Pac-Man Ghost Zone

Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a cancelled PlayStation game that was in development by Namco Hometek for PlayStation. It was planned to be released in November 1997 but was cancelled due to quality issues.^[1] Many of the concepts featured in this game would be reworked into Pac-Man World, released 2 years later after the cancellation of Ghost Zone.

Story[]

In an arcade, the latest arcade game is crowded, and a kid is unable to find a space to play the game. The kid cannot reach the popular game and a teen pushes him away; telling him to "go play Pac-Man". The kid goes up to the Pac-Man arcade cabinet and repeatedly insults it for being too "old-school", hitting the cabinet multiple times; this angers Blinky, Inky, and their master the Ghost Lord, who orders the two ghosts to use his Pixel Cannon, which can digitize subjects from the real world. The Pixel Cannon is activated, which breaches outside the cabinet's monitor. The kid is captured by the Pixel Cannon's rays, sucking him into the arcade cabinet's digital world.

The kid awakens in the arcade cabinet's digital world and finds himself transformed into the game's player character, Pac-Man. Using his newly acquired powers, the "Pac-Man" travels through the many areas of the digital world in order to defeat the Ghost Lord and escape to the real world.

Gameplay[]

Pac-Man Ghost Zone is a sandbox 3D platformer similar to platforming games like Super Mario 64. Pac-Man travels across 14 different worlds inside the digital arcade world, such as the ghosts' ancient lair, forests, mansions and computer-board locations. Pac-Man collects dots while avoiding electronic arcade machine parts like Transformers, Jumpers, and Capacitors. The game is cited to have "tank" controls (where Pac-Man can only turn while stationary), which negatively effected many early 3D platformers (such as Bubsy 3D).

Among platforming, Pac-Man can collect special blue-colored dots that give Pac-Man special abilities such as throwable objects that damage enemies, a jetpack style flying ability and being able to double in size.

Development and Cancellation[]

(Note: This summary comes from a combination of various people who worked on Pac-Man Ghost Zone. Many of their stories differ, some being positive and others negative. There may be inconsistencies in it as a result.)

In 1996, Namco (of Japan) was demonstrating several projects to Namco Hometek, a U.S.-based division of the company. Hometek was commissioned to develop one out of eight games; among them was Pac-Man Ghost Zone. A Namco employee asked Hometek which project they would like to choose - after making their answer (an RPG featuring Namco's classic characters), he responded "No. Do Pac-Man."

Despite making Hometek work on the Pac-Man entry instead of what they wanted to do, Namco was very nervous about letting them develop a Pac-Man title. Hometek was told they could not use the "real" Pac-Man character, so Japan could be told "You are not really playing Pac-Man." As a solution, the game would feature a kid getting sucked into a Pac-Man arcade machine, being turned into Pac-Man. The main antagonist of the game, the Ghost Lord, was inspired by the character Mezmaron from the Hanna-Barbera TV series.^[2]

It is stated that many developers who were working on Ghost Zone did not have much experience in developing games, let alone 3D titles. Several employees didn't have interest in video games at all. To make matters worse, Namco would not allow Hometek to hire more employees with better experience, as they had the maximum amount of workers Japan would allow them to, nor could they fire anyone without Namco's approval.

Fairly early in development, Namco asked for a demo of Ghost Zone to be presented to their Japanese offices. It was demonstrated to Masaya Nakamura, the then-president of Namco; he was extremely displeased, screaming out of anger before storming out of the room. Nakamura was so angry that he wanted to not only cancel the Ghost Zone project, but close down Namco Hometek entirely. A few other Namco employees later convinced Nakamura to let the project continue.

More drama occurred as time went on. Namco slashed the development schedule of Ghost Zone in half, making the game have to be rushed as a result. Employees were constantly being fired by Namco, in very rude and humiliating ways (most notably the R&D director, who was fired at a business lunch in public). In mid-1997, seemingly after another meeting with Nakamura, the game was fully cancelled. Namco requested the game be remade from scratch; from there, Ghost Zone evolved into Pac-Man World. Both games are entirely different however, and World shares very few similarities with Ghost Zone.^[2]

Trivia[]

The title screen music used in Pac-Man World was featured in the E3 1997 demonstration of Pac-Man Ghost Zone. It is believed the music may be the only remnant of Ghost Zone content still found in Pac-Man World.
Early design documents label Blinky as Clyde, which means this game had the Clyde and Blinky error.
In June 2021, various development files and art assets for the game were published online (by former Namco artist Bernie Bernstone), including 3D models and textures.^[3]
A proper PlayStation ROM of Pac-Man Ghost Zone was dumped online in early 2022; however, it is an unplayable demo. The file runs a short video demonstration (strongly resembling the demo seen at E3 1997), with little to no playable data from the actual game.^[4]

Gallery[]

Screenshots[]

Artwork[]

Models and Textures[]

External links[]

References[]

[1] [1]

[:0-2] 2.0 ^2.1 https://playstationmuseum.com/PACMANGZ.html

[3] ttps://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2021/06/ghost-zone-psx/

[4] ttps://hiddenpalace.org/Pac-Man_Ghost_Zone_(Jun_9,_1997_E3_Demo)

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