Boxed Pac-Man board game, made in Holland by Milton Bradley, 1982

A rectangular, card box containing the game board and a blue, plastic insert which fits into the whole box base. The insert is moulded to house the dice and game pieces.

The plastic game pieces are: four Pac-Men in red, yellow, blue and green; two green Ghosts; four trays in the same colours as the Pac-Men, in which each player can store their gobbled marbles; two dice; sixty marbles: four yellow, the rest white.

The printed playing side of the board has lines of white dots forming multi-directional pathways across a black background; blue barriers break up the pathways. There are circular holes in the board at intervals along the dotted pathways, four of these holes have red circles round them. The yellow Pac-Man logo is printed in rectangular boxes of green, red, blue and yellow; one along each of the four sides of the board.

The box lid is covered with paper printed with photographs of the game being played by three children. Only the children's forearms and hands are shown; they are clothed in blue, red and green sweatshirts and are shown moving the playing pieces. In the upper, centre of the box lid is a large yellow, red and white Pac-Man logo inside a curved, blue banner with cartoon illustrations of two unhappy ghosts, one green one red, holding onto the top of the banner. The card box base is covered with white paper.

Wording on the exterior of the box lid:

'The exciting marble-gobbling game';
'Move your Pac-Man to gobble as many marbles as you can. / But beware! A Ghost may sneak up on you and / capture some of your marbles. / The game is over! The marbles have gone! Which / Pac-Man has gobbled the most';
'Race your hungry / Pac-Man and chase the / Ghosts. Watch him open / and close his mouth as / he gobbles every marble / along the track.'
'7-14 years / 2-4 players'

'The family version / of the arcade game' is printed in red letters on the lid top and its four sides.

The interior of the box lid is printed with blue wording explaining the rules of the game, with labelled Figs.1 to 6 illustrating particular parts of the game and Pac-Men and Ghost assembly.

Pac-Man originated as an arcade game, first released in 1980 and it subsequently became a hugely popular video game. It has become a classic of its type and has one of the most recognisable game characters of all time. Cashing in on the success of Pac-Man and other games, the American company Milton Bradley produced several board games based on both arcade and video games and their characters.

In the Pac-Man arcade game, players control a munching Pac-Man through a maze. The aim is to eat all the dots while avoiding the ghosts. The board game turned the dots into physical balls that get eaten by the plastic Pac-Men. The player with the most balls at the end of the game wins.

B.80:1 to 19-2015