Pac-Man Friends is an iOS and Android app released by Bandai Namco Games in 2014. It was delisted from digital stores on April 19th, 2018.
Story[]
The Pac-People are being held captive by Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde, including Pac-Man himself. Pac-Man breaks free from his prison chains, and sets off to rescue the other Pac-Men.
Gameplay[]
Pac-Man Friends is a top-down maze/puzzle game, in which the objective is to consume all the Pellets to unlock the stage exit. The player must get Pac-Man to the exit before time runs out in order to clear a level. Two Fruits will also spawn in each level: an Orange once half of the Pellets are eaten, and a Banana once all the Pellets are eaten. Aside from collecting Pellets and Fruits, the player must also avoid the Ghosts and other stage hazards such as potions that reverse the player's controls, lasers that fire periodically, and cannons that shoot fire balls. If Pac-Man or one of his friends touches one of these obstacles, they will die and the level will end; however, the player can also spend a Cherry to continue playing the level from that point. Upon completing a stage, the player is awarded one to three stars depending on how many of the level's objectives were completed. (e.g., consume all fruit, escape with Pac-Man, escape with 1-5 of Pac-Man's friends).
The game features 95 levels, and 8 friends to unlock. The levels are divided into Episodes, with 9-12 levels per Episode. The player is not be able to progress to the next Episode without first collecting a set amount of fruit/stars. For example, the player must collect 7 Oranges and 7 Bananas in Haunted Labyrinth (Episode 3) before they can move on to Spooky Forest (Episode 4). The only exception to this rule is Haunted Labyrinth itself, which is unlocked by collecting 10 Keys in the previous episode, Mysterious Meadows. When a new Episode is unlocked, the player is rewarded with 5 Cherries and 3 Timer Boosts.
Pac-People Types[]
| Friend | Description | Unlocked at |
|---|---|---|
 |
Pac-Man is the protagonist of the game. He appears in every level and must be safely brought to the exit in order to clear each one. Although most of the Pac-People can eat Vulnerable Ghosts, Pac-Man is the only one who can eat Power Pellets. | |
 |
This gray Pac-Person has no special abilities. | |
 |
This transparent Pac-Person passes right through the Ghosts. Although this means they cannot eat Vulnerable Ghosts, they can collect Pellets that would otherwise be blocked off by Ghosts. | |
 |
This luminescent Pac-Person emits lights over a large radius. They are used exclusively in levels where most of the maze is shrouded in darkness. | |
 |
This beach ball-themed Pac-Person rebounds off of walls more easily than the others. The distance it travels after rebounding depends on its speed. | |
 |
This magnet-themed Pac-Person attracts nearby Pellets towards themselves. | |
 |
This miniature green Pac-Person can fit into narrow corridors that other Pac-People are unable to access. | |
 |
This purple Pac-Person grows in size for every Pellet they eat. Levels featuring them often require the player to limit the number of Pellets they eat. | |
 |
This tiger-themed Pac-Person can break glass barriers by smashing into them. They must smash a barrier three times for it to break. | |
 |
Despite being shown in promotional material and on the game's title screen, this black-and-white Pac-Person never appears in any of the levels. |
Trivia[]
- Controversially, the game was always available for free on Android systems, but initially costed $3.99 on iOS devices. Both versions were released around the same time as well.
- The game's logo appears to use a fan-made Pac-Man font called Crackman.
- Out of the four ghosts, Pinky shows up the least amount of times during gameplay, appearing in only one level, Level 64.
- Following Pac-Man Friends' release, Invictus Games (the title's lead developer) formed a proposal for two additional Pac-Man games: Pac-Man Star Wars and Pac-Man Slingshot. Ultimately, neither of these pitches led to produced games; the extent of Bandai Namco's involvement with the projects is unknown.[2]
- Pac-Man Star Wars appears to be a conceptual separate "edition" of Pac-Man Friends; Pac-Man Slingshot is based on the Angry Birds series in gameplay, and features Pac-Man Friends-based graphics.
- Notably, one of the mock-up screenshots shows the unused black-and-white Pac-Person from Pac-Man Friends standing next to two laser panels; suggesting this may have been the character's intended function/ability.
