Super Pac-Man is an Arcade Game in the Pac-Man series developed and published by Namco in 1982. While some unlicensed successors to the original Pac-Man were previously developed by Bally Midway, Super Pac-Man marks the first time Namco themselves attempted to create a follow-up to the original game.
Gameplay-wise, Super Pac-Man is largely the same as its predecessor, with Pac-Man navigating a maze while avoiding the four ghosts and trying to eat everything in the maze. Instead of the classic Pac-Dots, this time Pac-Man must eat various food items that change after each round. However, all of the food items are positioned out of reach behind the maze's walls. In order to access the food, Pac-Man must collect the keys littered around the maze, which will each remove some of the doors blocking his access to the pockets where the food is. At the start of the game, the keys are located close to the doors they open, but as the player clears rounds, the keys start unlocking doors in different locations.
The Power Pellets from the original game return, allowing Pac-Man to turn the tides on the ghosts after he eats them just like before. New to this game, however, are the green Super Pellets, of which two appear per stage. When Pac-Man eats these, he becomes Super Pac-Man, growing much larger than usual. In this form, he can zip around the maze much faster, and he can break through the key doors with no need to collect the keys. While he is immune to the ghosts in this form, he still needs to combine the Super Pellet's power with a Power Pellet in order to eat them.
Super Pac-Man provides examples of:
- 1-Up: Pac-Man can obtain two extra lives after the game starts; one after earning 30,000 points, and another at 100,000 points.
- Attract Mode: Before the player inserts a coin, the game demonstrates how the mechanics work with Pac-Man eating a line of keys, removing doors from a tunnel full of different food items, before passing through and eating the food, followed by a demonstration of both the Power Pellet and Super Pellet power-ups. All of this is accompanied by showing the score values of the items Pac-Man eats. This demonstration is then followed by showing some gameplay from the first round. This loops until the player starts the game.
- Beat: The ghosts will stop in their tracks, quickly shift in place, then move along forward when switching between scatter and chase modes. This is in contrast to most games in the series, where they simply turn around when making the switch.
- Bonus Stage: Certain rounds begin with Pac-Man in Super mode and challenge him to eat all the food before the bonus points, which act as a timer, run out. The remaining bonus points will be added to the player's score once the maze is cleared.
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Pac-Man's usual ability to use Power Pellets to eat the ghosts trying to catch him returns, and is reflected in some of the intermission sequences.
- The second one shows Pac-Man being chased by a giant Blinky. The two go offscreen, only for them to return with Blinky being chased by a massive Pac-Man, even larger than Super Pac-Man.
- The fourth one shows giant Pac-Man being chased by a huge swarm of ghosts. They go offscreen, and when they come back, the ghosts have merged into four large blue ghosts, being chased by a huge swarm of Pac-Mans.
- Oh, Crap!: In the third intermission, the four ghosts corner Pac-Man, only for him to suddenly disappear. As they look around for him, Clyde is the only one who initially looks up to see the giant Pac-Man about to flatten them, and turns blue before the impact.
- "Open!" Says Me: While Pac-Man can collect keys to get through the doors around the maze, there's nothing stopping him from eating a Super Pellet and simply bursting through the doors instead.
- Squashed Flat: The third intermission sequence has a giant Pac-Man fall from the sky and land atop the four ghosts, flattening them like pancakes.
- Wrap Around: The tunnel on either side of the maze can be used to instantly warp to the other, though Pac-Man has to collect the right key to open it first.
