Pacman Glossary
Every maze-chase term you'll meet on this site (and in four decades of arcade lore), explained in plain English. New to the game? Start with the rules hub and come back here whenever a word needs unpacking.
Pellet
The small dots that fill the maze's corridors, worth 10 points each. Eating every pellet (including the power pellets) clears the maze and wins the run.
Power pellet
One of the four large flashing pellets in the maze's corners, worth 50 points. Eating one frightens every ghost for a few seconds, turning them blue, reversing their direction and making them edible.
Fright mode
The state ghosts enter when you eat a power pellet: they turn blue, flee at reduced speed, and can be eaten. Near the end of the timer they flash white as a warning before turning hostile again.
Ghost chain
Eating multiple frightened ghosts in one fright window. Captures double in value each time: 200, 400, 800, 1,600 points - a full four-ghost chain is worth 3,000 points from a single power pellet.
Chaser
The red ghost's personality: it targets the tile you are standing on, relentlessly following your exact path. The easiest hunter to predict and the hardest to shake in open corridors.
Ambusher
The pink ghost's personality: it aims several tiles ahead of your mouth, trying to cut you off at the pass rather than follow you. Feinting toward one corridor and reversing breaks its prediction.
Flanker
The cyan ghost's personality: it computes its target from both your position and the chaser's, often arriving from unexpected angles. The hardest ghost to predict casually.
Wildcard
The orange ghost's personality: it chases you only at a distance - once it gets close, it loses its nerve and wanders toward its home corner. Dangerous mainly in crowds.
Scatter mode
The periodic truce in which all ghosts break off the hunt and retreat toward their home corners. The hunt/rest rhythm gives the game its pulse; scatter windows are your safest moments.
Chase mode
The default hunting state, in which each ghost pursues its personality's target. Alternates with scatter mode on a schedule; ghosts reverse direction each time the phase flips.
Ghost house
The walled pen in the maze's center where ghosts start and where eaten ghosts' eyes return to respawn. Pacman can never enter it - and the ground above its door is the most dangerous real estate on the board.
Ghost house door
The pink gate at the top of the ghost house. Ghosts pass through it when leaving or returning as eyes; Pacman treats it as a wall.
Eyes
What remains of an eaten ghost: a pair of eyes that fly back to the ghost house at high speed, re-form, and rejoin the hunt. Eyes are harmless - ignore them.
Tunnel
An open corridor at the maze's edge that wraps around to the opposite side. Ghosts slow down inside tunnels, making them the most reliable escape route in the game.
Fruit
The bonus item that appears below the ghost house partway through a maze, starting with the cherry (100 points) and rising in value. It stays only a few seconds - weigh the detour against nearby ghosts.
Buffered turn (pre-turn)
Pressing your next direction before reaching a junction. The engine remembers the input and executes the turn the moment it becomes legal - the core technique of fast, clean play.
Cornering
Taking turns without losing speed by buffering the direction early. At high speeds (Turbo, Fast mode), cornering cleanly is the difference between escaping and being run down.
Herding
Deliberately leading ghosts into a cluster near a power pellet before eating it, so the fright window yields a full chain instead of a single capture.
Sweep
A planned, systematic route through the maze's pellets that avoids doubling back. Good sweeps clear regions completely and never leave stranded pellets in dangerous ground.
Stranded pellets (stragglers)
Leftover pellets scattered in cleared territory, forcing dangerous commutes late in the run. The classic cause of lost endgames - and the thing sweep planning prevents.
Pincer
Being closed in from two directions at once, with no side exit. The standard death in Ghost Rush and the reason experienced players always keep two escape routes in mind.
Kill screen
Level 256 of the 1980 arcade original, where an integer overflow scrambles half the maze with garbage tiles and makes the level impossible to clear - the game's accidental ending.
Perfect game
The arcade original's maximum achievement: 3,333,360 points - every pellet, fruit and ghost chain on all 255 playable boards. First verified in 1999.
Speed ramp
Survival mode's defining rule: ghost speed rises on a fixed schedule for the whole run, eventually exceeding yours. Route efficiency is the real health bar.
Fog of war
Night Maze's visibility rule: only a circle of light around Pacman is visible, plus the glow of power pellets and the glint of nearby ghost eyes.
Clear rate
The share of runs that end with every pellet eaten - this site's equivalent of a win rate. Ranges from ~80% in Chill down to ~10% in Survival.
Streak
Consecutive cleared runs without a game over. Tracked per mode in your stats; broken streaks reset to zero, which is what makes them worth protecting.
Seed
The number that generates a run's randomness (frightened-ghost turns, timing). Daily challenges and multiplayer races share one seed so every player faces identical conditions.
Daily challenge
One seeded run per day, identical for every player in the world, ranked on its own board. Resets at midnight UTC - miss a day and that run is gone.
Waka-waka
The original game's famous eating sound, alternating between two tones as pellets disappear. The sound design carries real information: the rhythm tells you when you're eating and the siren pitch tracks remaining pellets.