The iconic Quoridor gets a makeover thanks to Pac-Man

What is a board game? Quoridor Pac-Man ?

A little yellow ball trying to escape the ghosts who are chasing him… you must have played it on a computer screen, an arcade machine, a console or a phone. This time, you can even play it with your friends on the living room table.

Accessible from 8 years old, for 2 to 5 players and games of around fifteen minutes, Quoridor Pac-Man is the ideal and very successful marriage between two ancestors of their respective playful environment.

Published by Gigamic, Quoridor Pac-Man is a game by Mirko Marchesi, illustrated by Grumpy, and sold at the price of €37.95 at Philibert.

How do you play it?

Quoridor Pac-Man offers two game modes. The first, from the original game, has not changed. It’s mainly played by two people (although you can also play by four, but we don’t recommend it), and the goal is to take your pawn to the other side of the board.

For this, during his turn, two possibilities are available to us. The first consists of moving your pawn one square, horizontally or vertically, forwards or backwards. If by chance your pawn is opposite the opposing pawn, you can jump over it.

The second possibility consists of placing one of the ten barriers available at the start of the game. They are placed exactly between two blocks of two squares. You can thus create your own path, or slow down the progress of the opposing pawn. Be careful though, you can’t completely block it, you always have to give it a way out.

The turns continue in this way, until one of the players brings his pawn to the other side of the board.

The second game mode allows you to simulate a game of Pac-Man. Two to five players play. One of them plays Pac-Man and starts in the center of the board. The others share the four ghosts. This time, the barriers are already in place.

Pac-Man’s goal is to eat the four Pac-Gums scattered around the four corners of the board before being caught by the ghosts. Fortunately, he has three lives to achieve this. Some particularities from the video game are added to these rules (Pac-Man can swallow a ghost just after eating a Pac-Gum, the ghosts become frenzied if they have Pac-Man in their sights, etc.).

And that’s it. Simple, but (very) effective.

Why play Quoridor Pac-Man ?

Quoridor et Pac-Manreleased in 1997 and 1980 respectively, still manage to make waves in 2024, by combining their particular strengths. Its mechanics for the first, its theme, its design and its aura for the second.

And the least we can say is that the mixture of the two is particularly tasty.

Quoridorthe original game, is one of the most worthy representatives of the prestigious collection of abstract wooden games from the publisher Gigamic, alongside the excellent Quarto. We probably would not have thought of presenting it to you if it had not returned wearing its new covering in the colors of Pac-Man. This marriage, as improbable as it may be, is nevertheless of rare obviousness. Everything, in the mechanics, the theme, the equipment, fits together perfectly.

The little yellow ball, the colorful ghosts, the walls with the most beautiful blue borders make the game much more attractive, less austere. Less abstract even, even though the rules have not changed (apart from the addition of the special variant).

This mechanism, both so simple and so profound, has not aged a bit. Almost 30 years later, the game is still extremely effective. It is simply enhanced by this new design, and enriched by a variant that allows up to 5 players to play.

Are these changes alone worth purchasing this version if you already have the old one? It’s difficult to say, it’s up to you to decide depending on your playing habits. In any case, we have made our decision: Quoridor Pac-Man without hesitation replaces its ancestor. If you don’t yet have the base game, however, there is no need to procrastinate, go to the nearest store.

This shows that a “simple” re-theming, a flashy and retro design, a timeless and perfectly adapted license, can be enough to bring up to date an excellent game that has gone out of fashion due to the sequence of numerous new features. Whoever brought this union together, blessed be they. Because everything is successful in this game. In addition to being simple, clever and really effective, it is now also terribly beautiful. No need to superimpose pages of rules on kilos of material, a few good ideas are enough: Quoridor Pac-Man is proof of this.