The game also spawned a virtual cottage industry of best-selling how-to books strategy guides on how to beat the game by using patterns with names like the 'Bazo's Breaker', the 'Donut Dazzler' and the 'GET pattern' (named after the first initials of the members of a team of players from Davis, California: George Huang, Ed Bazo, and Tom Fertado). The game's cult status in the early 80's was such that it inspired a hit song by 'Buckner and Garcia' called 'Pac-Man Fever', released in 1982 on the album of the same name.

Unlike the Japanese version, the American version has no DIP switch for alternate ghost names.

Notice that the pink ghost's nickname remains unchanged from the Japanese version.

Shadow - 'Blinky' (red ghost) Speedy - 'Pinky' (pink ghost) Bashful - 'Inky' (cyan ghost) Pokey - 'Clyde' (orange ghost)

The name/nickname combinations for the ghosts in this version are:.

Refer to the Namco Upright version entry, Trivia section, for details behind this name change.

The game's name (and likewise its main character) has been changed to Pac-Man.

Midway made the following changes to the game (from the original Namco version): Bally/Midway, meanwhile, took Pac-Man and 'Rally-X'.

The other game they got was released as 'King & Balloon'. Game Plan won and chose a tank game (which they released as 'Tank Battalion') over Pac-Man. Game Plan's Ken Anderson reports that he and Bally's Dave Marofske flipped a coin to see who would get first crack at the games. Reportedly, when Bally/Midway obtained the rights to Pac-Man, Namco was offering four different games, which ended up being licensed to Game Plan and Bally/Midway. 932 TRIVIA Pac-Man was released in October 1980 in North America by Bally/Midway, under license from Namco. For more information about the game itself, please see the original Japanese release entry, 'Puckman '. Game developed by Namco and originally known as Puckman in Japan.

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