With its Pac-Man contest, Retroplay offers its visitors the possibility of reliving one of the first e-sport events of Atari history.
Play as Pac-Man and win prizes!
1982-2022
Just forty years ago, the international Pac-Man tournament took place on the Atari VCS. To commemorate it, we proposed to Retroplay to repeat this event by endeavoring to reproduce a certain number of elements that had made it fun, challenging and charming. Thus, all participants will keep their participation voucher (similar to the old one), the finalists will win games, and the champion will leave with an Atari 2600 console accompanied by the Pac-Man cartridge!

Each participant will keep a replica of the original entry form, with their name and score.
Become the new champion
Participants will be able to register during the festival, on Saturday 22 and Sunday 23 October 2022 for a participation fee of €2. They will then have access to the Pac-Man 2022 Contest stand to achieve their best score within the allotted time. At the end of the game, the organizers will give them a replica of the period entry form (opposite), with their name and score, attesting to their participation in the 2022 Pac-Man Contest.

Saturday: Pac-Man 8k
Fun and quite faithful to the coin-op
Sunday: Pac-Man Atari
A higher challenge!
Two Pac-Man instead of one
Even if the rules, the program and the consoles on which the contests will take place on Saturday and Sunday will be the same, the two events will not be completely identical, because they will be done on two different versions of Pac-Man. Saturday will be played on an improved version (Pac-Man 8k) which is quite similar to the arcade terminal and which will allow the finalist to win an Atari 2600 (Vader) accompanied by the Pac-Man cartridge. As for Sunday, it will be played on the original version of Pac-Man Atari, more difficult and which will allow the champion to leave with an Atari VCS console (Woody) with the Pac-Man game.

The Atari Pac-Man box (1982)

The competition will be played
with the iconic Atari CX-40.
Put yourself in conditions
You can practice today on the version of Pac-Man on which you plan to participate. With an emulator (or with a Harmony cartridge), you can use these two roms: Pac-Man 8k for Saturday and Pac-Man Atari for Sunday (in Pal version, as for the original contest). Note that depending on the console you are using (Pal or Secam), the colors may be different from those in the tournament, especially since the organizers have announced their intention to use specially improved consoles to reinforce the color fidelity to those in the tournament. of the arcade cabinet, of course, without affecting the gameplay. Important clarification, the contest will be done with the first variant (when the console is turned on, without touching the Game Select button) and with all the console buttons placed in the up position, as well as the difficulty selectors positioned on A. As for the joystick, it will be the classic Atari CX-40 (opposite). So don't wait and train now!

Rules and registrations
Find the details of the registration and the rules on the official Retroplay website, of which we summarize the main lines here. The Saturday and Sunday competitions follow the same programme:

10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: pre-selection
5:00 p.m. to 5:20 p.m.: final
5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.: prize giving

The price for registration is 2 euros (at the RetroPlay/RetroSmile stand, on Oct. 22 and 23).





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