Professor Pac-Man
| Industry | Video games |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | United States |
| Products | Professor Pac-Man |
Professor Pac-Man is a quiz arcade video game developed by Bally Midway and launched in August 1983. As the seventh installment in the Pac-Man franchise, it represents the final Bally Midway release to operate on their Midway Astrocade platform. Production was limited to 400 arcade units, many of which were eventually returned and converted into Pac-Land machines.
Description
Created with the quiz game audience in mind, Professor Pac-Man presented straightforward visual puzzles that players, referred to as "pupils," needed to solve under a time constraint. Although it utilized Namco's iconic Pac-Man character, the title struggled commercially in arcades due to its slower gameplay and its deviation from the signature maze-based mechanics characteristic of earlier series entries.
Gameplay
The game accommodates either one or two participants; in the two-player setting, points are awarded to whoever answers correctly first. Players respond to multiple-choice queries before the countdown expires, with the timer depicted as Pac-Man consuming pellets. The number of pellets left uneaten at the moment of a correct response determines the score earned, and Pac-Man accelerates pellet consumption as questions progress. After achieving two to six consecutive first-try correct answers, bonus questions become available. The session concludes when a player exhausts all fruits—which serve as lives and difficulty markers—lost upon incorrect standard answers but replenished through correct bonus responses.
Midway envisioned three distinct editions: Family (targeting younger audiences), Public (intended for arcades and bars), and Prizes (designed for casino environments). The game contains more than 500 questions and supports loading new question sets, although no additional content was ever published.
While most questions lack direct ties to Pac-Man, some incorporate references to the original maze or include puzzles featuring fruit patterns, urban scenes, dining arrangements, and telephone dials, with Pac-Man-themed visuals appearing upon correct answers.
Development
The idea behind Professor Pac-Man came from foosball champion Johnny Lott and RePlay magazine publisher Ed Adlum. Their concept merged classic Pac-Man maze gameplay with quiz elements triggered by power-ups. Midway approved this proposal, and development was handled by Dave Nutting Associates. However, prior to release, the maze component was removed without informing Lott and Adlum, which contributed to its limited appeal in the market.
Programming was done by Rick Frankel, while Mark Steven Pierce and Sue Forner created the graphics. Audio was produced by Marc Canter.
Legacy
A character modeled after Professor Pac-Man appears in the Pac-Man World series; this version resembles the original arcade figure but includes a white mustache and aligns more closely with official Pac-Man branding. Unlike other characters replaced in recent installments, Professor Pac-Man continues to appear, indicating no legal complications despite not being an original Namco creation.
External links
- Professor Pac-Man at the Arcade History database