How to play Pac-Man online
- Move Pac-Man: arrow keys. Keep a direction pressed and he turns at the next opening.
- One or two players: – (the keypad’s * key). Players take turns.
- Game level: = (the keypad’s # key) steps through the eight starting levels, named after their fruit; without a choice you start on cherries.
- Start: Enter. Pause: P. The on-screen keypad is on K.
- Second player: I J K L, when it is their turn.
The fire buttons are not used. Full screen, restart and save states are in the emulator toolbar (move the mouse over the screen). The arrow keys act like a centring stick, which actually makes quick turns easier than on the original 5200 controller.
Gameplay
Clear every dot in the maze while four ghosts hunt you. The tunnels on the left and right edges wrap around to the other side, and the ghosts can use them too. Eating one of the four energy pills in the corners turns the ghosts blue and sends them running; catch them while they are blue and each one is worth double the last, from 200 up to 1,600 points for all four on one pill. Twice per maze a prize appears below the ghost pen, starting with cherries and working up through strawberry, orange, apple, melon, an Atari logo, a bell and a key. Each cleared maze moves you to the next level, where the ghosts are quicker and stay blue for less time; the cherry level is the gentlest.
You have three Pac-Men and earn an extra one at 10,000 points. Lose them all and the game ends; the high score stays on screen until the console is switched off. Short cartoons play between some levels, as in the arcade.
| Item | Points |
|---|---|
| Dot | 10 |
| Energy pill | 50 |
| Ghosts on one pill | 200, 400, 800, 1,600 |
| Cherries / strawberry / orange | 100 / 200 / 500 |
| Apple / melon / Atari logo | 700 / 1,000 / 2,000 |
| Bell / key | 3,000 / 5,000 |
Tips
- Bait the ghosts. Wait near a pill until a few ghosts are close, then eat it and go after them for the big combo.
- Keep a pill in reserve. Once the pills are gone, the last few dots in the corners are the dangerous ones.
- Run on empty lanes. The manual says you move about 20 percent faster where there are no dots, so use cleared corridors to escape.
- Use the tunnels. Ghosts follow you through, but they lose ground doing it.
- Watch the red one. Shadow, the red ghost, is the one that follows you most directly.
The story behind Pac-Man on the 5200
Atari’s 1982 Atari 2600 Pac-Man, written by Tod Frye, sold in huge numbers but was widely criticised for its flickering ghosts and a maze that looked little like the arcade. The 5200 cartridge was a different project: James Andreasen programmed it, with graphics by Alan Murphy, and because the 5200 is built around the same hardware as the Atari 400 and 800 computers it had far more to work with. According to AtariProtos it runs a little faster than the Atari 8-bit computer version by Roklan, adds the cartoon intermissions and new intermission music, and swaps the arcade’s Galaxian prize for an Atari logo. Games magazine called it a splendidly reproduced copy of the arcade game, while noting that the maze had been reshaped to fit a television screen.
Pac-Man became the pack-in game for the two-port 5200 model that Atari introduced in the summer of 1983, replacing Super Breakout. Andreasen left a signature in the code: typing 0, 7, 2, 2, 6, 2, 6 (Pac-Man on a phone keypad) on the title screen changes the start prompt to his name.
