Pac-Man Party (Xbox 360)

Pac-Man Party is an unreleased Xbox 360 game, developed around 2009 by Namco Bandai Games. The game is a precursor to Pac-Man Battle Royale, an arcade game released the following year. Despite being developed around the same time, it is entirely unrelated to the 2010 Pac-Man Party Wii game of the same name.
This game was never announced to the public; a copy of the game was leaked online in December 2023.
== Overview ==
Pac-Man Party is built directly off of Pac-Man Championship Edition's coding, reusing most of its graphics and sounds; its gameplay mechanics, however, are entirely unique.
The prototype build (dated January 26, 2009) features four gameplay modes, alongside various testing and debugging functions. The gameplay modes include:
*PAC-MAN Face Off - This mode plays almost identically to Pac-Man Battle Royale in terms of mechanics. Two Pac-Men (controlled by two players) play simultaneously, with each player attempting to be the last Pac-Man standing. Eating a Power Pellet will turn the Pac-Man huge, allowing him to eat the other player; players can also bump each other around, potentially into hazards.
*PAC-MAN United - This is a cooperative mode where the two Pac-Men work together. The players cannot hurt each other, and eating a Power Pellet grants both players the ability to eat Ghosts. If a Pac-Man is hit by a ghost, a timer begins counting down; the other player must quickly "kiss" the Pac-Man by touching him, allowing the game to continue. If the player does not rescue the other Pac-Man in time, both players lose lives simultaneously.
*PAC-MAN Party - Uses the same mechanics as "Face Off" mode, but features four players instead of two; additionally, each player only has one life.
*PAC-MAN Single - An unaltered, one-player version of Championship Mode from Pac-Man Championship Edition.
The Face Off, United, and Party modes feature three static mazes to select; they do not change layouts like the original Championship Edition.
== Trivia ==
*Several notable pieces of unused content can be seen in the game's texture viewer:
**Sue and Funky are present with the Ghosts' graphics, but do not appear in the game itself.
**A yellow Pac-Man with a flower on its head appears as a second-player graphic; in game, the second player is a green-colored Pac-Man instead. This character was likely a legal stand-in for Ms. Pac-Man, and was presumably intended for the "United" mode (given the Pac-Men kiss each other).
**The "Face Off" mode has an additional graphic referring to the mode as "Big Eaters", which appears to be an earlier name.
== Gallery ==
Pacman-party-proto-maze1.png|Maze layout 1
Pacman-party-proto-maze2.png|Maze layout 2
Pacman-party-proto-maze3.png|Maze layout 3
Pacman-party-proto-sprites-main.png|Main object sprites
Pacman-party-proto-sprites-flowerpac.png|Unused "flower" Pac-Man sprites
Category:Games
Category:Cancelled Games
Category:Pac-Man Games
Category:Namco Games
Category:Console Games