History Pinball / BabyPacMan

Because of the very unorthodox setup of the game, on top of Namco terminating their licenses with Bally/Midway, ''Baby Pac-Man'' never received a home console port that aimed to replicate the dual video-pinball gameplay of the original game. It wouldn't be until 36 years later when Bob [=DeCrescenzo=], aka [=PacManPlus=], an icon in the ''Pac-Man'' homebrew scene for Atari's systems announced that a full port of ''Baby Pac-Man'' had begun development on the UsefulNotes/Atari7800, releasing in 2019.

* AttractMode: Due to it's pinball half, ''Baby'' is the only classic maze-based ''Pac-Man'' game to not feature a maze in it's attract sequence.

* NintendoHard: This is known by fans as the hardest ''Pac-Man'' game ever, and with good reason. The ghosts just hunt Baby Pac-Man down instead of following a fixed pattern (with the red ghost moving faster and the magenta one moving slower, and the two other ghosts moving at Baby's speed). The table itself is smaller than an average pinball table, making it very easy to drain the ball. Added to the fact that the only way to earn power pellets is to play the pinball portion (and the drop targets for the lower two quadrant pellets must be hit ''seven'' times just to spawn one of them and can easily drop the ball into the drain due to their position; the upper quadrants have it a bit easier since you can spawn either or by hitting their drop target hard enough to get the ball occupying them to go to the other side, but since the pinball exits are at the bottom of the maze it's an uphill climb to get up there without getting hit), along with the ghosts' AI behaviors being undocumented due to the obscurity of the title. Your only saving grace is the pellets in the maze will not slow Baby, unlike the official games.

* EveryTenThousandPoints: Averted, strangely for a ''Pac-Man'' game. To win lives, the player must hit the center blue drop target enough times without draining the ball. An extra life can also be obtained by completing three to five stages or beating the high score depending on the machine's settings. Since the game is a pinball machine, winning a life through the blue drop targets is represented by the flashing "Play Again" light on the field, thus the player can only earn one extra life at a time in this manner and it works identically to the "Shoot Again" feature in other pinballs.

** In the first maze, if Baby says just above the bottom right exit tunnel, the Ghosts will stay above Baby, being completely unable to get past the large wall. This trick doesn't work with the left tunnel as the cyan ghost will eventually sneak past the long horizontal wall to the left and catch Baby. This is easier to do if the exit tunnel is open, as the player can just face Baby up.

* OffModel: The ghosts don't look like they do in the other ''Pac-Man'' arcade games. In fact, the sprites look like the UsefulNotes/Atari5200 port of ''Pac-Man'' except with wider eyes and facing the screen at all times.

* FanRemake: [[GameMod Game Mods]] of other ''Pac-Man'' games exist that replace their map(s) with those from ''Baby Pac-Man'', completely omitting the pinball portion and becoming significantly easier due to the less brutal Ghost AI and starting off with a full stock of power Pellets.

* NonStandardGameOver: Slamming the machine causes the game to go dead for a few seconds, followed by the "Game Over" light turning on.

By most accounts, ''Baby Pac-Man'' is the hardest ''Pac-Man'' game ever made. Not only does the player start off with no offensive capabilities, but earning just one power pellet requires hitting a single target seven times. Skillful pinball playing helped ease things along, but the small size of the pinball table made it fairly easily to drain the ball. Yet by far the most frustrating aspect of the game is the disregard for the rules of ghost movement established in earlier ''Pac-Man'' titles -- the ghosts are more aggressive than in the other ''Pac''-games, with the red one moving significantly faster than the player does, and ''all'' of them can reverse direction at any time.

* NonIndicitaveDifficulty: The mazes actually are ''reversed'' from the expected difficulty order, with the third maze arguably being the easiest and the first being the hardest. The first maze in particular has a lot of long corners that make it very difficult to traverse the total length of without the ghosts butting in and sandwiching you. The third by contrast is the simplest maze and has a lot of straight paths that make it (relatively) easy to shake ghosts off you.

* NintendoHard: This is known by fans as the hardest ''Pac-Man'' game ever, and with good reason. The ghosts just hunt Baby Pac-Man down instead of following a fixed pattern (with the red ghost moving faster and the magenta one moving slower, and the two other ghosts moving at Baby's speed). The table itself is smaller than an average pinball table, making it very easy to drain the ball. Added to the fact that the only way to earn power pellets is to play the pinball portion (a difficult feat since each drop target must be hit ''seven'' times just to spawn one power pellet and can easily drop the ball into the drain due to their position), along with the ghosts' AI behaviors being undocumented due to the obscurity of the title. Your only saving grace is the pellets in the maze will not slow Baby, unlike the official games.

* ViolationOfCommonSense:
** The ghosts in ''Baby'' are always in "Chase" mode- Scatter Mode is completely nonexistent, as are the forced direction-reversing when switching modes.
** Ghosts may linger inside the Ghost Pen for a few moments after being eaten, instead of (usually) exiting immediately after reforming.
** Unlike the video-only ''Pac-Man'' games, the red ghost is always in "Cruise Elroy" mode no matter how many pellets remain.

* EveryTenThousandPoints: Averted, strangely for a ''Pac-Man'' game. To win lives, the player must hit the center blue drop target enough times without draining the ball. An extra life can also be obtained by completing three to five stages or beating the high score depending on the machine's settings. Since the game is a pinball machine, an extra life is represented by the flashing "Play Again" light on the field, thus the player can only earn one extra life at a time.

* EveryTenThousandPoints: Averted, strangely for a ''Pac-Man'' game. To win lives, the player must hit the center blue drop target enough times without draining the ball. An extra life can also be obtained by completing three to five stages depending on the machine's settings. Since the game is a pinball machine, an extra life is represented by the flashing "Play Again" light on the field, thus the player can only earn one extra life at a time.

* NintendoHard: This is known by fans as the hardest ''Pac-Man'' game ever, and with good reason. The ghosts just hunt Baby Pac-Man down instead of following a fixed pattern (with the red ghost moving faster and the magenta one moving slower, and the two other ghosts moving at Baby's speed). The table itself is smaller than an average pinball table, making it very easy to drain the ball. Added to the fact that the only way to earn power pellets is to play the pinball portion, along with the ghosts' AI behaviors being undocumented due to the obscurity of the title. Your only saving grace is the pellets in the maze will not slow Baby, unlike the official games.

** The ghosts in ''Baby'' are always in "Chase" mode- Scatter Mode is completely nonexistent.