Pac-Man
arcadeHow to play Pac-Man
I guide Pac-Man around the maze with the arrow keys or the W, A, S and D keys on a keyboard. On a phone or tablet I swipe up, down, left or right on the maze to set my direction. The goal is to eat every dot in the maze, and each dot adds ten points to my score.
Two ghosts roam the maze, switching between chasing me and scattering back to their corners. If a ghost catches me I lose one of my three lives and the characters reset to their starting spots. I clear the level by eating all the dots, and I press Restart any time I want a fresh maze.
About Pac-Man
Pac-Man is arguably the most famous video game ever made. Designed by Toru Iwatani at Namco and released in 1980, it was conceived to pull in players beyond the space-shooter crowd, legend says the shape came to Iwatani over a pizza with a slice missing. It became a global phenomenon: merchandise, a hit song, a cartoon, and a permanent place in the culture.
The deep magic is the ghosts. Blinky chases you directly, Pinky ambushes ahead of your mouth, Inky triangulates off Blinky's position, and Clyde wanders off when he gets close. Those four personalities, plus deterministic movement, make the game fully learnable, world-class players memorize full patterns, and a perfect game (3,333,360 points) was first achieved by Billy Mitchell in 1999.
Pac-Man ghost craft
- Learn the personalities: red chases your tail, pink aims ahead of you, blue mirrors the red ghost, orange bails out when near.
- Do not eat power pellets on arrival, save them for when ghosts crowd you, and herd the pack close first so the blue-ghost feast is worth more.
- Use the side tunnels: ghosts slow down inside them, and a tunnel pass is the cleanest escape from a chase.
- Clear the maze's awkward corners early, especially around your favorite escape routes, so the endgame dots are on your terms.
- Ghosts periodically switch to scatter mode and head for their corners; feel that rhythm and use each lull to clear dangerous territory.
FAQ
Do the ghosts in Pac-Man behave differently from each other?
Yes, each has a distinct targeting rule: Blinky (red) chases your current tile, Pinky (pink) targets ahead of your direction, Inky (cyan) uses a point mirrored off Blinky, and Clyde (orange) retreats when he gets close. Playing them as four different problems is the heart of Pac-Man strategy.
What do power pellets actually do?
For a few seconds ghosts turn blue, reverse direction and become edible, 200, 400, 800, 1600 points for eating all four on one pellet. The blue time shrinks on later levels until pellets barely help, which is why veterans learn to survive without them.
Is there really a pattern that beats the game?
The original arcade ghosts are deterministic, so fixed routes clear entire levels reliably, top players memorized them decades ago. Our version keeps the spirit of those behaviors; learning routes still pays, which is exactly what makes practice feel so rewarding.
Why do I keep getting cornered?
Probably eating dots reactively. Always keep two exits in view, avoid committing to dead-end clusters while ghosts are active, and treat power pellets as your planned safe window for cleaning up the maze's most dangerous corners.
