is a 1982 maze video game developed by General Computer Corporation (GCC) and published by Midway Manufacturing for arcades. It is a sequel to Pac-Man (1980), and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wife, the player is tasked with eating all of the pellets in an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating the larger "power pellets" lets the player eat the ghosts, which turn blue and flee.
General Computer made the game as a modification kit for the original Pac-Man, titled Crazy Otto. However, due to previous legal action with Atari, Inc., GCC was forced to present the project to Midway Manufacturing, the North American distributor of Pac-Man. Midway purchased the project and enlisted GCC to use the game as a basis for the sequel to Pac-Man. Multiple names were considered for the game, including Miss Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man, before the final name Ms. Pac-Man was chosen for being easier to pronounce. While development had started without Namco's consent, company president Masaya Nakamura was brought in and provided feedback on the player character's design. Namco ultimately collected the same royalties on each Ms. Pac-Man cabinet as they had with Pac-Man.
Ms. Pac-Man was acclaimed by critics for its improvements to the original gameplay and for having a female protagonist; some have described it as superior to Pac-Man. It has been listed among the greatest video games of all time and as one of the most successful American arcade games ever made. The game's success inspired a variety of successful merchandise, several ports for numerous home consoles and handheld systems, a television cartoon that included Pac-Man, and numerous video game sequels and remakes which spawned a Ms. Pac-Man spin-off series. The rights to the game are owned by Namco's successor company, Bandai Namco Entertainment. However, the game and its title character have suffered legal ownership issues between Namco and General Computer Corporation.
Gameplay
The gameplay is very similar to that of Pac-Man. The player earns points by eating pellets and avoiding ghosts (contact with one causes Ms. Pac-Man to lose a life). Eating an energizer (or "power pellet") causes the ghosts to turn blue, allowing them to be eaten for extra points. Bonus fruits can be eaten for increasing point values, twice per round. As the rounds progress, the speed increases, and energizers generally lessen the duration of the ghosts' vulnerability, eventually stopping altogether.
Differences from Pac-Man The game has four mazes that appear in different color schemes and alternate after each of the game's intermissions are seen. The pink maze appears in levels one and two; the light blue maze appears in levels three, four, and five; the brown maze appears in levels six to nine; and the dark blue maze appears in levels 10 to 13. After level 13, the maze configurations alternate every fourth level between the brown and dark blue maze. The pink, light blue, and dark blue mazes have two sets of warp tunnels, as opposed to only one in the original maze. The walls have a solid color rather than an outline, which makes it easier for a novice player to see where the paths around the mazes are. The orange ghost is called Sue, rather than Clyde; her color was later changed to purple in Pac-Land to differentiate her. The ghosts' behavioral patterns are different, and include semi-random movement, which prevents the use of patterns to clear each round. Blinky (red) and Pinky (pink) move randomly in the first several seconds of each level, until the first reversal. Inky (cyan) and Sue (orange) still use the same movement patterns from the previous game to their respective corners, again until the first reversal. Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, the fruits bounce around the maze, entering and (if not eaten) leaving through the warp tunnels. Once all fruit has been encountered, they appear in random sequence for the rest of the game, starting on the eighth round; a 5000-point banana can be followed by a 100-point pair of cherries, for example. When Ms. Pac-Man makes contact with a ghost and dies, she spins around, or as the back of the flier says, "she dramatically swoons and falls" rather than folding in on herself as the original Pac-Man did. The three intermissions follow the developing relationship between the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man (from when they first meet to having a stork drop off their baby). The latter served as the basis for Baby Pac-Man and is referenced in Jr. Pac-Man. The slowdown applied to the ghosts in the warp tunnels only applies to the first three rounds in this game. The sound effects and music are all new.
Development Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as an enhancement kit for Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers at General Computer Corporation (GCC). While Crazy Otto was in development, GCC settled a lawsuit with Atari, Inc. over their Missile Command conversion kit Super Missile Attack. Part of the settlement terms barred GCC from selling conversion kits without consent from the original game manufacturer.
Rather than scrapping Crazy Otto entirely, the programmers chose to present the finished game to Midway, Namco's American distributor of Pac-Man. Midway was enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention, as they were hoping to capitalize on the success of Pac-Man with a sequel. They bought the rights to Crazy Otto and worked with GCC and Namco to prepare the game for release. In the final development, the game's name and characters experienced multiple changes. Sprites, text and minor game elements were altered to better reflect the Pac-Man series.
The game was initially titled Super Pac-Man, containing Pac-Man as the lead character. Inspired by the cutscenes of Crazy Otto, featuring Crazy Otto's female counterpart. The lead character was made female and the game was renamed Pac-Woman. That name was dropped in favor of Miss Pac-Man, but the developers then realized that, given the third intermission showing a stork delivering a baby to Pac-Man and the player's character, confusion could arise about their relationship. In light of this, the name was changed to Mrs. Pac-Man, and then finally to Ms. Pac-Man, which rolled off the tongue more easily. Programmer Steve Golson said: "In the span of just two weeks, it went from Crazy Otto to Super Pac-Man to Miss Pac-Man." These later changes (Miss, Mrs., and Ms.) all occurred within 72 hours of actual production.The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent, pp. 171-172
Shortly before release, Stan Jarocki of Midway stated that Ms. Pac-Man was conceived in part as a response to the original Pac-Man being "the first commercial videogame to involve large numbers of women as players", and it was "our way of thanking all those lady arcaders who have played and enjoyed Pac-Man". According to one 1982 estimate, a majority of Pac-Man players were women. This is corroborated by marketing chief Michael Leone of the Castle Park Entertainment Center, who noted his company "noticed a recent trend in our game pavilions that indicates a tremendous female acceptance of the Pac-Man game", further noting it "was only natural for Midway...to introduce a Ms. Pac-Man".
GCC co-founder Doug Macrae noted Masaya Nakamura, Namco's president at the time, gave him direct feedback on the Ms. Pac-Man character. In an interview, Macrae said: "We sent out ROMs to Midway, and they sent them over to Japan for the President of Namco, Masaya Nakamura, to look at. He said: 'Love the concept, get rid of the hair.'" He added: "There was a little bit of embarrassment [at Namco] of the fact that the sequel was being done somewhere other than in their own laboratories. ...The arrangement that Namco had with Midway was that Namco would still get their royalty on Ms. Pac-Man...and Midway could choose to do whatever they wanted in paying us a royalty in addition to Namco."
Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, is not known to have publicly commented on Ms. Pac-Man, despite questions from reporters.
Release Reporter Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times reported that the game made its public debut on February 3, 1982, "in typical showbusiness style at a press conference at the Castle Park Entertainment Center in Sherman Oaks." He noted that "[t]he game is expected to appear in many video arcades during the next few weeks."
Atari, Inc. released versions for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800 and Atari 8-bit computers. There were also versions for the VIC-20, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, IBM PC compatibles, Apple II and TI-99/4A released under the Atarisoft label. Unlike Pac-Man, most home versions of Ms. Pac-Man include all three intermission screens from the arcade version. Whereas the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man was infamous for its flashing ghosts, the 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man had minimal flickering.
A tabletop version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1983 by Coleco. The unit was shaped like a miniature arcade cabinet, was controlled with a small built-in joystick, and used a multicolor vacuum fluorescent display. It was a runner-up for Stand-Alone Game of the Year at the 1983 Arcade Awards held in January 1984.
Later ports and re-releases Hardware Ms. Pac-Man has been re-released into new arcade cabinets since. In 2001, Namco released an arcade board with both Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga in honor of the 20th anniversary of both games with the subtitle "20 Year Reunion / Class of 1981". It also has Pac-Man as a hidden bonus game. The later 25th Anniversary Edition in 2005 allows all three games to be selected on the main menu. As part of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, Ms. Pac-Man is one of the games included on the home version of Pac-Man's Arcade Party arcade machine. Pac-Man's Arcade Party was succeeded in 2018 by Pac-Man's Pixel Bash, which added 19 games to the existing roster, but Ms. Pac-Man was only available if the machine was set to Free Play.
In June 2020, Tastemakers' Arcade1Up decided to announce that Ms. Pac-Man would finally be added to their lineup of 3/4 scale arcade cabinets. The unit also contains a few other Bandai Namco arcade games, including Galaxian, Pac-Mania and Pac-Man Plus.
Additionally, a standalone, battery-powered version of the game released by Jakks Pacific can be plugged directly into a television. Ms. Pac-Man and four other games (Galaga, Mappy, Xevious, and Pole Position) are included in a self-contained joystick hand controller.Welcome to JAKKS TV Games: Ms. Pac-Man
Software ports Ms. Pac-Man has also been ported and adapted to various home and portable systems, which are detailed in the table below: