Celebrating 26 years of Ms. Pac-Man!!!
-Released Into This World October 29, 1981
Ms. Pac-Man was originally conceived as a bootlegged hack of Pac-Man called Crazy Otto, created by programmers under employ at the General Computer Corporation.
Crazy Otto before converted to Ms. Pac-Man
The programmers, surprised at the quality of the game they had created, showed it to Midway, Namco's American distributor of the original game. Midway had become impatient in waiting for Namco to release their next Pac-Man game (which would be Super Pac-Man ), and were enthusiastic that such a game had come to their attention.
They bought the rights to Crazy Otto, changed the sprites to fit the Pac-Man "universe," renamed the game Ms. Pac-Man and released it into arcades. The game is considered by many to be Midway's answer to the question of how they could get girls to play their games.
After the game became wildly popular, Midway and GCC undertook a brief legal battle concerning royalties, but because the game was accomplished without Namco's consent, both companies eventually turned over the rights of Ms. Pac-Man to the parent company, fearing a lawsuit. Nonetheless, Ms. Pac-Man was the first of a series of unauthorized sequels that eventually led to the termination of the licensing agreement between Namco and Midway
Gameplay:
The gameplay of Ms. Pac-Man is largely identical to that of Pac-Man , with a few differences.
There are now four different mazes, with different colors and "filled-in" walls (compared with the original Pac-Man hollow walls). Each maze has two pairs of "warp tunnels" connecting the right and left sides of the maze (except for the third maze which only has one set of tunnels). The maze is changed after each of the first three intermissions.
The ghosts have pseudo-random movement, which precludes the use of patterns to beat each board.
The two "fruits" on each level now enter through one of the warp tunnels, wander around the maze for a while, then (if not eaten) eventually leave through a warp tunnel.
Clyde is replaced by another orange ghost named Sue , who was later turned purple in Pac-Land to differentiate her from Clyde .
The four Ms. Pac-Man boards
There are new intermissions between the maze changes:
"Act 1 - They Meet": Pac-Man is chased by Inky , Ms. Pac-Man is chased by Blinky ; the ghosts bang heads, the Pac-Men escape, and a heart appears between them.
"Act 2 - The Chase": Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man chase each other quickly across the screen five times, with more speed each time.
Act 3 - Junior": A stork drops off a bundle containing a tiny Pac-Man (later reused in the attract mode for Pac-Man ).
Ms.Pac-Man World Champion: - Abdner Ashman
Abdner Ashman Ms. Pac-Man champion of the world!
At the select screen input up, up, up, down, down, down, left, right, left, right, left, start. (Please note, this code works ONLY on the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Class Reunion model of the game, and does not work on individual Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga machines.)