What is a good Pacman score?

Score in the maze chase is a skill readout: pellets are participation, but chains and fruit are craft. Here's how to read the numbers.

Quick answer: On a single maze, 2,000-3,000 points means you cleared it cautiously; 4,000-6,000 means you took fruit and some ghost chains; above that you're squeezing near-full value from every power pellet. The famous arcade perfect score - every pellet, fruit and chain on all 255 boards - is 3,333,360.

Where points come from

Regular pellets score 10 each and power pellets 50 - clearing the classic board on pellets alone yields roughly 2,500. The real money is elsewhere: frightened ghost chains pay 200-400-800-1,600 (up to 3,000 per power pellet), and fruit ranges from 100 for the cherry upward. Two full chains plus both fruits can double a run's value.

Benchmarks to aim for

Cautious clear: 2,500-3,500. Confident clear with fruit and partial chains: 4,000-6,000. Expert clear with multiple full chains: 7,000+. In score-rich variants the ceilings differ - Ghost Rush offers six-ghost chains, while Mini caps low but rewards perfect rounds. Every variant has its own leaderboard, so compare against the right crowd.

The perfect score legend

The original arcade game has a hard ceiling: 3,333,360 points, achieved by eating every pellet, every fruit and every possible ghost on all 255 playable boards, then wringing the last points from the broken level 256. First verified in 1999, the perfect game remains one of gaming's most famous achievements - proof that a 1980 maze still rewards total mastery.

Chase a personal best

Related questions

How do power pellets work?

Eating one of the four large flashing pellets scores 50 points and frightens every ghost for a few seconds - they turn blue, reverse direction and flee. Catch them while frightened for escalating points: 200, 400, 800 and 1,600 in one chain. Eaten ghosts' eyes fly home to respawn.

What is the Pacman kill screen?

Level 256 of the original arcade game breaks: the level counter overflows an 8-bit byte, and the fruit-drawing routine scribbles 256 sprites of garbage over the right half of the maze. With pellets buried in the mess, the level can't be cleared - the game's accidental ending.

How do you win at Pacman?

Eat every pellet in the maze before your lives run out - that clears the board and counts as a win. Scores go further: power pellet chains, fruit and efficient routes decide your leaderboard rank among winners.