Release Date:
March 15, 2020
Developer:
Bandai
The Pac-Man Tamagotchi (パックマン たまごっち) is a variant of the Tamagotchi Nano. Part of the celebration of Pac-Man’s 40th anniversary, Tamagotchi and Bandai Namco’s Pac-man did this collaboration. As someone who loves video games, and therefor Pac-man, and Tamagotchi, I was eager to try this one.
The Pac-man Tamagotchi has 2 different shells; a yellow and black variant. I have the black one. You could also get a rubber Pac-man case to protect yours.
It is part of the Tamagotchi Nano series, a stripped down version of the original Tamagotchi. The Tamagotchi Nano is still eggs-shaped, but smaller than an orignal Tamagotchi, as the name suggests, and has a teardrop shape at the front instead of the cracked egg shape. Pac-man Tamagotchi is the same size and shape as the other Nanos, however the front half of the body is a new mold. Instead of the shape and outer shell being two separate molds, they are now together as one mold. This makes the teardrop outline more shallow and allows graphics to be printed on it, as can be seen on the black variant.
Inside the teardrop is the LCD screen, and there’s 3 buttons below it. My black variant has a Pac-man maze printed on it, and the buttons are orange and made of a softer, more rubber like material. It is the first time a licensed Nano has coloured buttons instead of white. A small ball chain is attached on the top.
The screen is 24x24pixels. There’s no backdrop on it, and no rows of icons like other virtual pets have.
Noteworthy is that there is no Japanese release, making it the first Nano to do so.
Gameplay
The screen is not back lit, so light needs to catch the screen if you want to see something. The screen is also quite recessed, creating a large shadow.
Unlike a regular Tamagotchi, the Nano works a bit differently.
When you start it up you first set the Clock. Babies sleep at 8PM, Adults at 10PM. They wake up at 7PM. At 10AM, 2PM, and 6PM it will give you a Close Up, unless it’s being chased by Ghosts, has the Bugs or is Sulking.
It then displays “READY!” like in the Pac-man game and shows the Egg. The Egg is white with black spots, like in the Japanese Gen 1 Tamagotchi. The Egg has a stretch and squash animation for a few minutes and then pops open, revealing a Baby.
Pac-Man Tamagotchi has 3 growth stages; Baby, Adult and the last one being a Bonus. It is the first Nano to have a third growth stage.
The Baby stage takes 24 hours, while Adult stage lasts till it dies or leaves. There are 2 different Babies and 7 different Adults. Which Adult you get depends on which Baby you had and how well you took care of it. The Bonus is the Adult riding Pac-man.
After 24 hours it’ll turn into an Adult.
If you take great care of it, you will reach the Bonus Stage, where the Adult rides Pac-man.
Pac-Man Tamagotchi only has 2 Options; Feed and Minigames. This can be accessed using the left button.
Feed is the Icon of a Fork, Plate and Knife. This has another 2 Options; Meal and Snack.
Meal is the Icon of a bowl of rice. Snack is the Icon of a Cherry, which is the Bonus Item in the game Pac-man. When choosing this your Tamagotchi will eat it in a few frames.
Minigames is the Icon of a Pac-man and Ghost. This also has 2 Options; Pac Game and Catch Game.
Pac Game is the Icon of Pac-man chasing Pellets and a Ghost. In this Minigame, you move Pac-man between 3 rows and try and eat the Pellets while avoiding Ghosts. The Left Button moves you up and the Middle Button moves you down. Eating 25+ Pellets is a Great Success (plays the Pac-man Cutscene and has them dancing with fireworks), eating 15-25 Pellets is a Success (has them dancing) and <14 Pellets, or touching a Ghost, is a Failure (Pac-man‘s Game Over screen). The Right Button closes the game. The screen is inverted, with the backdrop black and the game assets white.
Catch Game is the Icon of Pac-man with 2 arrows. In this Minigame you turn Pac-man left, up or right in an attempt to catch Fruit and Pellets, and avoid Ghosts. Once you’ve eaten a Power Pellet you can eat a Ghost, who will be inverted, too. The Left Button turns Pac-man Left, the Middle Button turns Pac-man up and the Right Button turns Pac-man right. Eating 8+ things without touching a Ghost is a Great Success (plays the Pac-man Cutscene and has them dancing with fireworks), eating 5-7 things, or 5+ with touching <3 Ghosts is a Success (has them dancing) and eating <4 things, or touching 3 Ghosts, is a Failure (Pac-man‘s Game Over screen). Pressing the Left and Right Button at the same time closes the game. The screen is inverted, with the backdrop black and the game assets white.
To take care of the Pac-Man Tamagotchi you have to pay attention to their mood. Pressing the Right Button will show this.
If their meters are full (which the game doesn’t show but are fully filled after successfully feeding / playing with them 4 times) they will perform a Close Up. This is a cute animation of their face close up to the screen, happily jumping upwards.
If they are Hungry, they will face away and show a dizzy swirl.
If they are Unhappy, they will face away and show a scowl animation.
If you fail to fill their Happy and / or Hungry meters for a prolonged period, they will Sulk. This is shown by them facing away and shows 3 animated lines.
Every once in a while, your Tamagotchi gets attacked / chased by a Ghost. Pressing the Left Button will summon Pac-man who will chase it away for you. If you do not get rid of the Ghost, another will appear until all 4 Ghosts are present. While Ghosts are on the screen you will not be able to feed or play games, or check their status with the Right Button, but you can still turn the Sound On or Off and view the Clock screen. The Ghosts replace the Poop of a regular Nano.
If you do not stop the Ghosts, the screen will eventually get “corrupted” with Bugs, which is a reference to the Map 256 Glitch of Pac-man.
This glitch occurs on the 256th level of Pac-Man, because the level counter in the original Pac-Man is stored as an 8-bit integer, meaning the highest value it can hold is 255. The level counter starts with 0 internally, but for calculating the fruit counter it adds 1; however, because of overflow, adding 1 to 255 would result in 0, and the game tries to count fruits from 1, causing the game to attempt to draw 256 fruit to the screen until it overflows to 0. The result is the garbled mess on the right side of the maze, because the screen memory starts with the bottom, followed by the columns from the right side.
Your Tamagotchi will get a similar garbled mess on the right. Like with the Ghosts, pressing the Left Button will summon Pac-man to eat it all away. While Bugs are on the screen you will not be able to feed or play games, or check their status with the Right Button, but you can still turn the Sound On or Off and view the Clock screen.
Lastly, you can turn the Light off when your Tamagotchi goes to sleep. Pressing the Left Button once they’re asleep will give you the option of lights on or off, represented by an on and off lightbulb.
Eventually your Tamagotchi game will end. This can happen in 3 different ways.
Death; If you fail to clear the Bugs in time, they will take over the screen and your Tamagotchi will die. They will turn into Obaketchi, a first for an English exclusive release (Obaketchi was censored in the West till 2017).
Running Away; If you fail to cheer your Tamagotchi up while it’s Sulking, it will put on a backpack and run away. The screen will show gusts of wind blowing.
Departure; If you take good care of your Tamagotchi, never allowing it to sulk for too long and chase all of the ghosts away, the Tamagotchi will leave once enough care mistakes are made. It will appear standing next to Pac-Man, perform a final Close-Up, and walk away to the left side of the screen. Pac-Man will be left behind and idle.
Pressing both the Left and Right Button at the same time will give a new Egg to hatch, in all 3 situations.
Packaging
The packaging is a simple blister pack, with a cardboard backing. It’s easy to get the Tamagothi in and out as you can simply slide the cardboard out to access it. The cardboard has a screenshot of Pac-man as the backdrop, with the device in the center.
There’s also one where you get a rubber Pac-man case with it. The packaging is the same, just wider to accommodate for it. Both the yellow and black case have the same packaging
Accessibility
- Visual
This Tamagotchi uses very few and simple sprites / animations, and has limited options. Most of these options are also context sensitive. You will always need to the Left Button for these, so by pressing this and listening for the sound you could get by. The minigames however require you to be able to see the screen, which is inverted, and can be harder to see.
The screen is not back lit, so good lighting is needed to see the screen. - Fine-Motor
The Minigames do require some fast paced input. I found the buttons even lagged / felt sticky a bit when playing the Pac Game, causing me to die. There are 3 small buttons it uses, which are all closely placed together however they are easy to feel.
There aren’t many penalties though, and minigames can be played over and over. - Auditory
Scrolling through an option or accepting as well as a cancel gives a confirmation beep. A successful jingle plays when playing the minigames and winning, as well as a fail jingle when losing. It doesn’t really beep when it needs attention however, but by pressing the Left Button it’ll clear whatever is on screen. There is also no sound to let you know it went to sleep, but it always sleeps at the same times.
No sound is needed to play this Tamagotchi, but if you relay on sound alone, you may struggle with the minigames and when it needs attention. - Cognitive
The Pac Game can be fast paced and frustrating due to the lagging buttons.
Your Tamagotchi can die.
Power Up
When I heard a new Tamagotchi was out, with the classic animations, and that had a crossover with Pac-man, I wanted it. They were widely available as well, and retailed for £15. What I didn’t know though was that it was a Nano.
I never played a Nano before. I just thought the modern Tamagotchi were smaller. Honestly I feel it’s like a watered down version of the original Tamagotchi. It has such limited options, and it rarely needs you. It’s just so easy! I guess it’s streamlined for modern ages, but it’s not how I remember Tamagotchi!
My record so far is 23 days, and honestly I got a bit bored with him! On the 9th day I got the Bonus Stage of him riding Pac-man. The last few days I almost forgot about him, even a whole day almost, hence I got the Bug screen. He still wasn’t dead! I found it takes about 2 hours for 1 Ghost to appear, so takes about 10 hours to get the Bugs, so you have plenty of time.
The screen is also tiny and so recessed, it’s hard to make out sometimes. The buttons are also not made for the fast reaction you require in the minigames.
That all said, I do like this one. I love the classic Tamagotchi with the Pac-man theming. I love the little nod to the 256 Glitch. I love how they added Pac-man sounds from the original arcade game, and how they modified the Tamagotchi sounds to give them an arcade sound effect feel. If I was going to play a Nano, I’m glad it’s this one.
I also like how not only does the Ghost stay near your bed when they’ve gone to sleep with one (makes sense, I guess Poop would just stay too) but the Ghost also closes its eyes! It’s these little touches that make it so cute.
I was even a bit saddened when my Tamagotchi finally left, leaving only Pac-man behind. The screen looked so empty and Pac-man looked so lonely. It’s kinda funny how you raise it together with Pac-man.
Quite a few crossover Nano Tamagotchi are out now, so it seems to be a lucrative business for Bandai. However I think they all play the same, but have different animations / theming, so I probably wouldn’t rush out to get any more. The Eevee Tamagotchi looks cute though (I do love Pokémon!) and I guess I would like a standard one just for comparison sake.
But my favourite thing about virtual pets is the excitement when they transform, which a Tamagotchi Nano lacks after 2 days. I’m not sure what triggers the Bonus Stage where they ride Pac-Man, as mine took 9 days to get there, but I heard others got it on their 3rd, and after that, it’s just seeing how long you can keep it going. The replayability is there to see if you can get all different Adults. And I will at some point do that too, and update the blog when I get them.
All this said, I just find these things so lovely. I just love small things and pixel games. They are easy to get into, have simple mechanics and not a lot of button presses, and it’s interesting to see a modern take on this.
Recommendation
If you like virtual pets or small simple pixel games, you’ll like this. It is a modern take though, so it’s very easy and casual. Due to the many “forms” it can have there’s some replayability here too. If you like Pac-man this one is especially great as the theming is spot on.
If you like deep complex video games, you probably quickly get bored with this one. If you like watching your virtual pet grow every day, you’ll dislike this one quickly too.
Do you have a Pac-man Tamagotchi? Are you thinking of running this one (again)? Is there any information you’re missing? Let me know in the comments below!