About
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 is an expanded and graphically enhanced version of the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade game. Instead of cycling endlessly through the same boards, the game is divided into four worlds, each featuring eight unique mazes.
Press the Play button below to launch the desktop browser version of Ms. Pac-Man 2010.
Controls
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 supports both keyboard and gamepad input. The controls are:
| Action | Keyboard | Gamepad |
|---|---|---|
| Up | Up Arrow, W, I, 8, Numpad 8 | D-pad Up |
| Down | Down Arrow, S, K, 2, Numpad 2 | D-pad Down |
| Left | Left Arrow, A, J, 4, Numpad 4 | D-pad Left |
| Right | Right Arrow, D, L, 6, Numpad 6 | D-pad Right |
| Start | Enter | Any |
| Pause | Enter, P | Any |
Browser Menu
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 opens with a browser menu that provides New Game and Continue buttons.
New Game starts a new game. Continue resumes your previous game. Ms. Pac-Man 2010 saves your progress so you can close the tab—or even close the browser entirely—and return later to continue playing.
While playing outside fullscreen mode, a hamburger button appears in the upper-left corner of the game. Pressing it pauses the game and returns you to the browser menu.
The browser menu also provides:
- Fullscreen — Makes the game fill the entire screen.
- Scaling — Controls how the game is resized to fit the display.
- Volume — Adjusts the game volume.
- Reset — Erases saved state and restores settings to their defaults.
History
I created Ms. Pac-Man 2010 in 2010—hence the name—as a Java game using the Slick2D and JInput libraries. I studied the original arcade game in the MAME multi-purpose emulator and recreated its mazes and mechanics through observation.
I released Ms. Pac-Man 2010 as a Java applet that ran in a web page and as a downloadable desktop version. As technology evolved, both options became increasingly impractical. Browsers abandoned Java applets, while the desktop version required players to download and run an executable and install Java, something many people understandably avoided because of the hassle and security concerns. The game also relied on platform-specific native libraries that became increasingly difficult to run reliably on modern systems.
In 2026, I rewrote Ms. Pac-Man 2010 in TypeScript and adapted it to modern web browsers. The new version once again lets visitors launch the game directly from a web page and adds a few modern features, including save-state support. The game itself remains fundamentally the Ms. Pac-Man 2010 I created in 2010.
Differences
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 is based on the original arcade game but expands on it in several ways.
A cutscene appears between every stage. The first three recreate the intermissions from the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade game. The later cutscenes were based on the between-fight scenes in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
After completing Stage 8, the player is rewarded with a final sequence inspired by Ryu's ending in the arcade version of Street Fighter II and the NES Mega Man endings, which showcase each defeated enemy on its own title card.
The game employs two special energizers from Pac-Mania: the red energizer sends the ghosts into their familiar blue frightened state, while the green energizer temporarily gives Ms. Pac-Man a burst of extra speed.
The graphics are pixel-art upscaled versions of the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade graphics.
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 also includes an online high-score system called the Hall of Fame. Scores from players around the planet are ranked separately for Blinky's World, Pinky's World, Inky's World, and Sue's World, with only the five best scores earning a place on each leaderboard. Pick a world, chase the high score, and see if you can get your initials into the Hall of Fame.
Resources
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 is a reimplementation of the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game, not an emulation. It does not run or include the original arcade ROM.
The source code for the project is available in the meatfighter/ms-pac-man-2010-js repository.
The Java desktop version is available as a ZIP file. To use a gamepad with the Java version, connect and enable it before starting the game.
Download and extract the ZIP, then run the launcher for your operating system:
- Windows:
run-windows.cmd - Linux:
run-linux.sh - macOS:
run-macos.sh
Java 21 or newer is required.
Acknowledgements
The original Pac-Man was designed by Toru Iwatani and developed by Namco. Ms. Pac-Man was developed by the General Computer Corporation and Midway.
Ms. Pac-Man 2010 draws from the large collection of unofficial Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man arcade modifications and conversion kits that appeared over the years. Some of its mazes were borrowed from, or inspired by, games such as Hangly-Man, New Puck-X, Piranha, and Ms. Pac-Man Plus.
The music and sound effects in Ms. Pac-Man 2010 come from the arcade versions of Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Mania, the latter of which features music and sound by Junko Ozawa, Yuriko Keino, and Yoshito Tomuro. Some of the music and sound effects used in the cutscenes come from Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! for the NES, with music and sound by Kenji Yamamoto, Yukio Kaneoka, and Akito Nakatsuka.
This project is an unofficial fan-made tribute to the original games. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the creators, publishers, trademark owners, or other rights holders of the games it references. Preexisting games, graphics, music, sound effects, characters, names, logos, trademarks, and other third-party content remain the property of their respective rights holders.
I provide Ms. Pac-Man 2010 free of charge. It contains no advertising and generates no revenue.