PAC-MAN
• Sound f/x trick: Eat a power pellet and immediately press SELECT. The sound
effect for eating it will continue to play, and each time you press SELECT it will restart the sound. {Scott Stilphen}
• Pac-Man ghost: Exit the bottom tunnel, and then press
UP + DOWN. Pac-Man will start to blink and 2 of the 4 monsters can now pass right over you! {Scott Stilphen}
• If you look closely, you’ll notice that not all of the monsters are the same color (while in their normal state). 2
are a light orange, and 2 are a light green, but all 4 are actually different from each other (let the game go into attract mode to see this more clearly). The power pills also alternate between both colors (see picture).
• If you touch a monster just as you enter a tunnel, it appears as though you are “splattered” against the wall on the other side. {Erik Freeman}
• Hold down SELECT, and then hold down the
FIRE button – you’ll flip through all the game variations super-fast! {Tony Roy}
• BUG: The manual states game variation #2 is supposed to feature a slow Pac-Man, but due to a glitch in the code, it moves fast:
LDA #11 ;2
LDX gameSelection ;3
CPX #$08 ;2
BPL LF8A9 ;2
LDA #9 ;2
LF8A9: STA ramC0 ;3 (bit1 set in $C0 = fast Pac-Man)
On power-up, gameSelection is given a value of 6 (game#1/1player = $06), and increases with each press of Select to $12, where it is rolled back over to $02. This way, the upper slow-moving game selections 7 & 8 are grouped with the initial slow-moving game selections, except that the result is POSITIVE if X is 8 or higher according to the above code (gameSelection 8 = game#2/1player). The CPX should have been #$0A according to the manual. It's possible that gameSelection = 0 was used at some point during development, and that this routine was forgotten about when changing the minimal value to be 2 instead (so it always holds a non-zero value). {Kurt Howe}
• BUG: With the TV Type set to b&w, the date remains in color. If you start a game, everything is in b&w as it should be, but once the game ends, the score is in color. {Scott Stilphen}
• BUG: Tod Frye mentioned a rare bug can happen, due to the way he made the random number generator, in which the monsters may get stuck inside the tunnels, allowing you to clear the screen in peace. For this to happen, all 4 monsters must go in the same tunnel entrance at once. Once inside, they will keep going back-and-forth inside the tunnel, and you’ll briefly see them at each entrance! If the game is left idle at this point, it will eventually “time out” and end! You can trigger this to appear by using a specific pattern on game 2 (video #1). Video #3 shows all 4 monsters going in the tunnel at the start on game 1, but the bug isn't triggered. {Brandon Bell, TV Gamer April 1984 pg 62, 63}
• BUG: When exiting the top tunnel entrance, occasionally the Pac-Man will appear to be “redrawn”, at which point if you are pushing DOWN you will go straight down the screen (see picture)! {Charles Beaulien and Christopher Schreiber} While moving through this “invisible” corridor it’s possible to eat a vitamin, get eaten by a monster (you’ll keep moving as you “die”), and even to eat a monster (if you grab a power pellet just before doing the trick)! If you move to the bottom of the screen, you’ll re-enter the maze (video #2). {Paul Brown, TV Gamer July 1984}{Greg Miceli}
• BUG: You cannot be killed by a monster while inside the tunnel (you and a monster can even “pass” each other inside it). {Scott Stilphen}
• FRYING: Frying can cause the walls to start flashing at irregular intervals during the game, or sometimes Pac-Man will appear stuck on a wafer, which causes the score to quickly increase. {David Holton}
• RUMOR: Although the game was released in March 1982, the game depicts a copyright date of 1981. This has led some to incorrectly believe that Atari decided to use a prototype version of the game.
