Brian Taylor

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Part strategy guide, part catalog, part scrapbook-and-legal-summary, Pac-Mania is odd. Very odd.

Published by Beekman House in 1982 and attributed to "the editors of Consumer Guide", Pac-Mania is divided into an introduction and three sections: Pac-Man: The Game, Pac-Man: Products, and Pac-Man: Superstar. It is a good thing that each section heading contains the word "Pac-Man" -- you might forget what you are reading about amid the variations on Pac-Man iconography (product photos, drawings, people dressed in full-size Pac-Man costumes) that fill the book.

The Game section gives a little history and a little strategy. Pac-Man players developed patterns which allowed them to exploit the predictable AI of the ghosts. Looking at these makes my eyes cross -- they're a series of maze images with the paths overlayed, but it's not very easy to tell which paths one should follow on any given pass. Some other pattern providers split the mazes out into a sequence, with only a part of the pattern on each maze.

Which pattern you use depends on the level you are on (indicated by the fruit, and later Galaxian, and, eventually, keys) and whether it's "fast" or "slow". Machines could be set either fast or slow -- you could tell which mode the game was in by watching which ghost ate Pac-Man before you put in your quarters. The book was published the year I was born; my Pac-Man experience was limited to a hometown pizza bar's Ms. Pac-Man cocktail table. According to the book, patterns were useless for Ms. Pac-Man. There's probably an essay on modeling gendered ideas of behavior in there somewhere.

The book only has a few patterns -- two "super patterns" that work on every level (so long as you are courageous), and then four other patterns: two from a 12-year-old and two from a 32-year-old production manager for a lithographer.

It gives strategies for the Atari Pac-Man, and interestingly, for K.C. Munchkin (which you may remember from my column on court decisions). It's strange because earlier in the book there is a two-page discussion about bootleg versions of Pac-Man: Puck-Man [Yes, Scott, we know], Gobbler, Mazeman, Cruiser, Hanglyman, and Munchy-Man. "They were produced by bootleggers, pirates, counterfeitters. You can chose the name you think fits best." The authors of the book choose "bootleggers" so they can make Hatfield and McCoys jokes.

Brian Taylor

I wasn't kidding about the Hatfields and McCoys.

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Bootleg games, small tweaks on an established bestseller, flooded the market and fooled consumers and killed sales of the original games. The book informs that "bootleg games illegally compete with Video game manufacturers." Sounds like criticisms leveled against certain developers in the current mobile games space.

"The odd part of this situation is that many players don't even know a bootleg machine from the real McCoy -- or don't seem to care. One thing is certain: bootleg Pac-Man machines take away from the image of the original product. The serious Pac-Maniac does not patronize the bootleg games for the simple reason taht these games often give back less for the quarter than the true product. True Pac-Maniacs are purists."

So, basically, casual gamers don't know any better (or worse, don't care), but the hardcore -- they know. They are the true believers, keeping faith with the original. They can read the attract screen omens and know which patterns their game asks of them.

Brian Taylor

What's up, 1982?

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There's a lot more in the book (the high-waisted jeans! The photos of Pac-Man Day!), but I need to be careful, lest this column become a series of fortnightly book reports. But I can't help it -- if this medium wasn't so hell-bent on ignoring every part of its history that can't be digitally distributed to monetize nostalgia, I wouldn't have to push so hard in the other direction.

Paratext is a literary criticism term to describe the published material that accompanies a text. Paratext is a column about the things around games, where Brian Taylor uses his mad librarian skills to dig up the greatest things.