Pac-Land/Environments

There are seven major environments that each of the game's thirty-two rounds are composed of. Some rounds are composed of a combination of two or more of these environments. As you progress throughout the game, new and more difficult elements, are introduced into each environment, building upon and mixing with the elements, that were previously introduced.

Town
This is the first environment that Pac-Man will encounter, and it will always be the first round of each trip, if the trip contains a Town round. In each town, Pac-Man passes a collection of buildings, and a number of fire hydrants. The primary method of ghostly attack is with motor vehicles. In the first Town you encounter (Round 1), the fire hydrants will be dormant. Jumping on fire hydrants makes fruit appear, typically in the windows of nearby buildings. The next time you encounter a Town (Round 5), they will exhibit a common behavior for the rest of the game: gobs of water get shot out of the hydrant on a regular basis. These gobs will push Pac-Man along at top speed. The only way to escape from their force is to jump up and allow the water to pass underneath. They can be extremely dangerous when ghosts are driving nearby in cars, or when Sue is close by. Later on in the game, the hydrants become stacked - one on top of the other. These stacked hydrants are more difficult to jump over, so get a running start. The rooftops of buildings can be jumped on and traversed if you can reach them. But ghosts also like to fly by in airplanes, so running on the roofs is not always a good idea. In later rounds, ghosts switch from the smaller motor vehicles to the higher double-decker buses that require a running jump just to get on top of. One other ghost attack to watch out for comes exclusively from Inky. Inky likes to hide out in some second-story windows and drop his own cyan miniaturized ghosts as you pass by. Every Town has one power pellet, so Lucky Pacs (which are the equivalent of the Lucky Flags from Namco's own New Rally-X, 1981) can be captured fairly easily if you time things just right.

Return Trips: When Towns are part of a return trip, they contain all of the features they had on your initial outing. Ghosts will be flying through the air in planes, and driving on the ground in cars and buses, leaving a narrow strip of guaranteed safety in the middle, that can be hard to stay in. But it's not uncommon to find a power pellet in the middle of a Town, on a return trip.

Desert
As can be expected, Deserts don't have a lot of features. They have cacti that can occasionally be pushed to reveal a secret. For the most part, you will simply jump over them. One deadly feature of the Deserts, are quicksand areas - which are indicated by a skull. As you are being drawn into the quicksand, the skull's teeth will begin to chatter with laughter. Touching the skull is lethal. You are best off either jumping continuously, or better yet, jumping over the area from the top of a cactus. Sometimes a springboard (see the Ponds section below) will be present to help you avoid the deadlier sections, but their use is not always required. The ghosts will also come towards you with the usual variety: pogo sticks, flying saucers, and airplanes will all be employed against Pac-Man in the Desert rounds of the game. Deserts are commonly interrupted by ponds, and even by sections of Forests. They also contain power pellets, which you can use to the best of your advantage, if there are a lot of ghosts coming towards you, in various vehicles.

Return Trips: Return trips through the Deserts are uncommon after the beginning of the game, and feature extremely tall cacti. It's a simple matter to jump over them with the flying boots, but time your jumps carefully so that you don't hit any ghosts flying overhead.

Forest
The Forest environment is the only environment to feature a layer that scrolls in front of the player's view. Some trees pass between Pac-Man, and your view of him, but these obstructions are small, and temporary. You should be more concerned, about the ghosts, whose positions are obscured by the trees (although you can usually see their eyes through the trees, so they are never completely hidden). Throughout the Forest, Pac-Man will encounter tree stumps, that must be cleared with jumps. Some of the stumps can be pushed in the opposite direction to reveal secrets such as helmets, invisibility, and even a warp from Round 2 to the end of Round 8. The ghosts will frequently come towards you, riding pogo sticks, and flying saucers, and less frequently in airplanes. Keeping a good track of their location is a must. Fruits can appear in various locations, but one thing that Pac-Man will encounter is a floating fruit that bobs up and down as it floats by. Whenever Pac-Man catches one of these flying fruits, three additional fruits will instantly appear at whatever height the original fruit was caught, so try your best to catch them when they are low. In much later rounds, you will be forced to cross the Forests, in complete darkness, with only a limited space in front of you visible. It's not uncommon for a Forest to contain a Power Pellet later in the round - but you should not count on this statement for every Forest round in the game.

Return Trips: Forests are more of a glorified obstacle course during return trips. The ghosts don't assault you as intensely as they do in the Towns, but you must still watch out for them. During Trip 5, and every fourth trip thereafter, the return trip consists of two incredibly long stretches of Forest (with no tree stumps) along with two long Ponds before eventually coming to a Town once you've run out of time and lost the pair of magic flying boots.

Mountains
Mountains can be one of the most difficult environments to clear later on in the game. They start out simply enough, with rolling log platforms, that rise and fall. The logs roll in the opposite direction, that Pac-Man needs to go, so you must constantly tap one of the run buttons to get Pac-Man moving again. Beneath these logs are bottomless pits that you must avoid falling into. Towards the end of every Mountains round, there is typically a crumbling log bridge, that must be quickly jumped over, or Pac-Man will be left, with no means to cross the gap. Later on, clouds are introduced. Clouds in the Pac-Land, ironically, can be jumped on and ridden. In many instances, they will also cause fruits to appear, when they are landed on. Don't focus on the fruits, focus on keeping Pac-Man alive. These clouds are exactly the width that Pac-Man steps, so you should not take two steps in the same direction, or Pac-Man will fall off. Eventually, the most difficult aspect of the Mountains arrives in the form of a small lake with floating logs in it. The logs must be carefully navigated in order to reach the opposite side, and they can be very easy to miss. You cannot wait too long on them either given that Sue is constantly tracking you down. If that wasn't enough, the ghosts will typically approach you in airplanes, dropping miniaturized ghosts on you as they fly along. The Mountains require the most patience and practice out of all of the environments.

Return Trips: Due to the fact that you possess the magic flying boots for the return journey, much of the challenge of the Mountains environment is rendered moot, since you can hop through the air at will. The problem, however, is that you are forced to jump very high in order to clear certain cliffs, and ghosts are sure to fly over those cliffs in airplanes. So if you jump too high, you will be hit with a face full of propeller and metaphorically shredded.

Ponds
Ponds are frequently mixed into the other environments, although they can compose an entire environment on their own. The trick to crossing ponds is mastering the use of the springboard. The springboard can be surprisingly difficult to for beginners to master. As Pac-Man runs along, he reaches the springboard and begins to run across it. Once he has reached the end of the board, the board darkens, indicating that he is ready to jump. The further along the board you'll jump, the higher into the air you'll rise. If you time your jump too late, you will run off the board and perform a regular jump (usually into the Pond, costing you a life). Once you are in the air, you need to furiously tap the direction you were running in, to maintain your height, in the air. If you do not do this, you will drop like a stone. Many Ponds that you will encounter later in the game will extend to the very limit of how far Pac-Man can jump, so if you do not execute the jump perfectly, you will just miss the edge and fall in the water. Often, you will see fruit lined up in a descending pattern. If you are collecting them as you descend, then you are perfectly lined up for your landing. If you are not picking them up, you might still make it if you are just beneath them, so do not give up. Later rounds feature an island in the middle of the Pond, that you must land on before continuing your trip from another springboard. These islands can contain power pellets in a few instances. In Trip 8, and every fourth trip thereafter, there is no springboard prior to the Pond. In this case, you must hitch a ride from one of the ghosts who are going your way in airplanes, but you must make sure to time your jump onto their heads correctly to avoid being shredded.

Return Trips: Ponds must simply be floated over in order to return home. Fruits may be tantalizingly displayed to lure you to a bad location, but always observe the position of the ghosts before dropping or rising for the point bonuses. You shouldn't waste time collecting them either given that you will lose the flying boots if you manage to run out of time, and Sue comes.

Bridge
The Bridge environments may not be as difficult as the Mountains, but it can be nearly as frustrating. The Bridge may have at one time been whole and useful, but now it is a mess. Gaps in the floor and walls do little to protect you from the water beneath. Your jumps will be rather constrained here, and you need to plan ahead if you want to reach certain levels of the crumbling bridge. To make matters worse, there are geysers that form at the bottom of the screen, bursting to the ceiling and falling back down. If Pac-Man happens to get caught in their wake, it is difficult, but not impossible, to escape from their grasp. Jumping rapidly is the only hope you have of keeping Pac-Man alive. The bridge also features fire hydrants (like the ones from the Town rounds) that fire their usual gobs of water at you, but these are typically only found on the highest platforms. They can contain secrets, but those secrets can cost you a life if you do not pay attention to the water blasts, both from the hydrants and the geysers - for Pac-Man cannot swim.

Return Trips: Like most environments, a lot of the sting is taken from the area thanks to your flying boots. Do not be fooled however. The geysers can still be dangerous, and the ghosts will still try to prevent Pac-Man from making it back to both his home and family.

Castle
The Castle (which is the only environment in the game to not feature the usual background music), is deceptively challenging. The first time you encounter one (Round 14), you will be able to see everywhere that you go. The remaining trips through the Castle will be in complete darkness, making it a lot more difficult to navigate. The Castle has three levels of height, with many gaps in the floor and a number of locked doors. In addition, you will find keys that you can use to unlock the doors. There is always a way to make it through the Castle, but finding the keys, and opening the right doors, will substantially reduce the amount of time it takes, for you to clear the round. In fact, with no ghosts apart from Sue, to bother you, time is your only real enemy, in these rounds. But you will find time frequently running out on you the first few times you attempt to clear the round, causing Sue to rush you, and assuredly kill you the moment you need to double back and find another path. The layout for the Castle in the fifth trip of the game and every fourth trip thereafter remains constant, as does the Castle in the eighth trip of the game, and every fourth trip after that. So if you can become familiar enough with the placement of the keys and doors, you can reduce your likelihood of running out of time and being rushed.

Return Trips: This is the one environment that you will never return through, mostly because of the changes in background music.