Professor Pac-Man is a quiz arcade video game that was produced by Bally Midway and released in August 1983. It is the seventh title in the Pac-Man series of games. It is also the last of only seven games from Bally Midway Manufacturing to run on their Midway Astrocade hardware. Only 400 cabinets were made; many of these were returned to the manufacturer and converted to Pac-Land cabinets.

Gameplay

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The game is for one player or two (in a two-player game, the player who is the first to answer a question correctly receives its points) and consists of answering multiple-choice questions before the time runs out. The timer is the original Pac-Man, eating a row of pellets. The more pellets left when the players answer correctly, the higher the scores awarded. As the questions progress, Pac-Man eats the pellets more quickly. Bonus questions are awarded after a player answers between two and six questions correctly on their first try. The game ends when a player runs out of fruits (the game's equivalent of lives, which also serve as a difficulty indicator). Fruits are lost for a wrong answer on a regular question (but not a bonus question), and fruits can also be earned for answering a bonus question correctly (but not lost if answered wrong).

Midway had also originally planned to release three different versions of this game: Family (appropriate for all ages, but geared towards younger players), Public (appropriate for general audiences, but geared towards arcades and bars), and Prizes (for casinos). but no new questions sets were ever released.

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  • Professor Pac-Man at the Arcade History database