Video Game Board Games [part 1]: PAC-MAN (Milton Bradley, 1982)

 

Collectors are a weird type of people. There are psychological forces that drive them that would require many, many posts just to scratch the surface, written by people smarter and more boring than me. One thing that has always interested me about collectors is that some people only collect one specific thing, while some have lots of interests and sub-collections.

One sub-collection for me is vintage video game items, specifically from the golden era of video game mania in the early 1980's.  I try hard to keep it to a minimum, but I am absolutely incapable of walking away from any vintage Pac-Man item that I run across, or any board game based on a vintage video game.

Pac-Man, of course, was the poster child for arcade games.  He was also merchandised to the hilt, which was a separate phenomenon in itself.  To a grade-schooler back in those days, Pac-Man was quite simply the coolest thing in the world.  Then word came down that we would receive a "proper" home version, for our Atari 2600's, that we could play at home.  Excitement hit a fever pitch...until the game came out, when disappointment hit a fever pitch.

If you were there, then you haven't forgotten either.

People wanted to be able to enjoy the fun of arcade games in their homes, or at least a reasonable facsimile, whether it was a digital watch, an LCD game, a crappy Atari cartridge, a Saturday-morning cartoon or...a board game!

Now, this was an idea that had potential--a playable version of your favorite video game, that you could play at home, with your family or friends.  And, once again, Pac-Man led the way. 

And the turquoise Pac-Man was never seen again!

Milton Bradley wisely went the extra mile by designing a game that actually allowed all players to be Pac-Man (of four different colors!) that went around the maze eating dots (well, the instructions only refer to them as "marbles,"...come to think of it, there was never a clear universal term for them.  In the cartoon they were all "power pellets," but it seemed like every iteration called them something else). This was accomplished by a clever design, wherein your Pac-Men could chomp up marbles as they landed on them, storing them inside themselves as he went.  You were supplied with a container of matching color to dump them into after each turn, as the object of the game was to be the player who had accumulated the most marbles.

But as we all know, the maze also contains ghosts! Since there would be up to four Pac-Mans roaming around, MB supplied only two ghosts for the game, which were controlled in an interesting way.  Since each turn involved rolling two dice, one would be used for the player's Pac-Man, while the second die would be used to move the ghost monsters around. This was of course strategic, because landing on another player's Pac-Man sent them back to their home spot, and cost them two marbles.  Each game randomly included a pair of ghosts the same color, available in the same four colors as the Pac-Mans and their trays (although having a yellow ghost the same color as Pac-Man is just weird).  Somehow the game I ended up with many years ago included three sets! Somebody bought this game three times:

So, how are the yellow marbles (ranting once again: I was told as a kid that only the big ones were the  "power pellets, " which in some places were referred to as "energizers") used? It's kind of strange.  The instructions call them only "yellow marbles," and say that, when you eat one, you get the "Ghost Gobbler Privilege," which apparently lasts as long as you want it to, until you finally eat a ghost, which gains you the marble that was under that ghost, and sends him back to the middle of the board.

I think it would've been cooler if a pair of blue ghosts were supplied with the game, and you could switch them out until somebody ate one (hey, I have enough to do that, I should try it).

Overall review: So was the game successful, in bringing the spirit of Pac-Man home as a board game? I am happy to say it was, although in the spirit of criticism, here are a few cons:  

1) Since the game was very heavy on parts, some were bound to get lost over the years. (This is not a bad thing at all, just true.)

2) You need a very stable playing area, as it's very easy to upset a fully set-up board, and I'm sure some sibling fistfights broke out over that.  

3) The marbles are glass (and not Hungry Hippos plastic), and they are very pleasing to handle and roll around, but I'm sure that they looked delicious to very small children.  The yellow ones look like shiny, delicious Lemon Heads! Mmmm, Lemon Heads!

Stay tuned for future posts featuring more vintage board games based on vintage video games. I have a decent collection but there are far more than you'd think, and some are very rare! 

Instructions, found under the box lid!