All-around guide for Pac-Man

Overview

Describes how to operate the game, hints to improve your high score, and how trivial the achievements are.

Basic Controls

This was just added here just because I can. This game has no mouse support what-so-ever just to let you know.

Menu Controls

– Enter to get passed the menu screen

– After that hit Enter again to start the game, or-

– Hit the Esc key to go to the pause menu

Pause Menu Controls

– Use the up and down arrows to select what you want to do

– Enter to confirm what you want to do

– Backspace to go back to the previous screen.

– Hit Backspace at the main pause menu screen to go back to the game

Gameplay controls

– Use the arrow keys to move Pac-man up, down, left or right

– Use Esc key still pauses the game even when you started one up.

Gameplay Basics

How does the game work?

– The objective of the game is to collect all the dots (aka pac-dots) on the screen. Eating all of them will advance you to the next round. There are a total of 256 rounds.

– Avoid the ghosts, touching one will cause you to lose a life.

– You get 3 lives. To gain another, get 10,000 points. Loosing all your lives will result in a game over.

– Eating a big dot (power pellet) will allow you to eat the ghosts for a few seconds (they will turn blue like the one in the picture to the left), when they return to normal the ghosts can’t be eaten until you get another power pellet.

– After eating a certain amount of Pac-dots, a fruit will appear where the round started, eat it to gain bonus points.

– Each Pac-dot is worth 10 points, Power pellet is 50 points, fruit is 100+ points (depends on the fruit) and eating a ghost will is worth 200 points, eating a second ghost with a single pellet is worth 400 points, eating a third ghost with a pellet is worth 800 points and eating all 4 of the ghosts with a single pellet is 1600 points.

– After completing a certain amount of rounds, the game will play a little cutscene. They aren’t really important, they are just for humor.

Tips and Tricks

– When a round starts, each of the four ghosts go down a certain path in the maze before going after Pac-Man, use this time for your advantage. Blinky (red ghost) will be in the top right, Pinky (pink ghost) will be in the top left, Inky (blue ghost) will be in the bottom right, and Clyde (orange ghost) will head to the bottom right corner.

– Ghosts will always take the shortest route to their destination; this will help you predict their movements.

– Blinky chases Pac-Man.

– Inky – with Blinky’s help – attempts to flank Pac-Man. This makes him the most dangerous as his position varies based of Blinky’s.

– Pinky positions herself in front of Pac-Man without any assistance. Her movement can be easily exploited by immediately turning around when she is at an intersection to send her in a different way, but just make sure it’s safe to do so.

– Clyde works the same as Blinky until he gets close to Pac-Man, which then he will return to his quarters in the maze (the bottom left corner) before coming after you again. If he somehow gets you, that was because you were in his way. Remember, like all other ghosts, he will always take the shortest route to his destination.

– The only time the ghosts’ movements are unpredictable (RNG) is when they are in their frightened state.

– Due to how the AI in the game works, if you clear a stage without losing a life, doing so the same exact way in the next stage will net you the same results. I will not tell you the route – find that out for yourself.

– The ghost move faster than Pac-Man but turn slower. Pac-Man will also move a little faster when there is no pellets in his path.

– Try to get as much points as you can, not only does it improve where you are on the scoreboard but how many extra lives you get.

– Keep an eye out for fruits where you started the round as it appears after you ate a certain number of pac-dots.

– Try getting all areas of pac-dots in a certain route to reduce the number of pac-dots to go back and get at the end of the round.

– You can use the power pellets to get the ghost of your back for a few seconds or wait for the ghosts to surround you before eating one to make them easy points.

Achievements

Gonna keep this section short and sweet – most achievements in this game are a matter of patience as you can go in the game’s options and turn on a level select and add additional starting lives. Keep in mind that doing so will disable the leaderboards until the settings are reverted to default; although the leaderboards probably have been hacked since the game’s release.

Due to this, the only real achievements that require skill are fruit basket, picky eater, and the “om-nom-nom” ones. They aren’t impossible either. Since the ghost AI can be manipulated and are so consistent, if you have a perfect run on stage 2, that same route can be used to get the same results on stage 255 (although, you have to consider that the power pellets aren’t useful at that point). In the instance you can’t find a working route on your own, look up a run on YouTube, and copy the player’s exact movements.

Also, important note, this was altered in Ms.Pac-Man – the ghosts have been given slight RNG in addition to their normal behaviors to keep players on their toes. That and the moving fruit.