Online Pacman Game
Play a seeded Pac-Man-style maze with three modes and difficulty levels, then measure pellet progress through power chains and active time.{{ feedbackText }}
Maze-chase play is a route-planning problem under moving pressure. Pellets reward coverage, but an efficient route must also leave exits when patrols approach. A turn can be tactically safe while sending the player away from uncleared corridors, so survival and maze progress constantly compete.
Power pellets temporarily reverse that relationship. Patrol contact changes from a lost-life threat into a scoring opportunity, and successive captures in one power window are worth increasingly more. The strongest use of the window often begins before collecting it: nearby patrols, open escape lanes, and the remaining pellet route determine whether a chase is worth the detour.
- Queued turn
- A direction selected before the next junction; it takes effect when that lane becomes passable.
- Power chain
- Successive patrol captures during one power window, with each early capture increasing the next base award.
- Clear rate
- The share of all pellets and power pellets collected before the run ends.
Difficulty and mode change more than labels. Lives, patrol movement frequency, power duration, score scaling, time limit, and fruit value can differ. That makes a score meaningful only alongside the selected settings and the number of pellets cleared.
A seed resolves patrol choices that would otherwise tie. Repeating the same setup, seed, and actions makes the route reproducible, which is useful for testing a turn at one junction or a power-pellet approach. Changing the seed creates a different deterministic tie-break pattern rather than an unbounded random run.
This is a compact, original maze-practice variation rather than an arcade-authentic emulation. Its scores are entertainment and practice markers with no monetary value.
How to Use This Tool:
Choose whether you want a balanced run, a faster chain drill, or a more forgiving route before comparing scores.
- Select Difficulty and Maze mode. Easy adds a life and slows patrols; Hard moves them more often. Rush raises scoring pressure, while Practice provides more time and slower patrol timing.
- Enter a Run seed if you want a repeatable route, then start the maze run. Keep the same settings and actions when testing one decision against another.
- Steer with the arrow keys or WASD. A direction can be queued before a corner; swipe or use the touch pad on touch devices. Press P or use Pause to freeze movement, patrols, power time, and active time.
- Read Pellets, Power, Lives, and Time with Score. After the run, compare pellets cleared and best chain before using Replay same seed or New seed.
Interpreting Results:
Score combines ordinary pellet collection, power pellets, patrol chains, fruit, the maze-clear award, and the selected score scales. It cannot show route quality by itself. Pair it with Pellets, Best chain, lives remaining, and active time.
A high chain shows that one power window was used aggressively, not that the whole maze route was efficient. A high pellet count with a modest score may reflect safer coverage and fewer patrol captures. Runs from different difficulties or modes should be treated as different practice conditions.
A cleared maze ends the current run. Other terminal results include being caught with no lives left, reaching the mode's active-time limit, or ending the run manually. The replay seed helps reproduce rule choices, but human timing and input must also match.
Technical Details:
The maze is a 21-column by 23-row grid with a horizontal tunnel on row 12. Movement advances in fixed 50 millisecond ticks. The player moves every two ticks; patrol frequency depends on both difficulty and mode. At a junction, each patrol follows its target style, avoids an immediate reverse when another route exists, and uses the seed to break equal-distance choices.
Formula Core
Each scoring event starts with a base value, then applies the selected difficulty and mode multipliers. The result is rounded to the nearest integer before it is added.
B is 10 for a pellet, 50 for a power pellet, or 600 for clearing the maze. Patrol captures use base awards of 200, 400, 800, and 1,600 during a continuing power chain; further captures in that window remain at the 1,600 base.
| Difficulty | Lives | Base patrol interval | Power time | Score factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 4 | 6 ticks | 8.6 s | 0.85 |
| Normal | 3 | 5 ticks | 7.2 s | 1.00 |
| Hard | 3 | 4 ticks | 5.6 s | 1.35 |
Rule Core
| Mode | Patrol change | Score factor | Active-time limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic | No interval offset | 1.00 | 6 min |
| Rush | One tick more frequent | 1.18 | 4 min |
| Practice | One tick less frequent | 0.80 | 7.5 min |
A fruit appears after the collected count reaches 55% of the maze goal. Reaching 10,000 points awards one extra life once per run. Contact with a patrol during power time returns that patrol home and extends the current chain; contact outside power time removes a life after the opening invulnerability period.
No run history or best-score table is stored for this game. The terminal summary reports score, pellets, patrols eaten, best chain, active time, and the replay seed for the completed run.