FPGA Games: Pac-Man

February 23, 2012

Inspired over a lunch of pizza, Pac-Man (originally entitled Puckman in Japanese), began life in the arcades in 1980. It was designed by Toru Iwatani, who had previously designed the Gee Bee trilogy, and was the first Namco game to incorporate a four-way joystick. After being overlooked by "experts" who judged Namco's own Rally-X to be the better of the two games, Pac-Man went on to unprecedented success and became an icon in Japan and in America.

Pac-Man's game play was a stark and refreshing contrast to the space aged shoot'em ups that were popular at the time. Pac-mania became a phenomenon and video games' first mascot was met with an insatiable demand.

QuickLinks

Game Play

You control Pac-Man through the maze with the joystick.
You must eat every dot and power pellet to advance to the next stage.
You must avoid contact with the ghosts while they are their normal color.
If you eat an power pellet, the ghosts will turn blue, and you may eat them for bonus points until they turn back to their normal color.
Ghosts travel at half speed through the side escape tunnels. Use them to get away.
A bonus item will appear below the ghost pen twice per stage for extra points.

Detailed Game Play Guide

Hardware Specifications

Platform — NAMCO 8-bit PCB

CPU — Z80A at 3.072 MHz

ROM — 16K in four, 4K chips

RAM — ~2K

Display — Raster

Orientation — Vertical

Resolution — 224x288

Colors — 16

Attributes — Eight 16x16 hardware sprites

Refresh rate — 60.61 Hz