===============================================================================
PAC-MAN
For Neo Geo Pocket Colour¹
A Guide to Playing, and Walkthrough for, Pac-Man
by
Tim Miller
v1.0 12 April 2006
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¹ Color if you're American (and can't spell!)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
-----------------
1 - Introduction
1.1 - What is Pac-Man?
1.2 - What's the Point of this guide?
1.3 - Contact Questions
2 - An Introduction to the Game
2.1 - Where to go from the Title Screen
2.2 - The Idea of the Game
3 - Game Controls
3.1 - Menu Controls
3.2 - In-Game Controls
4 - A Walkthrough of the Game
4.1 - Things on the Screen
4.2 - Strategies to Maximise your Score
4.3 - Intermissions
5 - Cheats and Tips
6 - Questions and Answers
7 - Acknowledgements
8 - Contact Details and Legal Stuff
8.1 - Version History
1 - INTRODUCTION
----------------
1.1 - What is Pac-Man?
------------------------
Ah, so you're the one who's been in isolation for the last 20 years.
Pac-Man is a game where you control a basic character around a maze, avoiding
enemies (ghosts) and collecting pellets. You can eat a bigger pellet, and this
makes the ghosts edible for a short time.
There are no guns, no dismembered limbs, no semi-naked girls. This is a game
with pure gameplay at its heart. And yes, it does get a little monotonous.
Pac-Man was released into the arcades in 1981, and has appeared in some form on
almost every computer and console since. The Neo Geo Pocket Colour version is
an exact replica of the orginal arcade game, only about 2,000 times smaller in
terms of physical size.
1.2 - What's the point of this guide?
-------------------------------------
There's nothing out there yet, quite basically. Pac-Man is an old arcade game,
and not the most complicated of beasts. There's a fair amount of strategy
involved in playing that game though, and the NGPC version means that you can
take that strategy anywhere.
This guide provides a basic idea of how best to play the game, and any secrets
you're likely to uncover.
1.3 - You've got it wrong! Can I email you? Can I use this FAQ on my site?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
See Section 8. I have no idea why this should be at the beginning, but people
seem to look for it here ...
2 - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE GAME
-------------------------------
Pac-Man is an old game. As with most old games, it's incredibly simple to
play, but very addictive.
2.1 - Where to go from the Title Screen
---------------------------------------
Options? Pah, in my day there weren't any of these fancy options.
Namco have been a bit daft in this game. There are two options on the main
menu screen - "scroll" and "full-screen". These determine the viewpoint from
which you observe Pac-Man. Both are overhead views, but the first one is
zoomed in a lot more. While this means that you can see a bit easier, it means
you can't see where the ghosts are as easily. You have no idea if they're just
around the corner, or just about to enter the tunnel ...
Choose "full-screen". It's the only real way to play the game.
2.2 - The Idea of the Game
--------------------------
The basic idea of the game is to score as many points as you can. You earn
points by eating pellets, eating bonus items, and eating the ghosts after
you've turned them blue.
When you've eaten all the pellets on one level, the maze will flash, and you go
on to the next one. Each level is identical apart from the speed of the
ghosts, the time you get given by a power pill, and the value (and type) of the
bonus fruit you can eat.
3 - GAME CONTROLS
-----------------
None of your down, down-right, right + A in this game ...
3.1 - Menu Controls
-------------------
Press up and down to select which mode you want to play in. The option in red
is the highlighted one. Press A to start the game.
3.2 - In-Game Controls
----------------------
This is what games are about - there's nothing complicated and anyone can
control it. Use the joystick to tell Pac-Man which direction to go in. Er,
that's it. You can pause the game with the "option" button.
4 - A WALKTHROUGH OF THE GAME
-----------------------------
I apologise for the scattiness of some of this. When I get a tuit (preferably
a spherical one) I'll try and reorder it.
4.1 - Things on the Screen
--------------------------
The maze walls are blue. These define where you can move. On either side of
the maze are two passages to the left and right. If you go off the screen to
the left, you reappear on the right - so don't go off that way if there's a
ghost waiting at the other end.
You are Pac-Man, the yellow circle with a sector² missing. You press up, he
goes up if there's not a wall in the way. The character of Pac-Man was
developed when his creator, Toru Iwatani, was eating pizza, and removed one
slice. He exists solely to eat. Pac-Man was originally called Puck-Man, since
he was like an ice-hockey puck. The name was changed after vandals changed the
P to an F.
Spread around the maze are small pellets; each of these is worth 10 points. In
the four corners are the power pellets; these are worth 50 points. When one of
these is eaten, Pac-Man has a limited time to eat the ghosts (they will turn
light blue and run away from him). The more ghosts Pac-Man eats per pellet,
the more points they are worth:
First ghost - 200 points
Second ghost - 400 points
Third ghost - 800 points
Fourth ghost - 1600 points
In the centre of the maze is the ghost's home. After a short period from the
start of the game, the ghosts come out of here one by one and chase after
Pac-Man.
Inky is the blue ghost. He seems to be afraid of Pac-Man, and will run away if
challenged at all.
Pinky is the pink ghost. He is very fast, and can out-run Pac-Man. If chased
by him, turn a lot of corners and hope you'll lose him.
Blinky is the red ghost. He'll follow Pac-Man as closely as possible, and he's
quite fast. As long as you keep going you should be fine, but try and avoid him
most of all.
Clyde is the orange ghost. I have no idea why he's called Clyde. He'll wander
all over the place and never seems to notice when Pac-Man's near. He's also
very slow.
The numbers at the top left of the screen are your score. The higher the
better. Your score is listed next to "1 UP" (which keeps annoyingly flashing);
the current record score is also shown.
At the bottom of the screen are two indicators. On the left side is a list of
the lives Pac-Man has left; you start with 2 spare, and you can earn a new one
by getting 10,000 points. On the right is a list of the levels that Pac-Man
has completed, including the current one. These are represented as fruit, and
are shown in sequence (the sequence starts as a cherry, then strawberry, then
two apples).
These fruit also appear in the centre of the maze, below the ghost's home, and
if collected carry scores of:
Cherry - 100 points
Strawberry - 300 points
Peach - 500 points
Apples - 700 points
Grapes - 1000 points
Galaga - 2000 points
Bell - 3000 points
Key - 5000 points
OK, OK, they're not all fruit.
² I'm a mathematician. A sector of a circle is a segment of an orange, and
that's a piece of cake. A segment of a circle is formed by joining two points
on the circumference with a straight line; this divides the circle into two
segments.
4.2 - Strategies to Maximise your Score
---------------------------------------
People have made it their life ambition to play Pac-Man well. Don't expect to
become an expert overnight! The maximum score on the arcade machine was
finally acheived in 1999 by Billy Mitchell - with 3,333,360 points. On the
arcade machine there were a fixed number of levels, and the last (level 255)
was only half there (the right-hand side of the screen was corrupted). To my
knowledge, nobody's got that far with the NGPC version to find out if it's the
same, but I would guess it is since it seems to be an almost exact emulation³.
There are several sites on the Internet which have comprehensive guides to
getting the highest score you can on the arcade machine, which should apply to
the NGPC game. Two of the best are:
http://www.hanaho.com/pacman/
www.mameworld.net/pacman/
There is also a book, which has been electronically reproduced at:
http://www.upcweb.com/d3b/download/break-pac-man.pdf
Listed below are some more general tips in how to do the best you can.
- Avoid the top and bottom quaters of the screen. The ghosts can trap you in
these more easily.
- Use the full-screen mode. I can't stress this enough.
- Before eating a power pellet, wait until the ghosts are as near as possible.
This will give them less of a chance to escape.
- If you're being chased by a fast ghost, try and go through the tunnel to the
side of the screen. Ghosts move through this tunnel a lot slower than Pac-Man
does. Be wary, however, of ghosts waiting on the other side of the screen.
- Collect the fruit! As you progress through the game, the fruit becomes more
and more valuable, and thus more and more crucial to you getting a higher score.
- Take your time. The ghosts don't get faster if you take longer over a level
- they do speed up as you progress through levels though!
- After level 18, eating a power pill has no effect. Until level 18, the
amount of time that ghosts are scared for decreases by level. It's going to be
difficult to get all four ghosts on level 17!
- Don't worry too much about Clyde, the orange ghost. He's a bit thick. But
do watch out for him when you take a trip through the tunnel, since he might be
on the other side.
³ It's an almost exact emulation, but of which game? The original game counted
levels in terms of two cherries, two strawberries, two apples and so on. The
fact that this game starts with cherry, strawberry, two apples, indicates that
it's an emulation of a modified machine. When people started to get too good
at the game, and were taking too much time on it, Midway altered the patterns
of the ghost movements to make it harder for regular players. It seems that
this game is a copy of a later version.
4.3 - Intermissions
-------------------
After you complete level 2, you'll get a short intermission animation. You
also get an animation after levels 5, 9, 13 and 17. There are, however, only
three animations which repeat.
4.3.1 - Animation One
Pac-Man goes across the screen, left to right, chased by the red ghost. As
soon as the ghost goes off the left, it reappears runing the other way, in its
"frightened" guise. After a little while, giant Pac-Man appears and chases the
ghost.
4.3.2 - Animation Two
Pac-Man is again chased across the screen. As the ghost passes the middle of
the screen, his cloak is ripped across the middle; the ghost runs back to the
right.
4.3.3 - Animation Three
Pac-Man is chased again. This time, as the ghost passes the middle of the
screen, his whole cloak is snagged on something and falls off.
5 - CHEATS AND TIPS
-------------------
There's a "dead spot" in the maze where Pac-Man can rest for a while. This is
found under the right-hand eave of the "T" shape immediately below the ghost's
home. Provided that Pac-Man was not seen as he went into this spot, the ghosts
will not bother him here.
Make sure that you wait until the last moment before eating a power pellet,
it'll make getting the ghosts a lot easier.
6 - QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
-------------------------
Q) Does the game save your high score?
A) This game is all about getting high scores. It would be ludicrous that your
high score wasn't saved, wouldn't it? NAMCO, YOU ARE FOOLS. There is no
facility to save your score.
Q) Why do you prefer the full-screen mode?
A) You need to know where all the ghosts are at any one time, basically.
Without full-screen mode, you can't.
Q) Why do you call the ghosts Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde?
A) On the attract mode, these are listed as their nicknames. Others have
stated that the characters are called "Shadow", "Speedy, "Bashful" and "Pokey",
as listed under the "Character" heading. I don't think this is so. I believe
this column gives you a rough idea of how that ghost acts, not their name.
7 - ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
--------------------
Thanks to:
Clyde for being such a dimwit
uk.games.video.misc for encouraging me to buy the game
8 - CONTACT DETAILS AND LEGAL STUFF
-----------------------------------
The email address associated with this FAQ is
[email protected] - you
should use this for all correspondence.
I (Tim Miller) retain all copyright over this document, since I wrote it. If
you want to use it on your website, email me and ask. I will probably say yes,
and specify that the actual content is not altered in any way (formatting will
probably be OK - not changing to American spelling though ...). However, you
must ask first.
If you notice any errors on this FAQ, please email me. If you have any
suggestions to additional material, please email me. If you have any questions
that aren't answered, please email me. In all cases, don't be offended if I
don't get back to immediately, or don't take your comments completely on board.
I'm just like that.
8.1 - Version History
---------------------
v0.1 : 10 June 2002 - Added everything and sent to GameFAQs
v1.0 : 12 April 2006 - Finalised version
