Pac & Pal is an Arcade Game in the Pac-Man series developed by Namco and released in 1983. It is the third Pac-Man title to be produced by Namco in-house, and retains many of the aesthetics and mechanics of their previous installment, Super Pac-Man. The game in its original arcade incarnation only ever saw release in Japan, though many of the game's rereleases have seen release internationally.
Pac-Man is tasked with collecting all of the Bonus Fruit pickups within a maze to clear each round while avoiding four ghosts trying to catch him. This time, the items are hidden within gated areas of the maze, similar to Super Pac-Man, and in order to open them, Pac-Man must flip over the cards in the maze to reveal the fruit prizes on the other side. Unlike previous games, each round contains multiple types of fruit pickups, and whichever fruit the card has will correlate to which item in the maze will be opened.
Accompanying Pac-Man is his "pal", a blobby green creature named Miru, who moves around the maze independently from Pac-Man. She has the ability to pick up any fruit items she moves past and carry them around the maze, after which she will take them into the ghost pen. While she can potentially help the player clear each round faster, fruit items being carried by her are worth fewer points, and the player gets no points at all if she drops them in the ghost pen, so players must collect the fruits themselves if they wish to obtain the best possible score.
An alternate version of the game, titled Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp was planned to be released in North America and Europe during the game's original run, with Miru being replaced with Pac-Man's dog Chomp Chomp from the Hanna-Barbera animated series. While Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp did receive a limited release in Europe, it would never make it to North America.
Pac & Pal provides examples of:
- An Ice Person: The snowman power-up temporarily grants Pac-Man ice breath that can freeze the ghosts in blocks of ice.
- Breath Weapon: Instead of Power Pellets, Pac-Man can collect a few different kinds of power-ups that grant him the ability to attack the ghosts by firing different things from his mouth, temporarily stunning them in the process.
- Bonus Stage: Some rounds, referred to as the "Rest" rounds, have Pac-Man move around the maze with no ghosts to oppose him. He must flip over the cards to find the dollar-sign icons to earn bonus points. One of the cards has Miru underneath, which will double his current bonus points, but another card has Blinky underneath, which will cause the bonus stage to instantly end.
- Canine Companion: Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp has Pac-Man accompanied by his dog Chomp Chomp, who helps him collect all the fruit pickups.
- Company Cross References: Some of the power-up items are sprites taken from other Namco games, such as the flagship from Galaxian, and one of the enemy race cars from Rally-X
- Harmless Freezing: Any ghosts that Pac-Man hits with the ice breath he gains from the snowman power-ups will be frozen in a cube of ice. Once they thaw out, they immediately recover and resume the chase.
- Luck-Based Mission: The bonus rounds. There is no way to tell what is under each of the cards until they are flipped, so the player has to hope that they can find as many dollar-sign icons as possible and also possibly flip over Miru before they find Blinky.
- Magic Music: The trumpet power up allows Pac-Man to fire a stream of music at the ghosts. The music causes any ghosts it hits to start dancing, temporarily distracting them and rendering them harmless.
- Smoke Out: The Rally-X power-up allows Pac-Man to fire a smokescreen that temporarily blinds any ghosts it hits, allowing Pac-Man to harmlessly pass by them and run away.
- Tractor Beam: The Galaxian Boss power up allows Pac-Man to fire the capture beam from Galaga from his mouth, which traps any ghosts it hits in place, allowing him to harmlessly pass through them.
- Wrap Around: Averted. The tunnels that allow Pac-Man to leave one side of the screen and appear on the other that appeared in the previous games are absent this time around.
