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Document Title: [Pac-ManStrategy.html (html file)]

Pac-Man strategy, tips, and 9th Key Pattern

Submitted by Dave Hollinsworth, one unknown person, Lee Crawford, Ken Arromdee

Idle trick:

Need a breather? Just park yourself in the spot immediately and to the right of where you start, and make sure that no monsters are "looking" at you when you do it. The monsters will run all over the maze, but they'll never find you. Go to the bathroom in peace.

9th Key pattern for Pac-Man: (Provided by Ken Arromdee)

-------------------------------------
|A------B ------C| |D------E ------F|
| |    |  |    | | | |    |  |    | |
| |    |  |    | | | |    |  |    | |
| ------  ------ --- ------  ------ |
|G------H --I-----------J--K ------L|
| |    |  || |___   ___| ||  |    | |
| |    |  ||____ | | ____||  |    | |
|M------N | ___| |_| |___ |Q ------R|
|-------  || ___O___P___ ||  -------|
|      |  || |         | ||  |      |
|-------  -- |         | --  -------|
|-------S --T|         |U--V -------|
|      |  || ----------- ||  |      |
|-------  ||W-----------X||  -------|
|Y______  -- |___   ___| --  ______Z|
| |___ |a __b___ | | ___c__d | ___| |
|____ ||  |____| |_| |____|  || ____|
|   | ||e __f___g___h___i__j || |   |
|___| ||  || |___   ___| ||  || |___|
|k __l__m_||____ | | ____||n___o__p |
|  |___________| |_| |___________|  |
|_______________q___r_______________|

Move to the points in this order: hjnprqfgbaSTOIJPUX (fruit munch) WTSVQKHmkqrijdVQRLKEDCBHIOPUX (fruit munch) WSTVZonjihcdVSYlmeaSNMGABHGMNHIJKEFLKQVSaef.

Two 9-th key patterns of interest are: the fastest, reliable 9-th key pattern in existence (43 seconds per board--awesome for time-limit tournaments of that era) and the most exciting (my very own!) where you will go through two monsters and be nearly eaten several times before you're through. Both were printed in Joystik Magazine. I could work them up in ASCII if interest warranted.

As for the question about why the blue monster went off the maze tracks, [see below] it's hard to repeat consistently but this happens when you turn him blue while he's still inside the center box and then eat him right at the door. You can turn him blue again even though he's not following the maze, eat him, and have his eyes get lost because they don't know how to get back to the box. MORE COMPLETELY USELESS FUN!!!

Lee Crawford Says :

I have a PAC MAN (MS PAC MAN) machine and saw something this morning I didn't think could happen and thought maybe you'd know something about it. I was playing the first screen and the aqua ghost was heading up at the top of the screen. Instead of turning and following along the top of the screen he continued up and off the top and reappeared from below. I've NEVER seen this happen before ?