Ms. Pac-Man

1982 video game

Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game made by Midway Manufacturing (now Midway Games). It was released one year after Pac-Man, on May 22, 1980.[2] It became one of the most popular video games of all-time after its release. This led Namco to make the game an official title in the Pac-Man series. It has a female character, new mazes, and changes in gameplay from Pac-Man. It is most successful American-made arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.[3]

Ms. Pac-Man
Developer(s)Bally Midway
General Computer Corporation
Publisher(s)Bally Midway
Namco
Composer(s)Chris Rode
EnginePac-Man
Platform(s)Arcade
Game Boy
Game Boy Advance
Game Boy Color
Game Gear
Sega Genesis
Sega Master System
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Release
  • NA: September 24, 1981[1]
[a]
Genre(s)Maze
Mode(s)Up to 2 players, taking turns
CabinetStandard upright, mini-upright and cocktail

Gameplay

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Ms. Pac-Man plays similarly to Pac-Man. The player has to move Ms. Pac-Man, a yellow disc, around a maze. The goal is to eat all of the yellow pellets (circles) while not getting caught by the ghosts. The player can get more points by eating fruits that appear. When Ms. Pac-Man eats a white pellet, the ghosts turn blue. The player can eat them for points. The game has 256 stages. Like Pac-Man, the 256th level cannot be finished because of a problem with the creation of the game.[4]

The game has gameplay changes from the original Pac-Man. They include:

  • The game has four different mazes instead of one maze that is played for the whole game.
  • Three of the four mazes have two sets of warp tunnels instead of one.
  • Instead of staying in the middle of the maze, the fruit moves around the maze, going in and out of warp tunnels.
  • The ghosts have different behaviors.
  • The game has different sound effects and music.
  1. The game's release year is often erroneously cited as 1981. This is due to all of the game's copyright notices, both in-game and on the cabinet artwork, listing the year as 1981 instead of 1982.

References

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  1. "Play Meter Magazine, Volume 8, Number 4 - February 15th 1982". Internet Archive. 15 February 1982. Retrieved 23 December 2023.
  2. US Copyright Filing PA0000140275
  3. Beamish, Graeme (May 22, 2010). "Pellet-popping power: Pac-Man turns 30 today". Nanaimo Daily News. Canwest News Service. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved October 25, 2013.
  4. Donhodges.Com—Ms. Pac-Man's Kill Screens Analyzed And Fixed

Other websites

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