Four Monsters and a Yellow Disk Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. "Pac-Man" was originally known under a different name, but for the United States (and most of the English-speaking world), the name was changed. What was the reason the original name could not be used?

Answer: A passing similarity to a very rude word

The Japanese original of "Pac-Man" was named "Puck-Man", directly reflecting the shape of the game's main character. However, fears that immature teens might change part of this name into one of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words with a permanent marker or similar tool led to the change.

2. Going with the title, as a player of the original "Pac-Man", your character was chased by four monsters. Which was NOT a color of any of them?

Answer: Green

The original monsters consisted of the red Blinky, the orange Clyde, the pink Speedy and the light blue Inky. It was not until "Pac-Mania", a variant of the game using a 3-D perspective view on the playing field that a regular green monster would appear - this one however was extremely dangerous as it could jump! ("Pac & Pal" also featured a green monster, Pal, but that one had a special role and was not a standard monster out to kill the player)

3. Very advanced for a 1980 game, the four monsters actually each have their individual behavior resulting in a squad often well cooperating to catch the player. Which one has the simplest behavior, chasing the player character to the exclusion of all other activity?

Answer: Blinky

The red Blinky is the strict chaser - he will never stray from Pac-Man's back. The pink and light blue Pinky and Inky use different strategies and paths in attempts to position themselves in front of him while the orange Clyde is a bit the stupid one - he chases when far away from Pac-Man but turns away to block an alternate path (usually deviating towards the bottom left of the screen) when coming closer. Every game variant using the original four monsters also uses the same behavior.

4. Let's assume you play a game of original "Pac-Man" and manage to get a power pill and then eat all four monsters. How many points would you get for this (ignoring any bonus items and normal 10-point dots)?

Answer: 3050

The power pill is worth 50 points and then you get 200, 400, 800 and 1600 points for the four monsters, resulting in a total of 3050. This number also holds for "Ms. Pac-Man" and "Super Pac-Man", but in "Pac-Mania", you can get a red power pill as a bonus item that makes the monsters score 400 for the first, 1600 for the second and then 7650 for the third and beyond.

5. Both the original "Pac-Man" and "Ms. Pac-Man" use the same game principle - in fact, the latter game was originally an unauthorized hack. What was the most important improvement of the version with the female protagonist however?

Answer: The game had multiple different maze designs

Unlike the original, "Ms. Pac-Man" used four different maze designs, some of which had two "warp tunnels" connecting the left and right screen edges. The different layouts made it more difficult to memorize and perfectly execute pattern play - the original game could be played with just one endlessly repeated movement pattern after conquering the first 20 levels.

The multiple mazes made the game more challenging for advanced players.

6. In "Ms. Pac-Man", there are brief intermission scenes called "acts" showing a love story between the original Pac-Man and his new girlfriend. Which of these is NOT correct?

Answer: The fifth act is the original Pac-Man's funeral

There is no such thing as a fifth act - Act 3 is replayed several times throughout the game, so they just get more little Pac-Men brought to them by a stork. In Act 1, by the way, one monster chases each character until they bump into each other and fall in love (indicated by a big heart) while Act 2 just consists of them chasing each other across the screen a few times.

7. "Super Pac-Man" introduced a major change in gameplay and graphics. Not only would Pac-Man get to munch on some actual food instead of white dots, he also got to swallow some other interesting items. One item type, present on every stage, had a special function - which one?

Answer: Keys

Coffee cups, clovers and parcels (gifts) were standard items shown in the 7th, 14th and 16th screen respectively. However, keys were a major new element of gameplay - all actual edibles were hidden away behind doors and to get through those, Pac-Man needed to either eat the respective keys first or swallow one of the yellow pulsing super-pills which allowed him to temporarily break through the doors and ignore the monsters.

This gameplay was further complicated by the fact that keys did not always open the same doors - in the first stages, keys and doors were close to each other, in the later ones, almost at opposite corners.

The graphics and key patterns repeated every 16 mazes and just one run through all 16 was quite a great game.

8. Like many Namco titles of the time, "Super Pac-Man" contained a visual homage to one of Namco's most successful games ever. Which game was so honored in the 15th maze of "Super Pac-Man"?

Answer: Galaxian

The flagship from "Galaxian" - a yellow, blue and red design resembling an inverted lampshade, was a graphic element in many Namco games of the 1980s and 1990s. Its appearance in "Super Pac-Man" was the most obvious one since you got to see 31 copies of it at once as the items to eat in the 15th maze (plus a 32nd one in the stage indicator).

The flagship also featured in the original "Pac-Man" as a bonus item on the 9th and 10th screen.

9. Out of the following four "Pac-Man" games, only one was not a traditional maze game. Which one?

Answer: Pac-Land

"Pac-Land" is a jump and run game with a gameplay similar to the "Super Mario" games - Pac-Man has grown a pair of legs (and a hat) and walks and jumps through various landscapes, dodging monsters or defeating them after eating a power pill. The game also featured a multitude of hidden secrets - some obstacles could be pushed to reveal bonuses. All other three titles are traditional dot-maze games with "Pac-Man VR" being the most advanced - in this game (a rare and expensive unit from 1996), the player actually enters the maze and plays from Pac-Man's perspective.

10. Finally, the Pac-Man craze also spawned more than just standard arcade video games. One such machine was "Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man". While this game actually contained a very simple video game emulating "Pac-Man" gameplay, the main machine was a different type - which one?

Answer: A pinball machine

"Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man" was a 1982 pinball machine from Bally. Apart from having a Pac-Man theme, it also featured a very simple "Pac-Man" game played on a 5x5 matrix of lights set into the playfield - a very early predecessor of later pinball games' video modes.

In the pinball game itself, one of the player's major tasks was to collect moves for Pac-Man and then enter the maze playfield mode, hopefully completing mazes. The maze represented Pac-Man via a yellow light and also had a single monster (a red light). Normally, touching the monster ended your maze round, but by hitting certain targets on the pinball playfield, the player could get an aggressive Pac-Man and eat the monster.

Source: Author WesleyCrusher

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor eburge before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Four Monsters and a Yellow Disk Quiz

Who would not think of one of the most popular video games of all times when hearing this title? This game will look at the original game as well as some of its variants - all questions are based on the original arcade machines.

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