Pac-Man Ball is an arcade redemption game, released in Europe by Namco in 2003. It is a coin pusher game with a video screen.
History[]
Pac-Man Ball is a modified version of another Namco arcade release: Puzz Ball (パズボール Pazu Bōru), released in Japan in 2001. Both titles are largely identical in gameplay, save for a few visual differences; for instance, Pac-Man Ball uses fruit icons in the video portion, while Puzz Ball uses icons of shapes (such as stars and hearts). Additionally, Pac-Man Ball places an animated Pac-Man in the top-right corner (seemingly the same sprites used in Pac-Slot and Pac-Eight).
While the game was widely available in Europe, no variant of Pac-Man Ball/Puzz Ball was released in America. Presumably, this is due to the coin pusher outright dispensing coins as prizes rather than tickets, which would qualify as gambling in most US territories.
Gameplay[]
The game follows the same rules as a typical coin pusher machine, with various alterations. When a player inserts a coin, it has the chance of falling into one of seven colored marks on the back panel of the machine. If the coin falls through the colored mark, a ball of that color is dropped in the video screen. When two or more balls of the same color touch each other, they disappear and more coins are launched into the playfield. Higher "combos" of the same color will result in a higher amount of coins being launched.
The ball icons include Cherries, Peaches, Oranges, Melons, Grapes, Pears, and Pac-Men. The Pac-Man icon - the hardest one to reach on the playfield - begins a "Slot Event" if it is collected, in which a randomly-picked event occurs (e.g. raising the balls by one row or launching more coins).
Trivia[]
- Some machine models have a small, rectangular marquee, while other models have a larger rounded marquee that lights up.