Pac & Pal

Controls consist of a four-position joystick and a button. Using the joystick, the player guides Pac-Man through an enclosed maze in which several items are locked behind doors. Several face-down cards are scattered throughout the maze; when Pac-Man runs over one of these, it flips over to reveal one of the items, which becomes unlocked so Pac-Man can eat it. Items include a flagship from Galaxian, a red car from Rally-X, a trumpet, a snowman, and a miniature Pac-Man. The items are simply different cosmetically, and all of them have the same effect. Assisting Pac-Man is the titular "Pal" character Miru, a green-colored creature with a pink bow. Whenever any items are unlocked, Miru will try to pick one up and carry it toward the center box; if Pac-Man does not catch up to her and eat the item before she enters the box, it disappears. Once all the items are gone, the level ends and the player earns bonus points for each item eaten, receiving a larger bonus for preventing Miru from taking any of them into the box. An orange area immediately below the center box causes the ghosts to slow down whenever they are inside and obscures both them and Pac-Man, leaving only the ghosts' eyes visible. The third level and every fourth level thereafter is a bonus stage with 10 cards and no ghosts; one card shows Miru, one shows the ghost Blinky, and the other eight have dollar signs. Points are awarded for each card flipped, and Miru's card doubles the total. The stage ends immediately if Blinky is found, but the player earns a larger bonus for finding him last. The player loses one life whenever Pac-Man touches a non-stunned ghost, but can safely run through Miru at any time. When all lives are lost, the game ends. ==Development and release==

Pac & Pal was developed and published by Namco in July 1983 in Japan. It is the third game in the Pac-Man series that was made by Namco themselves, as Pac-Mans North American distributor Midway Games had produced many of their own sequels that Namco had little involvement with. Pac & Pal is largely based on Super Pac-Man, Namco's own sequel to the original, and retains a similar graphical style and many of its mechanics. Namco and Midway had plans to release Pac & Pal in North America under the new name Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp, which replaced Miru with Pac-Man's spherical dog from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. Toy manufacturer Jakks Pacific included the game in many of their Pac-Man-branded "plug'n play" controllers throughout the mid-2000s. Pac & Pal is also included in a few Namco compilations such as Namco Museum Remix (2007), Namco Museum Virtual Arcade (2008), and Namco Museum Megamix (2010). To commemorate the launch of the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures television series, Bandai added Pac & Pal to their Pac-Man Connect & Play controller in 2012. Pac & Pal is included in Pac-Man Museum (2014), alongside several other games in the series. In 2019, Arcade1UP released a Pac-Man "counter-cade" arcade machine that includes the original Pac-Man and Pac & Pal. Pac & Pal is included in Pac-Man Museum+ as a unlockable title. ==Reception==

While Pac & Pal saw success in its first few months on the market, it was relatively a commercial failure and remained obscure for many years. The game's drastic differences compared to the original Pac-Man and Super Pac-Man and its limited production run have been attributed to its downfall. Writing for Paste, Preston Burt listed it among the weirdest Pac-Man sequels for the addition of a second player character and its premise, saying that: "If you have no idea what's happening in this game, you're not alone." Jeremy Parish of USgamer retrospectively reviewed Pac & Pal in commemoration of its 30th anniversary in 2013. He claimed that it made for one of the stranger entries in the series for its substantially different gameplay compared to Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. Parish also said that many of the game's additions, namely Miru and the power-up items, detracted from Pac-Man more minimalist approach and appeal. Ultimately, Parish said that the new mechanics and difference in play made it a much more difficult and stressful game compared to its predecessors, feeling that players would have a hard time succumbing to its "strange" ideas and gameplay that had a more action-oriented pace to it. ==Notes==