is a cavalier perspective maze game that was developed and released by

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company, headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo. It held several international branches, including Namco America in Santa Clara, California, Namco Europe in London, Namco Taiwan in Kaohsiun ...

for arcades in 1987. In the game, the player controls

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...

as he must eat all of the dots while avoiding the colored ghosts that chase him in the maze. Eating large flashing "Power Pellets" will allow Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for bonus points, which lasts for a short period of time. A new feature to this game allows Pac-Man to jump over the ghosts to evade capture. It is the ninth title in the ''

'' video game series and was the last one developed for arcades up until the release of '' Pac-Man Arrangement'' in 1996. Development was directed by ''Pac-Man'' creator

Toru Iwatani is a Japanese video game designer who spent much of his career working for Namco. He is best known as the creator of the arcade game ''Pac-Man'' (1980). Early life Iwatani was born in the Meguro ward of Tokyo, Japan on January 25, 1955. While ...

. It was licensed to

Atari Games Atari Games Corporation, known as Midway Games West Inc. after 1999, was an American producer of arcade games. It was formed in 1985 when the coin-operated arcade game division of Atari, Inc. was transfered by Warner Communications to a join ...

for release in North America. ''Pac-Mania'' gained a highly-positive critical reception for its uniqueness and gameplay. It was nominated for "Best Coin-Op Conversion of the Year" at the

Golden Joystick Awards The Golden Joystick Awards, also known as the People's Gaming Awards, is a video game award ceremony; it awards the best video games of the year, as voted for originally by the British general public, but is now a global event that can be vote ...

in 1987, although it lost to

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...

's ''

Operation Wolf is a light gun shooter arcade game developed by Taito and released in 1987. It was ported to many home systems. The game was critically and commercially successful, becoming one of the highest-grossing arcade games of 1988 and winning the G ...

''. ''Pac-Mania'' was ported to several home consoles and computers, including the

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first per ...

MSX2 MSX is a standardized home computer architecture, announced by Microsoft and ASCII Corporation on June 16, 1983. It was initially conceived by Microsoft as a product for the Eastern sector, and jointly marketed by Kazuhiko Nishi, then vice- ...

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

and

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...

, the last of which being published by Tengen. Several ''Pac-Man'' and Namco video game collections also included the game. Ports for the

Wii Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Un ...

, iOS and

mobile phones A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while ...

were also produced.

Gameplay

''Pac-Mania'' is a maze game viewed from an

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

perspective and with a gameplay similar to the franchise's original installment. The player controls

, a yellow circular creature that must eat all of the pellets in each stage while avoiding five colored ghosts named Blinky, Pinky, Inky, Clyde and Sue. Eating large Power Pellets will cause the ghosts to turn

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

and flee, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points and send them to the house in the middle of the stage. Clearing the stage of dots and pellets will allow Pac-Man to move to the next. New to this game is the ability to jump over the ghosts, allowing Pac-Man to evade capture. Later levels of the game introduce two new ghosts, Funky and Spunky, who also have the ability to jump. While Pac-Man can still barely jump over Funky, it is impossible to jump over Spunky. Eating a certain number of pellets will cause a bonus item to appear in the middle of the stage, which Pac-Man can eat up for points. Some of these bonus items are called Special Items, which are items from later levels, or are Red and Green Power Pellets. Red Power Pellets double the point values of blue ghosts (this bonus is lost if Pac-Man loses a life), and Green Power Pellets temporarily increase Pac-Man's speed. If the player makes Pac-Man stay on the same stage for too long, his jump strength weakens until he cannot jump at all, making him unable to jump over Funky as well.

Ports

''Pac-Mania'' arrived on all of the major 8- and 16-bit systems in Europe in 1988, which were

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

and

in October,

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness W ...

later that year, and

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...

, MSX and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

in December. The conversions were designed and ported by Teque Software, then composed of the duo Peter Harrap and Shaun Hollingworth, and the games were published by ''

Grandslam Entertainment Grandslam Interactive Ltd. (formerly Grandslam Entertainments Ltd. and later Grandslam Video Ltd.) was a video games software house based in Britain. It was formed in late 1987 from a management buy-out of Argus Press Software by former Argus M ...

''. The same company developed an

Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes is a family of personal computers designed by Acorn Computers of Cambridge, England. The systems are based on Acorn's own ARM architecture processors and the proprietary operating systems Arthur and RISC OS. The first mode ...

port, which was published by

Domark Square Enix Limited (formerly Domark Limited and Eidos Interactive Limited) is a British subsidiary of the Japanese video game company Square Enix, acting as their European publishing arm. The company formerly owned ''Tomb Raider'', which was in ...

in 1991.

Sharp Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more t ...

developed and released the game for its

X68000 The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan. The initial model has a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and lacks a hard drive. The final model was released in 1993 wi ...

in early 1989. Namco also released an

port of the game in mid-June that year. ''Pac-Mania'' was later ported to the

in late 1990 and the

Master System The is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 an ...

and

in 1991 by Tengen. All three were released in North America, with the Master System port published by

TecMagik TecMagik Entertainment Ltd. was a video game development and publishing company that released games for 8-bit and 16-bit games consoles between 1991 and 1993. Releases *Andre Agassi Tennis * Champions of Europe * The New Zealand Story *Pac-Mani ...

. The Genesis port was outsourced to

Sculptured Software Acclaim Entertainment was an American video game publisher from Long Island, active from 1987 until filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on September 1, 2004. Through a series of acquisitions between 1990 and 2002, Acclaim built itself a large portfo ...

Reception

In Japan, ''Game Machine'' listed ''Pac-Mania'' on their December 15, 1987 issue as being the fifth most-successful table arcade unit of the month. In North America, Atari sold 1,412 arcade cabinets in 1987, earning about $2.82 million ($ million adjusted for inflation) in cabinet sales. ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...

'' gave the Genesis version a B− in 1991. The game was runner-up in the category of Best Coin-Op Conversion of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, behind ''

''.

Legacy

The arcade version of Pac-Mania appeared in '' Namco Museum Volume 5'', the 2001 ''Namco Museum'' release, ''Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary'' and ''

Namco Museum Virtual Arcade is a video game compilation developed and published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360. It was released in North America in 2008 and in Europe and Japan in 2009. Part of its ''Namco Museum'' series, ''Virtual Arcade'' includes 34 titles; nine ...

''. In 2001, it was one of the games included in ''

Pac-Man Collection is a 2001 video game compilation published by Namco for the Game Boy Advance. It includes four titles in the ''Pac-Man'' series — the original ''Pac-Man'' (1980), ''Pac-Mania'' (1987), '' Pac-Attack'' (1993), and ''Pac-Man Arrangement'' (1996 ...

'' for the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...

. Later, in 2002, the arcade version was re-released and included as an unlockable bonus in ''

Pac-Man World 2 is a video game by Namco USA for the Xbox, GameCube, and PlayStation 2, released in 2002. A version of the game for Microsoft Windows was released in 2004, and an isometric sidescroller was made for the Game Boy Advance in 2005. The game is a s ...

''. In 2007, ''Pac-Mania'' was also released in ''

Namco Museum Remix ''Namco Museum Remix'' is a 2007 video game compilation developed and published for the Wii by Namco Bandai Games. The compilation includes nine Namco arcade games and five "remix" games made specifically for this compilation. A remake, ''Namco Mus ...

'' with ''

Pac & Pal is a 1983 maze chase arcade game developed and published by Namco. It is part of the company's ''Pac-Man'' series, is the third to have been produced in-house. Players control Pac-Man as he must eat the items in an enclosed maze while avoiding f ...

'', ''

Pac 'n Roll is a 2005 platform video game developed and published by Namco for the Nintendo DS. It stars a 3D Pac-Man as the user rolls him through the playing field using the touchscreen. The game sees Pac-Man; who has been turned into a ball, go on a journe ...

'', '' Super Pac-Man'' and other non-Pac-Man games and was re-released in 2010 as part of the follow-up compilation ''Namco Museum Megamix'', along with 17 other Namco arcade games and six remix games, five of which appeared in ''Namco Museum Remix''. In 2010, the design of Pac-Man and the ghosts from ''Pac-Mania'' appear in ''

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX is a 2010 maze video game published by Namco Bandai Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, later ported to Steam and iOS. It is the sequel to the 2007 game '' Pac-Man Championship Edition'', which was the last game developed by series creator ...

'' and the game itself is released as an app in the App Store for iOS devices. ''Pac-Mania'' was also re-released as part of the '' Pac-Man's Arcade Party'' arcade machine in 2010 for Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. In February 2014 it was included in the ''

Pac-Man Museum ''Pac-Man Museum'' is a 2014 compilation title developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment under the Namco label. It is a compilation of 9 (10 if '' Ms. Pac-Man'' is counted) Pac-Man games, with additional features such as achievement ...

'' on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC via Steam. In 2018, it was included in the '' Pac-Man's Pixel Bash'' arcade cabinet, along with other Pac-Man, and different Namco games. The game is included in the 2022 compilation title ''

Pac-Man Museum + ''Pac-Man Museum +'' is a 2022 compilation video game developed by Now Production and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Being a sequel to the 2014 compilation title '' Pac-Man Museum'', ''Pac-Man Museum +'' includes 14 games from the ''P ...

'', released for PC via Steam,

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013 i ...

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

and

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

. On December 8, 2022, ''Pac-Mania'' was also included as part of the ''

Arcade Archives is a series of emulated arcade games from the late 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, and Nintendo Switch, published by Hamster Corporation. A sub-series called is focused on rereleasing Neo Ge ...

'' by

Hamster Corporation is a Japanese video game publisher, with office located in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. The game division of Toshiba-EMI Limited spun off Hamster Corporation in November 1999. On the Japanese PlayStation Store, more than 200 titles are distri ...

. The music from Pac-Man's Park was later used in '' Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures'' as the "power up" theme for "Pac" (the show's version of Pac-Man). The same theme, along with Block Town's music, was remixed and used in '' Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U'' and later ''

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate ''Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'' is a 2018 crossover fighting video game developed by Bandai Namco Studios and Sora Ltd. and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the fifth installment in the '' Super Smash Bros.'' series, succeed ...

''.

Notes

References

External links

*
''Pac-Mania''
at the Arcade History database * {{Atari Games 1987 video games Acorn Archimedes games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Arcade video games Pac-Man arcade games Commodore 64 games Maze games IOS games MSX2 games Namco arcade games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Switch games PlayStation 4 games Master System games Sega Genesis games Sharp X68000 games Tengen (company) games Unauthorized video games ZX Spectrum games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Yuriko Keino Video games with oblique graphics Virtual Console games Zeebo games Domark games Multiplayer and single-player video games TecMagik games Hamster Corporation games