Waka-waka meets the flippers — Bally’s 1982 Baby Pac-Man is a genuinely groundbreaking hybrid, fusing a video game and a pinball machine into one cabinet at the absolute peak of Pac-Mania. Designed by Claude Fernandez with art by Margaret Hudson and Pat McMahon, this two-player machine begins with a video maze on a CGA screen, then sends you down to a pinball playfield, and with a hefty confirmed run of 7,000 it introduced countless players to a truly novel idea.
The strategy spans both worlds. The game starts in video mode, where tunnels at the bottom of the maze lead down to the pinball, and draining on the playfield returns you to the maze with those tunnels blocked — your “ball” ends only when Pac-Man dies. Power pellets are earned by hitting the captive ball or spelling PACMAN with the yellow drops, and unused energizers hold over to the next maze. On the playfield, spell TUNNEL to speed up the maze’s side tunnels for escaping ghosts, and spell FRUITS to boost the points for fruit collected in the maze. The saucers spot FRUITS and TUNNEL letters and light the spinner, and a lit saucer returns you to the maze with a bottom tunnel open. In the maze itself, work in big loops without doubling back, and hide from ghosts in the bottom tunnels where they won’t follow.
Baby Pac-Man is a landmark of pinball history, a bold video-and-flipper hybrid that captured a cultural phenomenon in one cabinet. Manage both the maze and the playfield, bank your energizers, and outrun the ghosts. It’s a genuine innovation and a blast to play. Waka-waka, and drop a coin.