Once all the mini-games have been purchased, players can add up all of their tickets to total up their overall high score. These can be used to buy each mini-game separately for tournament play outside the game. Once a player reaches the end of the board, players receive redemption tickets based on how far they got on the board. With store tiles, players can spend tokens to move forward, move other players backward, buy raffle tickets, or gamble for more tokens. Each tile on the board enables players to move forward or go backward, lose, gain, or steal tokens, play a single or two player mini-game, spend earned tokens, or a raffle game to earn redemption tickets. Each round begins with a mini-game which determines how far a player can move on the board.

Players set the length of the game (short, medium, long) and play in rounds.

Gameplay is similar to Nintendo's Mario Party, in which each player competes in a set of mini-games to advance around the board of three various worlds (Medieval, Space and Tropical). Pac-Man), Heihachi Mishima (from Tekken), Tiger Jackson (from Tekken), Astaroth (from Soul Calibur), and Reiko (from Ridge Racer). Players can choose for the six following characters: Google paid homage to Pac-Man's 30th anniversary with a playable Google doodle in 2010.įive years later, it set Pac-Man loose on the world's streets by converting Google Maps into one giant Pac-Man game as an April Fool's joke.Pac-Man Fever takes place again! This time, Pac-Man is throwing a party and has invited his other Namco friends to join in the activities. In particular, the article notes, 'girls, women and older males' were being hooked, not just the 'young male' demographic.Īnd in the end there was no reason to worry about Pac-Man's revenue potential, or longevity. 'Although it sounds bizarre, the game has proved enormously attractive to many people who previously did not show interest in computer-based games like Space Invaders.' 'Pac-Man is a round yellow figure who scores points in a video game by finding his way through a maze and eating dots, fruit and ghosts along the way,' the article notes. An excellent early example of a sort of Video Game Music, every song featuring topics from Buckner & Garcia about at the time current video game releases like. Australian Business Computer was happy to oblige. Of course, there was a chance at this point that you didn't know Pac-Man. 'Also, there are toys, pyjamas, bumper stickers, greeting cards and gift wrapping, sheets and pillow cases and children's clothing,' the article said.

There was an arcade version for parlours, a 'battery-run table top Pac-Man game, a Pac-Man puzzle, a card game, and a non-electronic Pac-Man board game. It wasn't just personal gaming or even concept records that parodied Ted Nugent tracks: Pac Man was a merchandising juggernaut. As the article points out, Pac-Man was expected to make Atari 'an estimated $200 million' in 1982. While Australian Business Computer magazine cast doubt on the sales expectations, it noted the company's 'outlay on promotion demonstrates that it must seriously expect a large return'. The reseller hoped to sell 50,000 Pac-Man cartridges 'for use on home games machines and personal computers', and a similar number of integrated handheld games.

With the first single from Buckner & Garcia's concept record already top 10 on the US Billboard charts, there was high anticipation on how Pac-Man Fever would chart in Australia.įuturetronics, in particular, was sweating on the record's success.Īt the time Australia's Atari representative, the company committed 'close to $1 million' to ensure the local sales success of the emerging worldwide phenomena of Pac-Man. 'I've got Pac-Man fever, it's driving me crazy, I've got Pac-Man fever, I'm goin' out of my mind.'

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