Ms. Pac-Man
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 arcade maze game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway Manufacturing. It is the follow‑up to Pac-Man and the first in the series not made by Namco. In the game you guide Ms. Pac-Man through a maze, eating pellets while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating a power pellet lets you chomp the ghosts for extra points, and fruits appear for bonus points. The game speeds up as you advance.
Ms. Pac-Man began as Crazy Otto, a modification kit GCC created for Pac-Man. After a legal agreement with Atari, GCC offered the project to Midway, who bought it and used it as a sequel. The character was redesigned to be female, and the name changed several times until settling on Ms. Pac-Man (with brief stops at Miss Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man). Namco provided some feedback on the character design, and Namco still earned royalties from the cabinets.
It was praised for improving Pac-Man’s gameplay and for having a female lead. It became a huge arcade hit, leading to many home ports, merchandise, a cartoon, and sequels. The rights are owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment, but legal disputes over royalties with GCC continued for years. In 2020 a lawsuit involving AtGames was dismissed, and in later years some re‑releases replaced Ms. Pac-Man with a new character Pac‑Mom in certain collections, though the game remains a landmark in video game history.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:13 (CET).