Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game from the Golden Age. It was produced by Illinois-based Midway Manufacturing corporation, the North American licensee of Pac-Man. Ms. Pac-Man was released in North America January 13, 1982, one year after the release of Pac-Man, and became one of the most popular video games of all time. This popularity lead to its adoption as an official title by Namco, the creator of Pac-Man. The game introduced a female protagonist, new maze designs, and several other improved gameplay changes over the original title. It became the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
The gameplay of Ms. Pac-Man is largely identical to that of the original 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 increase, the speed increases, and energizers generally lessen the extent of the ghosts' vulnerability, eventually stopping altogether.
There are also some differences from the original Pac-Man:
The game has four different mazes that appear in different color schemes, and alternate after each of the game's intermissions are seen.
Three of the four mazes (the first, second, and fourth ones) have two sets of warp tunnels, as opposed to only one in the original maze.
The spaces between the walls have been filled in, which makes it easier for a novice player to see where the paths around the mazes are.
The ghosts' behavioral patterns are different, and include semi-random movement, which prevents the use of patterns to clear each round.
Instead of appearing in the center of the maze, the fruits bounce randomly around the maze, entering and (if not eaten) leaving through the warp tunnels. Once all fruits have been encountered, they appear in random sequence for the rest of the game, starting on the eighth round; this means that a 5000-point banana can be followed by a 100-point pair of cherries, and vice versa.
The orange ghost is called Sue, rather than Clyde; her color would later be changed to purple in Pac-Land to differentiate her.
When Ms. Pac-Man makes contact with a ghost and dies, she spins around rather than folding in on herself like the original Pac-Man did.
The three intermissions have changed to 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 would later serve as the attract opening sequence for Jr. Pac-Man.
The sound effects and music are very different from those of the original game, including a new opening theme and 'death' sound effect.
More details about this game can be found on
Wikipedia.org.
Find digital download of this game on
GOG
or
Steam.
Videogame Console:
This version of Ms. Pac-Man was designed for the Game Boy console, which was an 8-bit handheld video game console manufactured
by Nintendo in the years 1989 - 2003. It was the first ever handheld video game console with exchangeable game cartridges, but it only supported black and
white screen. The Game Boy console has been extremely commercially successful and has sold more than 118 million units (including its successors Game
Boy Pocket and Color). Its unit price on US market was $ 90. More information about the Game Boy console can be found
here.
Recommended Game Controllers:
You can control this game easily by using the keyboard of your PC (see the table next to the game). However, for maximum gaming enjoyment, we strongly recommend using a USB gamepad that you simply plug into the USB port of your computer. If you do not have a gamepad, buy a suitable USB controller on Amazon or AliExpress or in some of your favorite online stores.
Available online emulators:
6 different online emulators are available for Ms. Pac-Man. These emulators differ not only in the technology they use to emulate old games, but also in support of various game controllers, multiplayer mode, mobile phone touchscreen, emulation speed, absence or presence of embedded ads and in many other parameters. For
maximum gaming enjoyment, it's important to choose the right emulator, because on each PC and in different Internet browsers, the individual emulators behave differently. The basic
features of each emulator available for this game Ms. Pac-Man are summarized in the following table:
If you like Ms. Pac-Man you'll probably like also some of the similar games in the overview below. The games you see here
are selected based on title similarity, game genre, and keywords. However, the list is generated automatically and can therefore be very 'subjective'
especially for some specific games. To find a particular game, please use our search form.
This website is NOT sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Atari, Sega or by any other video games company.
RetroGames.cz makes no claim to the intellectual property contained in the individual games.
Text content of RetroGames.cz
is available under the
Creative Commons 3.0 License. You can copy it freely, but indicate the origin and keep the license.
This version of Ms. Pac-Man was designed for the Game Boy console, which was an 8-bit handheld video game console manufactured
by Nintendo in the years 1989 - 2003. It was the first ever handheld video game console with exchangeable game cartridges, but it only supported black and
white screen. The Game Boy console has been extremely commercially successful and has sold more than 118 million units (including its successors Game
Boy Pocket and Color). Its unit price on US market was $ 90. More information about the Game Boy console can be found
