Pac-01 (2021)

A certain round yellow guy, who’s probably the most iconic video game character ever, makes his entrance in ARC8’s recent MSX game called “PAC-01”. That’s right, it is Pac-Man himself that makes waves in the world’s fastest dot eating game. Combine Pac-Man with relentless vertical scrolling, and you get an interesting game concept. In PAC-01, your playfield scrolls from bottom to top, as pills are scattered around to be eaten. However, pills aren’t the sole item on the menu. The point of PAC-01 is that you advance a level when you had all six of the the spooky baddies for lunch – or dinner, whatever you prefer. Also, as is only befitting in a Pac-Man themed game, pieces of fruit will appear occasionally to serve as a refreshing snack which will increase your score. In this fine piece of Z80 entertainment, you hunt down the ghosts that escaped from the glitch; the deadly green computer bits at the bottom of the screen. This pool of game glitches also means instant death to our yellow little protagonist. So, don’t let those bits byte you! PAC-01 features a one and two player mode, as well as a “Fast Game” mode. Whereas the objective in the 1P mode is to munch up all of the ghosts, in 2P mode the player with the most points wins when the game is over (which happens when the maze ends). As for the Fast Mode it means… well, just survive!

• Release Date: August 31, 2021