The Pac-Man craze is spreading. Midway's Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man have hit the arcades; Coleco has a little portable version of the Pac-Man arcade machines; and Atari's new Pac-Man cartridges are setting records in sales, being snapped up by eager Pac-fans as quickly as they appear in retail stores.

This book has been written for all those who play the Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man arcade games, and especially for those addicts who really have fun trying to improve their skills. Most of the book applies to the original Pac-Man game and the most widely distributed modified version of it, but parts are even applicable to other brand-new modifications (see chapter 6, "Developing Your Own Patterns"). We'll tell you many tricks to use to outsmart the monsters, and our patterns will enable you to get more game time for your money than ever before. If you used to think that a score like 1,000,000 was impossible, read on!

The primary purpose of this book is to teach players of the Pac-Man arcade game how to improve their score significantly. There are general concepts, specific guidelines, methods, and detailed patterns that can be followed like a cookbook recipe. Most of the hints and patterns concentrate on survival rather than on taking risks in order to increase chances of a slightly higher point total at a given "board" of the game. (We use the term "board" to refer to one of the sequential screens displayed on the Pac-Man game machine.) The methods can easily be adjusted, however, if you'd like to pursue a more aggressive strategy.