I Ain’t Afraid Of No Ghosts
When I first saw Pac-Man Craze Maze, I was worried it was going to be a little gimmicky, that there wouldn’t be much of a game underneath the IP’s nostalgia. I’m very pleased to be so wrong.
2-5 Pac-Men (Pac-Mans looks so wrong!) compete to find the most lucrative journey from the start position to a maze exit, through a combo of drawing tiles from centre and flipping those in front of them.Ghosts will cause negative points, unless Pac-Man eats a power pellet directly beforehand, then he’s able to nom them up for massive points.
A-maze-ing gameplay?
Aside from a mild “take that” mechanic, where you can steal a maze tile from an opponent’s maze if you draw an Eyes tile, which can lead to some aggravating moments (for better or worse), everyone basically tending to their own maze. You can be oblivious to what others are doing in their own maze, although you’ll find yourself counting how much of a certain tile everyone has to work out the chance you’ll be able to get another of that type.
I Ain’t Afraid Of No Ghosts
When I first saw Pac-Man Craze Maze, I was worried it was going to be a little gimmicky, that there wouldn’t be much of a game underneath the IP’s nostalgia. I’m very pleased to be so wrong.
2-5 Pac-Men (Pac-Mans looks so wrong!) compete to find the most lucrative journey from the start position to a maze exit, through a combo of drawing tiles from centre and flipping those in front of them.Ghosts will cause negative points, unless Pac-Man eats a power pellet directly beforehand, then he’s able to nom them up for massive points.
A-maze-ing gameplay?
Aside from a mild “take that” mechanic, where you can steal a maze tile from an opponent’s maze if you draw an Eyes tile, which can lead to some aggravating moments (for better or worse), everyone basically tending to their own maze. You can be oblivious to what others are doing in their own maze, although you’ll find yourself counting how much of a certain tile everyone has to work out the chance you’ll be able to get another of that type.
When a Pac-Man has multiple routes out of the maze, only the highest scoring is considered so invariably everyone will try and make one giant superpath through the entire maze, racking up as many points as possible. This happens pretty naturally and while there is a certain level of satisfaction to be had in getting the right elements in the right order, the super pellet before 4 consecutive ghosts for example, a large amount of it is luck. So if you’re after deep strategic gaming, this isn’t it.
After a game or two, the expert rules aren’t particularly daunting and add a bit more depth with its ways to both score and lose points. It would be nice to have the expert rules on the player handouts rather than having to look them up in the rule book, as unless you’re playing with very young players, you’ll progress to those very quickly and not look back.
So is the theme Pacced on?
Well yes and no. But then a hell of a lot of modern boardgames have a theme that is mere nanometres deep. The parts of the IP theme it executes well are the artwork, the maze structure and the fact you have to get the power pellet before you touch the ghosts, or you get negative points.
On the flip side, you are just flipping and laying tiles to score endgame points, making it far more similar to other abstract games like Kingdomino than to the source material. It didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game or anyone’s who I played it with, but it’s worth noting going in that this is abstract tile laying and point scoring, not something dynamic with movement or involving dexterity.
A Bitter Pill To Swallow?
Pac-Man Craze Maze is a game I would recommend with or without the Pac-Man IP. I think it’s a nice game with easy to learn mechanics. A gamer can be taught this game in around 30 seconds, maybe a young child or absolute non-gamer might need 5 minutes and some practise turns to get used to the flow of the game but it’s a very quick and easy teach. So who is the IP for? Parents/Grandparents with fond Pac-Man memories wanting to play a fun game with kids?
The components are basic but do their job well and have nice thematically congruous artwork. I have only played it with adults so far but given how well Kingdomino goes down with my daughters and their friends, I do think kids will love this one too, even if Pac-Man’s heyday was well before their time. Playtime is snappy at around 25-30 minutes regardless of player count. 4-5 player have half the cards in their maze as 2 players, keeping the game length consistent.
It can be slightly frustrating if you don’t get the tiles you need, but after a couple of playthroughs you’ll realise that actually it’s about making the most with what you get rather than holding on for that 4th ghost whilst someone else turns over their tiles and wins the game. There is a lot of luck involved to get the perfect maze but to get something passable and move onto a different section is a push your luck skill.
And therein lies the skill part of the game. You will never get exactly what you want, but working out what’s been seen and what is likely to come up will help you work out when to twist and when to stick like Flip 7. And by stick, I mean saying “that section of my maze is good enough, I’ll move onto a different part and try and improve it later if there’s time”.
