Baby Pac-Man

Baby Pac-Man
Arcade Flyer (1982)
Developer(s)	Bally Midway
Publisher(s)	Bally Midway
Release	October 11, 1982
Genre(s)	Maze/Pinball
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Cabinet	Upright
Display	Raster, horizontal orientation

Baby Pac-Man is a hybrid arcade/pinball game released by Bally Midway on October 11, 1982. The cabinet consists of a 13-inch video screen seated above an elevated horizontal pinball game, and the combination fits into roughly the same size space as an upright arcade machine.

The development of Baby Pac-Man was not authorized by Namco. It was designed and released entirely by Bally-Midway (as were Pac-Man Plus, Jr. Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man), which eventually led to Namco canceling its relationship with Bally-Midway. 7,000 units were produced.

Baby Pac-Man was divided into two distinct modes of play: Video and Pinball.

Play begins on the video screen, where the player controls Baby Pac-Man through a maze. Play mechanics are similar to Pac-Man in that the object is to navigate the maze while gobbling dots and avoiding ghosts. In contrast to earlier games in the series, Baby Pac-Man's maze starts with no energizers. Instead, there are two vertical chutes at the bottom edge of the screen, which suspend video play and transfer the game to the pinball table when the player travels down either of them.

The pinball section operates as a traditional pinball game in which the player hits targets with a metal ball using two button-operated flippers. The player may earn energizers, gain new fruit bonuses, and increase tunnel speed, all used in the video mode. If the player fails to keep the ball in play, the game resumes on the video screen, but with the chutes closed. The player must then be caught by a ghost to reopen the chutes. The game ends when the player runs out of lives.