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Munch
Arcade · Oldies · plays in your browser, no download
A maze, two hundred and forty dots, and four things coming for you. The big dots turn the game round for a few seconds. Everything people remember about this design is the eating, and the part that actually mattered was the ghosts.
Where it comes from
1980, and a maze to eat rather than to shoot your way through. What made it last, though, is not the dots: it is the ghosts, which do not move at random and do not all move the same way.
One chases you straight, one cuts you off by aiming ahead of you, one goes about its own business and one backs away when you get close. None of it is written down anywhere in the game — you work it out by playing — and it is the reason a maze with four chasers never became boring.
How to play
| Move | Arrow keys, or swipe on a phone. You turn at junctions; you never stop. |
|---|---|
| The dots | Eat every one and the maze is cleared. |
| The big dots | Four of them, in the corners. Eat one and the ghosts turn blue and run from you — for a few seconds. |
| The tunnels | The sides of the maze connect. You go through faster than the ghosts do. |
Our version
The maze, the four chasers with their own habits, and the tunnels that actually favour you — in a browser tab, on a phone or a laptop.
Three things that help
Save the big dots. Eating one while the ghosts are scattered wastes it. The value of a big dot is measured in how many of them are nearby when you take it.
Use the tunnel when you are cornered. You cross it at full speed and they do not, so a tunnel is always a few free squares.
Clear a corner, then leave it. Dots left behind in a dead end are the ones that kill you at the end of a board, when the ghosts are fast and you have to go back in.