Chomp Forever in Addictive ‘Pac-Man 256’
You’ve played Pac-Man. You’ve played Ms. Pac-Man. You might have even played the ridiculous Baby Pac-Man, or the incredible Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, or the atrocious Pac-Man Party, which made your terrible bar mitzvah party look like the awesome one from Weird Science.
But if you’re hungry for a few more Power Pellets, then by all means, go download Pac-Man 256 (free for iOS, Android, and Amazon devices) immediately. Because it’s unlike any Pac-Man game you’ve ever played.
For starters, the game’s maze never ends. Pac-Man 256 is essentially an endless runner (or, rather, eater), which means you keep playing until you die. In this case, that means waka-waka-waka-ing through a gigantic, dot-filled hallway stretching out to infinity while staying one chomp ahead of an ever-encroaching wave of glitches.
That, incidentally, is a homage to the original Pac-Man’s infamous level 256, also known as the game’s “kill screen.” Upon reaching this level (a feat in itself), a line of garbled code mars half the screen and renders the game unplayable. In this case, it serves to propel you forward.
What makes this not a total snoozefest is some brilliant design choices by developer Hipster Whale, best known as the company behind the similarly structured megahit Crossy Road.
You’ll be chased by ghosts, naturally, but they behave strangely. Occasionally they’ll appear in a line or emerge from a glitch cloud. Classic Pac-Man fruits like cherries and peaches are now score multipliers. Power Pellets still turn the ghosts blue, but even handier are random power-ups like a wicked laser beam and a freeze bomb. Forget trying to gobble every last dot: Pac-Man 256 is about surviving as long as possible in order to rack up a high score and show up your friends on the leaderboard.
Perhaps what I like best is that the free game’s in-app purchase model doesn’t get in the way. You get play credits every 10 minutes, but even if you run out, you can still play, just without using power-ups. Or you can fork over some cash to either buy new credits or get rid of the credits system entirely. I wouldn’t bother with that, though. You’ll get plenty of play out of this game without spending a dime.
Of course, I say that now. In two months I might be a few hundred quarters deep into this clever, addictive take on Pac-Man. Heaven knows it wouldn’t be the first time I spent too much money on the yellow blob.
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