Arcade Nostalgia: "Pac-Man" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Puck Man

The name of "Puck Man" was developed from two merged ideas. One was the resemblance to a puck, and the other was the Japanese onomatopoeic phrase paku-paku taberu, with the 'paku-paku' part describing the sound of a mouth opening and closing widely and repeatedly.

When Bally Midway licensed the game in North America, they changed the name to "Pac-Man" to avoid the possibility of vandalism turning the name into something vulgar.

Answer: Sneaky (Slinky)

The four enemy ghosts (with colour) were the red Shadow (Blinky), pink Speedy (Pinky), cyan Bashful (Inky), and orange Pokey (Clyde).

The red ghost (Blinky) was designed to chase your Pac-Man character, while Pinky and Inky (pink and blue) were designed to try to get in front of you. The orange ghost Clyde was more-or-less random, but tended to end up chasing more than anticipating.

If any of the ghosts caught you, you lost a life.

Answer: False

To control your Pac-Man, you actually had a joystick. And, of course, it was a multi-directional joystick (up/down, right/left). There were no other controls (other than the buttons to choose one- or two-player).

Answer: Four

There were four power pellets, one roughly in each corner of the screen (the ones at the bottom were roughly halfway between the middle and the bottom).

In early levels of the game, eating a power pellet would turn the ghosts to a uniform (to be named later) colour, and your Pac-Man could eat them for bonus points, sending them back as a floating pair of eyes to their starting place, where they would reemerge whole. They would begin to flash white when they were close to changing back to normal.

Answer: Blue

As you got to higher stages, the amount of time that the ghosts remained vulnerable was reduced. At first it just meant a shorter time overall (dark blue and flashing), but then when you ate a power pill, the ghosts began flashing right away. Eventually they didn't even change colour - they would only run away from you briefly instead of toward you, and you could NOT eat them at all.

Answer: 200 - 400 - 800 - 1,600

A great strategy in the game (for earning points, and not just passing levels) was to draw the ghosts close to you just before you ate a power pellet. If you were able to get all four of them, that was 3,000 points in the bank!

Answer: 10,000 points

And that was it! Only one extra life could be earned in the game. It was possible for the game to be programmed to earn the life at a different point level, but the default setting was 10,000 points.

Answer: Blinky

This first cutscene was a nice illustration of the use of the power pellet. Power-ups had not been seen in video games prior to "Pac-Man", so featuring it in the first cutscene made sense.

I didn't mention it in the question, but when Blinky reentered the screen with the giant Pac-Man in pursuit, he was, of course, blue in colour.

A second cutscene appeared after level five, again featuring Blinky chasing Pac-Man. This time, however Blinky runs over a nail, tearing off a piece of himself, as if it was only a red costume.

The third cutscene did not appear until after the ninth level. In this one, Blinky once again chases Pac-Man across the screen, and this time he returns as a 'naked' ghost, dragging his red suit behind him.

Answer: Key

In order of value the eight bonus 'fruits' were:

Cherry: 100 pts
Strawberry: 300 pts
Orange: 500 pts
Apple: 700 pts
Melon: 1,000 pts
"Galaxian" Boss: 2,000 pts
Bell: 3,000 pts
Key: 5,000 pts

Answer: Level 256

The level 256 split screen error was never fixed, and no one ever managed to pass that level (that could prove it). The developer even offered a $100,000 reward for anyone that could demonstrate the ability to pass level 256, but the reward went unclaimed by the time the offer expired.

According to the designers, if someone actually managed to beat level 256, the game would have continued without any problems for at least the next 255 levels.