Pac-Man Battle Royale

Pac-Man Battle Royale
Developer(s)	Namco Bandai Games
Publisher(s)	Namco Bandai Games
Director(s)	Kunito Komori
Series	Pac-Man
Platforms	Arcade
Release date(s)	January 21, 2011
Genre(s)	Arcade, Maze chase

Pac-Man Battle Royale is the 17th arcade game in Pac-Man's series (11th official). It is made as part of Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary and developed by Namco Bandai Games. It was first released for the arcade in January 2011 and later ported to Pac-Man Museum for a digital release (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC) in 2014.

First appearances

Battle Royale was first displayed in the United States in a playable state at the 2010 Amusement Expo show in Las Vegas. in March 2010. It was then seen again at an after-party event during E3, where Namco America brought four cabinets for attendees to play. Namco also took the unusual step of throwing a party prior to the launch of the game at the Whiskey River Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin. It was not seen in Japan until September 2010 at the JAMMA Amusement Machine Show, which is opposite of most major Namco arcade releases where they are shown off in Japan first and are later brought to the US.

Gameplay

Battle Royale features a one to four-player mode, with the Pac-Man character available in four different colours. In single player mode, a CPU controlled Pac-Man will attempt to eat the player. The game can be set anywhere from three to nine rounds and, in each round, the players must eat the other Pac-Man players on the board (or allow them to be defeated by the ghosts) to advance. The game shares similar graphics layout to that of Pac-Man Championship Edition.

If all players ate all of the dots and power pellets in the playing field, they will be provided with new ones.

If a player eats the item on one of the sides of the cage of the monsters, all remaining dots and power pellets in the playing field will be replaced.

When equal-strength Pac-Man players meet, both are knocked back and become helpless for a split-second except when both turned blue.

When a Pac-Man player turns blue, it includes outline and its color is the same before it turned blue in order to distinguish it from other Pac-Man players that turned blue also.

If one Pac-Man player remains in one round, that is the winner for that round and it will proceed to the next round except final round.

Pac-Man players turned blue cannot eat monsters turned blue and other Pac-Man players that turned blue also.

Maximum playing time in a round is 2 minutes. If 10 seconds remain, it is displayed on top of the cage of the monsters.

Release

While the game was reported for a release in September 2010, it was delayed for unknown reasons until late November 2010. NAMCO America, Inc. officially announced the release of Pac-Man Battle Royale on January 21, 2011.

Unique to Namco's other modern arcade releases, the company created a Facebook page to promote the game, which registered locations where players could find the game.