Pac-Man (Tomy LSI Game)

Tomy LSI Game Pac-Man
Japanese box art.
Developer	Tomy
Publisher	Tomy
Series	N/A
Genres	Maze
Release date(s)	JP: Late 1981 EU: Late 1981 US: Early 1982
Number of players	1 player

The Pac-Man Tomy LSI Game (トミーLSIゲーム パックマン Tomī Eru-esu-ai Gēmu Pakkuman) is a handheld VFD game released by Tomy in 1981. It is a (rather poor) conversion of the original arcade Pac-Man from 1980. It was sold in North America as just Pac Man (under the "Tomytronic" label), among several other names in other regions.

Gameplay

The main premise of the game is the same as the arcade original; Pac-Man must eat all of the Pac-Dots while avoiding Ghosts. He also can eat a Power Pellet (shown in this version as red stars) in order to eat the ghosts.

Due to the weak hardware of LCD games at the time, many constraints had to be made to the gameplay. Pac-Man can only eat dots right to left; he will pass over the dots if he goes from left to right. Only two ghosts appear in each level, and only 20 dots appear on each screen; in reality it is only 16 dots, due to the way Pac-Man eats them. There is an additional side door as well.

Scoring System

• Pac-Dot - 2 points.
• Power Pellet - 50 points.
• Vulnerable Ghosts:
  • #1 in succession - 100 points.
  • #2 in succession - 200 points.
• Fruit:
  • 🍒 Cherry: 100 points.

Regional Variants

Many variations of the handheld exist, which are identical save for the name on the front. They include:

• Puckman (1981) - Japanese model.
• Munchman (1981) - U.K. model; published by Grandstand.
• Pac Man (1982) - North American model.
• Pac Man-1 (198?) - Australian model; published by Futuretronics.
• Puckman Electronic (198?) - German model.

Trivia

• At least 700,000 copies of Tomy LSI Game Pac-Man were sold at retail. It is unknown if this is only the Japanese total or all regions combined.
• An animated commercial was produced for the handheld in Japan, modeled after the Puckman arcade promotional artwork.
• A Tomy Pac-Man sweepstakes campaign was held in Canada in 1983, as part of a cross-promotion with Crush soda and Hires Root Beer. The prizes from this giveaway were Tomytronic Pac Man handhelds with Crush and Hires stickers on the sides of the console.
• The "Game & Time" Pac-Man handheld and the Pac-Man Game Watch (specifically its first revision) feature nearly-identical gameplay to the Pac-Man Tomy LSI Game. It is unknown if Tomy was involved with the development of this port, as both releases were produced by an unknown company.
  • Notably, the second version of the Pac-Man Game Watch is a rebranded version of Tomy Watchman: Monster Hero.
• Grandstand and Futuretronics released other Japanese manufacturers' Pac-Man consoles alongside publishing Tomy's version:
  • Grandstand's version, Munchman, was followed by Mini-Munchman; a variant of Pak Pak Man by Epoch, later re-released (by Grandstand) as Pocket Pac-Man.
  • Futuretronics' version, Pac Man-1, was the successor (?) to a console just called Pac Man; the first console is a rebranded version of Gakken's Puck Monster.
• The Super Pac-Man machine model seen in Namco Museum Remix resembles the Tomy LSI Game handheld, though it is more spherical in comparison.

Gallery

Tomy-produced versions

Japanese Puckman model with box.

Japanese Puckman model, loose.

U.S. Tomytronic Pac Man, boxed.

U.K. Munchman, boxed.

U.K. Munchman, loose.

Canadian Tomytronic Pac Man (from the Crush/Hires sweepstakes), loose.

German Puckman flyer.

Canadian Tomytronic Pac Man flyer for the Crush/Hires sweepstakes.

Hardware cloned versions

The first version of the Pac-Man Game Watch, which runs a clone of the Tomy LSI Game.

A "Game & Time" Pac-Man handheld, which runs a Tomy LSI Game clone.

Super Pac-Man by Grandstand, which runs a Tomy LSI Game clone.

External links

• Playable emulated version of the game (archive.org)