Lost In Translation/Super Pac-Man

Super Pac-Man
Manufacturer	Namco
Released	1982
Control; Method	4-way Joystick; 1 Button(s)
Main CPU	(3x) M6809 (@ 1.536 MHz); M6809 (@ 1.536 MHz)
Sound CPU	Mono; Namco 15XX (@ 24.000 kHz)
Video; Details	Raster (Vertical); 288 x 224 pixels; 60.61 Hz; 512 Palette colours
Screens	1
ROM Info	9 ROMs; 33,568 bytes (32.78 KiB)
MAME ID	superpac · superpcm

This page is a stub for arcade games that are part of the Lost In Translation series using information based on MAME (version 0.113u2).
For an example of preferred content and layout please refer to Out Run or The Ninja Warriors.

About The Game

Super Pac-Man is a maze-based arcade video game.

When playing this game, you are in complete control of SUPER PAC-MAN. He will go wherever you tell him to. And he just loves to eat all the different maze objects (APPLES, BANANAS, DOUGHNUTS, HAMBURGERS, etc.). However, he doesn't like the four ghosts, BLINKY (red), PINKY (pink), INKY (turquoise), and CLYDE (amber) because they feel the same way about him as he does about the maze objects.

But SUPER PAC-MAN can turn the tables on these four ghosts for short periods of time during each maze. All he has to do is let them get fairly close in their pursuit of him and then eat one of the POWER DOTS that every maze has in it. When this happens, it causes the four ghosts to turn blue with fright no matter where they are in the maze. This is because they know that when he eats a POWER DOT it gives SUPER PAC-MAN the ability to eliminate them. However, he can ONLY eliminate them for as long as they are blue.

The ghosts will only stay blue for a few seconds after SUPER PAC-MAN eats a POWER DOT But they do give a warning BEFORE they turn back to their original colours - they start to flash.

As your skill level increases, the 4 ghosts speed up their pursuit of SUPER PAC-MAN and they stay blue for shorter and shorter periods of time after he eats a POWER DOT until, in the VERY high number mazes, they do not turn blue at all.

Bonus players can be awarded to you as you reach or pass certain preselected point values.

A major new feature of your SUPER PAC-MAN game is that there are two SUPER POWER DOTS in each maze that, when eaten, will cause your PAC-MAN to turn into a SUPER PAC-MAN. SUPER PAC-MAN can go anywhere within the maze and eat anything that can be eaten. Nothing can stop him.

The object of the game is to HAVE FUN and survive as long as possible while constantly improving your skills, eating as many maze objects as you can, and eliminating as many ghosts as possible. As you do this, each following maze will be harder and harder to complete.

Play Mode

The Play mode begins when the 1 PLAYER or the 2 PLAYER start button is pressed. STAGE 1 - 10 PTS is displayed and then PLAYER - READY! is displayed below the GHOST HOUSE on the screen.

The Play mode ends when your last SUPER PACMAN has been eliminated. When this happens, PLAYER - GAME OVER is written across the center of the monitor screen (below the GHOST HOUSE).

The game consists of a single maze with side exits. The items that your SUPER PAC-MAN wants to eat are located in maze corridors with locked doors at every possible entrance to them. You must direct your PAC-MAN to eat the KEYS positioned around the maze in order to gain access to these sealed corridors. The only other way he can get at the food he wants to eat is to eat the KEY that opens the door to one of the two SUPER POWER DOTS in each maze and then eat that SUPER POWER DOT.

When he does this, your PAC-MAN grows to SUPER size and can munch his way through all the locked doors in the maze. YOU can give YOUR Pac-Man SUPER SPEED while he is SUPER size by pressing the SUPER SPEED button on the control panel. He will now move through the maze at a much faster pace. However, you will find that he is harder to steer when he is travelling at this SUPER SPEED and you will also notice that he stays SUPER size for a much shorter period of time when travelling at SUPER SPEED.

At the beginning of each game, SUPER PAC-MAN appears right below the center of the GHOST HOUSE while the 4 ghosts appear at the GHOST HOUSE. BLINKY appears outside the doors and PINKY, INKY, and CLYDE appear inside the GHOST HOUSE.

When play begins, BLINKY (who'd love to eliminate him) immediately begins looking for SUPER PAC-MAN (who immediately begins eating KEYS just as fast as he can). As time passes, PINKY, INKY, and CLYDE (who'd also love to eliminate him) leave the GHOST HOUSE one at a time and begin looking for SUPER PAC-MAN - who is still busily eating KEYS and maze food just as fast as YOU can steer him to them.

But with all 4 ghosts chasing him, it is not as easy to eat the KEYS and maze food (without being eliminated by a ghost) as it was earlier in the game. And BLINKY, PINKY, INKY, and CLYDE are four VERY, SMART ghosts. For instance, they will divide up 2, 3, or 4 ways to try to trap SUPER PAC-MAN between them, in a corner, or even in one of the tunnels. You've really got to watch them! It seems like they always have some sneaky new trick up their sheets.

However, if they get too close, SUPER PAC-MAN can always eat one of the flashing POWER DOTS. When this happens, it causes all four ghosts to turn blue with fright no matter where they are in the maze. This is because they know that when he eats a POWER DOT it gives SUPER PAC-MAN the ability to eliminate them. But, he can ONLY eliminate them for as long as they are blue. And they will only stay blue for a short period of time. But the ghosts do give a warning BEFORE they turn back to their original colours - they start to flash.

When SUPER PAC-MAN eliminates a blue ghost, its point value appears on the monitor screen at the place where the ghost was eliminated while at the same time being added to your score, and the ghost disappears - all except for its eyes. The eyes go back to the GHOST HOUSE where they get another body of their original colour. This done, they leave the GHOST HOUSE again and take up their pursuit of SUPER PAC-MAN once more.

When he eats the last item of any particular maze : all movement stops immediately, the maze flashes and disappears. Next, the game displays 'STAGE __ - __ PTS' and the next maze appears. All the players are in the new maze when it appears. The words PLAYER - READY! are also there - right below the "GHOST HOUSE". After a second or two passes, the words PLAYER __ READY! disappear and play begins.

You MUST eat all the food in any particular maze in order to advance to the next one.

The maze identifier symbols appear at the bottom edge of the monitor screen.

As your skill level increases, the four ghosts speed up their pursuit of your SUPER PAC-MAN and they stay blue for shorter and shorter-periods of time after he eats a POWER DOT until, in the high number mazes, they do not turn blue at all.

Bonus players can be awarded to you as you reach or pass certain preselected point values.

When one of the ghosts happens to eliminate one of your SUPER PAC-MEN, assuming you have at least one remaining in reserve, the maze disappears. Next, the game displays STAGE __ - __ PTS and the maze re-appears. All the players are in the new maze when it reappears. The words PLAYER - READY! are also there - right below the GHOST HOUSE. After a second or two passes, the words "PLAYER - READY!" disappear and play begins anew.

When one of the ghosts eliminates your LAST SUPER PAC-MAN, the words GAME OVER are displayed below the GHOST HOUSE, your score is displayed under 1 UP, and in addition, if your score was the highest on this game to date, it will also be displayed under HIGH SCORE at the top centre of the monitor screen and go into the HIGH SCORE/INITIAL MODE. If your score was NOT the highest but was still one of the best five scores to date, the game will then also go into the HIGH SCORE/INITIAL MODE.

Additional Technical Information

Players : 2

Control : 4-way joystick

Buttons : 1 (SUPER SPEED) - only works when Pac-Man is in Super form.

Trivia

Released in October 1982.

Also licensed to Bally Midway for US manufacture and distribution (November 1982).

In this new Pac-Man game, the game-play mechanics have altered radically - instead of eating dots, the player is required to eat a key, which unlocks a section of the maze containing some kind of food. Once all the food is eaten, the player advances to the next level. The new game-play mechanics were considered by many to be confusing, and too much of a change from the original two games ("Pac-Man" and Ms. Pac-Man). Ultimately, Super Pac Man proved to be the least successful game in the original series, being outsold that year by "Pac-Man Plus", a slightly updated version of the original game. In spite of this, the game's A.I. was celebrated as being one of the best of that era, and in the eyes of many fans, was the best out of any Pac-Man game.

The alien spaceship "Galaxian" makes an appearance in this game as the food item of stage 15.

A Super Pac-Man unit appears in the 1983 movie 'Joysticks'.

Scoring

Item/Target	Points
Key	50
Eating a door (when Super-sized)	200
Food items (max. 160)	10
1st blue monster	200
2nd blue monster	400
3rd blue monster	800
4th blue monster	1,600

Star, when slot machine items do not match : 200 to 1,600 points (value doubles after each bonus stage)

Star, when slot machine items match but different from level : 2,000 points

Star, when slot machine items match but same as level : 5,000 points

Bonus points awarded after bonus round is complete. Bonus counts down from 20,000 by 100's.

Tips and tricks

Try to group the ghosts together, and lure as many as possible at once behind you before collecting a powerpill (3,000 for all 4 monsters).

Note that you can kill the ghosts in their home, so on the early stages you can kill all 4, then collect another powerpill and kill them in their base as soon as they regenerate. This gives you another few seconds breathing space as well.

At the early parts of each level, concentrate on picking up as many keys as possible before collecting any treats. This way you open up a lot of the maze, saving grief later on.

When you are fully powered up, collecting a normal powerpill extends your power-up time. The super power does last longer than a normal powerpill.

When you are fully powered up, try and break through any remaining doors to save you from having to collect all the keys.

Don't worry about the bonus star in the centre - it's not worth wasting time waiting to try and match the items as you score far more points in general play on later levels.

Although the maze layout is always the same, the keys on later levels open different doors, so you can't rely on the same patterns on each screen.

Easter Egg

Enter service mode.

Keep Button 1 pressed and enter the following sequence : Right, Down(x2), Left(x4), Up.

'(c) (p) 1982 NAMCO LTD.' will be added at the bottom of the screen.

Series

Puckman (1980)
Ms. Pac-Man (1981)
Super Pac-Man (1982)
Pac-Man Plus (1982)
Jr. Pac-Man (1983)
Pac & Pal (1983)
Pac-Land (1984)
Pac-Mania (1987)
Pac-In-Time (1994, Nintendo Super Famicom)
Pac-Man 2 - The New Adventures (1994, Nintendo Super Famicom and Sega Mega Drive)
Pac-Man VR (1996)
Pac-Man World (1999, Sony PlayStation)
Pac-Man - Adventures in Time (2000, PC CD-ROM)
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (2000, Sony PlayStation)
Ms. Pac-Man - Quest for the Golden Maze (2001, PC CD-ROM)
Pac-Man All-Stars (2002, PC CD-ROM)
Pac-Man Fever (2002, Sony PlayStation 2)
Pac-Man World 2 (2002, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft XBOX; 2004, PC CD-ROM)
Pac-Man vs. (2003, Nintendo GameCube)
Ms. Pac-Man - Maze Madness (2004, Nintendo GameBoy Advance)
Pac-Man World 3 (2005, Sony PSP, Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft XBOX, PC CD-ROM, and Nintendo DS)
Pac'n Roll (2005, Nintendo DS)
Pac-Pix (2005, Nintendo DS)

Staff

Designed By: Tōru Iwatani

Cabinet and Artwork

Super Pac-Man arcade cabinet.
Super Pac-Man flyer.
Bally/Midway's Super Pac-Man flyer.
Back of Bally/Midway's Super Pac-Man flyer.

Ports

Consoles: Sony PlayStation (1996, "Namco Museum Vol.2"); Nintendo Game Boy Color (1999, "Ms. Pac-Man - Special Color Edition")

Computers: Atari 800 (1984); Commodore C64 (1988); PC [MS-DOS] (1988)

Others: Super Pac-Man TV game (2006 - Jakks Pacific).; Mobile Phones (2006)

Soundtrack Releases

Album Name	Catalogue No.	Released	Publisher	Comments
Namco Arcade 80's	SCDC-00272^[1]	2003-05-21	Scitron Discs	CD version.

References

↑ Namco Arcade 80's (CD) at the VGMdb

The contents of this page are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
The sources used include MAME (version 0.113u2) and history.dat (revision 1.28 - 2008-10-18).
Please see http://www.arcade-history.com for credits.

[1] Namco Arcade 80's (CD) at the VGMdb

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