The Key is a recurring collectable item in the series. Its usages and ways of getting them vary from game to game.
Maze Style Series[]
The key first appeared in Pac-Man. It is worth 5,000 points if eaten and it starts appearing from stage 14 onwards until the player gets a Game Over. In the Pac-Man Championship Edition games, it instead gives the player 4,000 points.
In Super Pac-Man, there are 15 keys on each level that can be used to open gates, and each one gives 50 points plus an open gate.
Pac-Man World Series[]
Pac-Man World / Pac-Man World Re-Pac[]
In Pac-Man World, keys are used to free the six friends who got captured by Toc-Man. They're hidden in one level of each world, usually behind a Fruit Door that requires the player to get such fruit later in the stage and return on their steps to unlock the door. Unlike other collectibles in the game, keys don't add points to the player's score and they don't reappear in the stage once collected. Keys normally are spent in the following stage where they're found. Keys are a requirement for story progress, since each of the gates keeping the later worlds won't vanish unless you've rescued all the friends in the stages you have unlocked. Also, there is another key known as the Magic Key that can be obtained after the player has a grand score of 1,000,000 points, and allows Pac-Man to unlock any Fruit Door without needing the corresponding fruit.
In Pac-Man World Re-Pac keys behave the same as in the original game, except they're not required to complete the story whatsoever, but they're needed to unlock the game's Best Ending.
Pac-Man World Re-Pac 2[]
In this game, Keys make a brief return as the special items Pac-Man collects from defeating Spooky's mechas in the Old Pac-Land during the postgame in place of the Golden Fruits. Their use is the same as the fruits, unlocking the further stages of the Old Pac-Land to explore.
Spin-Offs[]
Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness[]
In Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, an asortment of three collored keys are used in the different levels of the game to vanish the Lock Blocks from the mazes, usually to free the way to complete a puzzle or to reach a bonus Fruit. Keys add 1,000 points to the player's score each time one is collected.
When Mesmerelda is defeated for the first time, her Witch Key is collected by Ms. Pac-Man and becomes a permanent item in the player's inventory, allowing them to vanish all the Witch Blocks of the previous stages and granting access to more hidden Fruits and Pac-Dots that were out of reach, needed to get extra Stars.
Trivia[]
- In the Game Boy (Color) version of Pac-Man, the key's sprite is mirrored in a different direction.