This is the only maze throughout the entire game. The color of the boundaries may change, but the arrangement is constant.
Pac-Man begins directly beneath the ghost pen and directly above the bonus star.
Every stage has exactly 37 gates, 31 targets, 15 keys, 4 Power Pills, and 2 super Power Pills.
The gates, represented by light bars, that encapsulate the targets can be opened either by:
Eating the correct corresponding key (keys may open one or multiple gates)
Eating a Super Power Pill and crashing through the gate.
The two growing and shrinking green Power Pills give Pac-Man super power for a limited time. That time may be extended by eating one of the four flashing regular Power Pills.
The four of the gates inside the tunnel must be opened to allow Pac-Man to travel through it.
In addition to being slow through the tunnels, the ghosts also slows down beneath the ghost pen.
Both Pac-Man and the ghosts can enter the ghost pen at any time. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts in the ghost pen, but it's generally not recommended unless Pac-Man is super at the time.
Keys and gates
There are 15 keys arranged around the maze. Eating a key will open one or more of the 37 gates that close in the targets. By eating all 15 keys, all 37 gates should open.
Super Pac-Man can crash through gates without opening them beforehand. A crashed gate will appear with two small bits left behind. The key that opens a crashed gate will still function on that gate, even though the effect is meaningless.
As the levels increase in difficulty, the gates that a key opens moves farther away from where the key is actually located. In other words:
At the beginning levels, the gates that a key opens are likely to be right next to the key.
In later levels, the gates that a key opens are likely to be found on the opposite side of the screen from the key.
Bonus stars
After eating roughly half of the targets, a bonus star appears with alternating pictures in the squares on either side.
After some time passes, the picture on the left will stop changing and lock on to the image of a particular target. The right picture will continue to change.
The star will disappear if uneaten after a period of time.
If Pac-Man eats the star when the pictures on either side do not match, Pac-Man will earn 200 points (this point value doubles after every 4th stage, up to 1600 points).
If Pac-Man eats the star when the pictures on either side match, but they are not of the given target for that stage, Pac-Man will earn 2000 points.
If Pac-Man eats the star when the pictures on either side match, and they are the same as the given target for that stage, Pac-Man will earn 5000 points.
Bonus rounds
Round 3, Round 7, and every fourth round thereafter serve as bonus rounds.
In these rounds, you are given a time limit in which to complete the entire round without any interference from the ghosts.
In a bonus round, you start in super mode and will remain so until the end of the round, and therefore have access to Super Speed the entire time.
If the round is completed before the timer runs out, the remainder of the time is awarded to the player as points.
