Mastering Pac-Man was published in 1981. Ken Uston, known for gambling, counting cards, and suing to get around being banned from casinos, is the author. This is a strategy guide for Pac-Man.
This has to be one of the earliest examples of a strategy guide. What makes it even more interesting is that it is for an arcade game. It is about helping the player get a better high score. What is very cool is that Ken included diagrams to help the reader better understand what is being talked about.
I thought this was odd at first, but then I remembered they couldn’t just take screenshots of the game. This was written before the first perfect game of Pac-Man was performed, so some of the information is inaccurate. Ken couldn’t have known about something that would happen in the future.
The Basics
The first few chapters go over the basics of Pac-Man. Ken assumes the reader has little to no knowledge of the game, which is a fair assumption. It wasn’t just kids who played these games.
I should point out that this is exclusive to the arcade version. The home version and the clones weren’t out yet, or Ken wasn’t aware of all of them. He does mention some of the arcade clones but doesn’t get into them much.
There are tables that break down the point totals for the game. He also explains the different settings for the arcade machine. Then, he explains that he has played Pac-Man machines across the country and only encountered a Fast Game and a Slow Game. These are the difficulty settings the arcade owner can set.
I wonder if there are other settings on the machine. After forty years, someone probably has a breakdown of how the machine works. Over the years, a ton of research has been done by arcade enthusiasts.
The last part of this section guides the reader to the pattern that is best for them. This encourages the reader to skip around in the book. If you consider yourself an expert at Pac-Man, skip to the end of the book, but if you think you’re a beginner, go to the next chapter (Chapter 5).
The Patterns
This book contains five patterns, each detailed using drawings. I liked this approach a lot, and it worked well then. Although this approach has been rendered obsolete, in 1981, it was the best way to explain things.
There was no internet or video-sharing service, and the closest thing to a let’s play was being lucky enough to find a friendly expert in an arcade. Basically, you would have to learn by doing unless you were fortunate enough to know about this book. This is similar to today; you’re stuck if you don’t know where to find the solution to your problem.
Ken gives us a key to understand the pattern diagrams better and explains some things about them. The scores are estimates mainly because he can’t factor in every factor in how a person plays. It might take a player some time to memorize these patterns, and they might be obsolete as forty years of playing this game could’ve resulted in more efficient patterns.
Ken explains that you might need to know several patterns. One pattern won’t necessarily work on every board or both difficulties. This is important to point out as the game will slowly ramp up in difficulty.
Clones, Handhelds, and Others
This is an odd addition to the book. Ken goes over Mazeman, New Puc-One, and the Pac-Man mini arcade. I don’t think these are as necessary as the clones weren’t as widespread as Pac-Man, and the handheld differs significantly from the arcade game. Expanding the last section on improvisation would’ve been more to my liking.
This was 1981, and there would be more clones and copycats released. Ken couldn’t know about all of them. A chapter like this might be interesting from a historical perspective, but it isn’t important for a strategy guide.
I like that he talks about the differences between the clones and Pac-Man. Developers weren’t all that creative in the beginning. These were straight copies of Pac-Man but with minor changes to avoid copyright infringement.
Improvisation
This is a fun part of the book. Ken gives the reader some tips he has picked up along the way, and there is also some speculation on where arcade games are going. There would be new versions of Pac-Man and games with similar play patterns.
Beating the game is brought up. Ken didn’t know about the kill screen or a perfect game of Pac-Man. In 1981, no one, aside from the developers, knew what the highest score could be or if the game had an ending.
Ken seems keenly aware of the changes in technology. He encourages the reader to come up with new patterns. I’m guessing this would go for the future clones and ports of Pac-Man.