speedy”): ambusher. Targets the cell 4 tiles AHEAD of Pac-Man’s current direction. Tries to cut you off, not chase you.
• Inky (cyan, “Bashful”): unpredictable. His target is calculated from Blinky’s position and Pac-Man’s heading — so his behavior depends on Blinky’s. Often the deadliest ghost in narrow corridors.
• Clyde (orange, “Pokey”): shy. When far from Pac-Man, he chases. When within 8 tiles, he flees to his corner. This makes Clyde the least threatening ghost — but he can corner you accidentally.

Beginner strategy

• Don’t go for power pellets too early. Power pellets are valuable. Save them for when 2+ ghosts are close so you can eat several in one frightened phase (here each ghost is a flat 200 points; in the arcade original, successive ghosts double: 200, 400, 800, 1600).
• Learn the safe dots first. The central section of the maze is most dangerous. Clear the outer ring and bottom rows first while ghosts are still spreading.
• Use the tunnel for escape. The wraparound tunnel moves you to the far side of the maze in an instant, which forces chasing ghosts to re-route.
• Don’t stop moving. In our version Pac-Man is slightly faster than a chasing ghost, so a ghost directly behind you only catches up if you stall or run into a dead end.
• Ghosts don’t turn back. A ghost only picks a new direction at junctions and never reverses, so once one passes you heading the other way, that corridor is safe for a moment.

Intermediate strategy

• Memorize the “scatter” intervals. Ghosts alternate between chase mode and scatter mode (where they retreat to their assigned corner). In our version the game opens with 7 seconds of scatter, then repeats 20 seconds of chase and 7 seconds of scatter. In the arcade original, scatter lasts 7, 7, 5 and 5 seconds on level 1, then the ghosts chase permanently.
• The 4-ghost combo. Eating all 4 ghosts during a single power pellet is worth 800 points here (3,000 in the arcade original). Set this up by waiting near a power pellet until ghosts cluster, then strike.
• Cruise Elroy timing (arcade). In the original, Blinky speeds up at fixed dot thresholds: on level 1, when 20 dots remain and again at 10 remaining.
• Pac-Man can’t enter the ghost pen. The pen in the centre is only for ghosts. Don’t waste time trying to box ghosts in there.
• Pac-Man kill screen at level 256. In the arcade original, an 8-bit counter overflow makes level 256 display a corrupted right half. Players can reach it, but it cannot be cleared.

Advanced strategy and patterns

• Predetermined patterns (arcade). Because the arcade ghost AI is deterministic given identical inputs, expert players use exact movement patterns (“patterns”) that clear boards safely when executed precisely. Patterns were published in strategy books in the early 1980s. They don’t carry over to our version, where frightened ghosts move randomly.
• 3,333,360 perfect score. The maximum score in the arcade original (eating every dot, every ghost wherever possible, and every fruit on all 255 boards, plus what can be eaten on the kill screen) is 3,333,360. Billy Mitchell’s 1999 run is the best-known perfect game.
• Inky exploitation. Because Inky’s targeting depends on Blinky, you can manipulate Inky by manipulating Blinky’s position — useful for clearing tight corridors.
• “Cornering” trick (arcade). In the original, pressing the direction key slightly BEFORE reaching a corner makes Pac-Man cut the corner more tightly than ghosts, gaining a small lead.

Pac-Man history

• 1980 — Pac-Man (Japan): Originally “Puck-Man” but renamed for Western markets to avoid vandalism. Designed by Toru Iwatani, who wanted a game that appealed to women — the dominant arcade market at the time was Space Invaders / Galaxian / Asteroids, all male-coded space shooters.
• 1980–81 — Worldwide hit: Midway released it in North America in late 1980, and around 100,000 cabinets sold there within about a year. The character appeared on lunchboxes, t-shirts, breakfast cereal.
• 1982 — Ms. Pac-Man: faster, with new mazes and less predictable ghost behavior. It began as an unauthorized enhancement kit by General Computer Corporation, then was released officially by Midway. Considered a refinement on the original.
• 1999 — Billy Mitchell perfect score: 3,333,360, the first recorded perfect game. (Twin Galaxies later removed his records in 2018 over a separate Donkey Kong dispute.)
• 2010 — Pac-Man Google Doodle: playable interactive Doodle for the 30th anniversary. One estimate put the time spent playing it on launch day at 4.8 million hours.

Common mistakes

• Eating power pellets too early. A power pellet eaten when no ghost is near is wasted.
• Stopping in intersections. Pac-Man slowing or stopping lets ghosts catch up. Always commit to a direction.
• Trying to outrun Blinky in the arcade late game. When Cruise Elroy is active in the original, Blinky is FASTER than you. Run perpendicular instead.
• Ignoring the fruit (arcade). The original’s bonus items (cherry → strawberry → orange → apple → …) scale upward through the levels, from 100 points up to 5,000 for the key. Our version has no fruit, so dots, power pellets and ghosts are your only points.

Variants

• Ms. Pac-Man (1982) — less predictable ghost AI makes fixed patterns much harder. Many consider it superior to the original.
• Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007) — modernized version with timer-based scoring.
• Pac-Man 256 (2015) — endless maze game themed on the kill-screen glitch, with the glitch chasing you up a scrolling maze.
• Pac-Man World (1999, PlayStation) — 3D platformer with Pac-Man as protagonist.

FAQ

• Q: How many pellets are in the maze? A: The arcade maze has 244 — 240 small dots and 4 power pellets. Our maze has 240 — 236 small dots and 4 power pellets.
• Q: Can you complete all levels? A: In the arcade original, levels 1-255 are playable. Level 256 is a kill screen with the right half of the maze corrupted due to an integer overflow, and it cannot be cleared.
• Q: Are the ghost movements random? A: In the original arcade, no — ghost AI is deterministic, which is what enables pattern-based perfect runs. In ours, chasing ghosts follow fixed targeting rules, but frightened ghosts pick turns at random.
• Q: What’s the perfect score? A: 3,333,360 in the arcade original — eating every dot, every fruit and every ghost that can be eaten, across all 255 playable levels plus the kill screen.

For other arcade classics, try Snake, Space Invaders, Galaga, or Centipede.

Is this the Google Pac-Man Doodle?

No. Google celebrated Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary with a playable Doodle in May 2010, which you can still find by searching “Pac-Man”. This is our own free Pac-Man-style maze game with a full maze and four ghosts, separate from Google and from the official game.