How to play Pac-Man online
- Move Pac-Man through the maze: arrow keys
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch); Space can also start a game, but it does nothing during play
- Choose a game variation: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Power pill length: F4 toggles the Player 1 difficulty switch (see below)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
As in the arcade, you clear the maze while four ghosts hunt you. On the 2600, though, the dots are short rectangular “video wafers”, and the maze is laid out sideways, with the escape tunnels at the top and bottom of the screen instead of the sides.
Each corner holds a power pill. Eat one and the ghosts turn blue for a few seconds, and you can chase and eat them. When they start changing colour again, the effect is about to end. An eaten ghost goes back to the box in the middle of the maze and returns shortly after. Instead of the arcade’s fruit, an orange square called a vitamin appears in the centre from time to time. You start with four lives. Clear every wafer and you get a new maze and an extra life. Each time a ghost catches you, you lose a life, and the game ends when none are left.
| Item | Points |
|---|---|
| Video wafer | 1 |
| Power pill | 5 |
| Vitamin | 100 |
| Ghosts eaten in a row on one power pill | 20, 40, 80, 160 |
Game variations and switches
There are eight variations, and each one can be played by one player or by two players taking turns. They mix two speeds for Pac-Man (slow or fast) with four speeds for the ghosts (crawling, walking, jogging or running). The manual recommends games 3 and 7, where the ghosts only crawl, for young children, and calls game 6 the hardest. With the difficulty switch in position B, power pills last longer and vitamins stay on screen longer. Position A is meant for experienced players.
Tips
- Save the power pills. Leave the corners until the ghosts are close, then eat the pill and turn on them. Four ghosts in a row are worth 300 points, far more than the wafers.
- Use the top and bottom tunnels. They are the quickest way to get away when you are being chased from both sides.
- Grab the vitamin. At 100 points it is worth a hundred wafers, and it disappears if you wait too long.
The story behind Atari 2600 Pac-Man
Tod Frye worked on the game for about six months. The 2600 had 128 bytes of RAM, and the game had to fit on a 4 KB cartridge, so much of the arcade version had to go. To get four ghosts on screen with such limited hardware, the game draws each ghost only once every four frames. That is the source of the famous flicker. The ghosts also share one colour, and the cut scenes and the arcade’s sounds are missing.
Released in March 1982, the cartridge sold more than a million copies in its first month and over seven million that year, and it took over from Space Invaders as the best-selling 2600 game. Reviewers and many players were far less kind, and the damage to Atari’s reputation is often cited as one of the factors behind the video game crash of 1983. Atari’s later Ms. Pac-Man for the 2600 used a larger 8 KB cartridge and was much better received.
Similar games to play next
- Ms. Pac-Man – the sequel, and a much closer match to the arcade
- Jr. Pac-Man – a later entry in the series with a scrolling maze
- Jawbreaker – a maze game where you are a set of teeth eating candy
- Lady Bug – a maze chase with gates you can turn
- Mouse Trap – a mouse collects cheese and dodges cats in a maze of doors