Controlling Pac-Man, the player must make it to the end of each stage to return a lost fairy back to its home in Fairyland.

Pac-Man will need to avoid obstacles, such as falling logs and water-spewing fire hydrants, alongside his enemies, the Ghost Gang.

The backgrounds were made to be vibrant and colorful, and the characters to be detailed and move smoothly to match the show's animation style.

The control scheme was inspired by Konami's Track & Field (1983), using buttons instead of a traditional joystick to make it stand out among other games at the time.

[4] Other types of obstacles are also present in stages, such as water-spewing fire hydrants, springboards, falling logs, quicksand and geysers.

[4] The player can find hidden items by pushing against specific objects in certain stages, including a helmet that protects Pac-Man from falling mini ghosts, an item that makes Pac-Man temporarily invincible and a Galaxian flagship that awards the player a large sum of points.

[5][6] Pac-Land was programmed by Yoshihiro Kishimoto of Namco Development Division 1, who would later work on the Family Stadium franchise.

After seeing the success of Hanna-Barbera's Pac-Man animated series, Namco requested Kishimoto that he create an arcade game based on the show.

[7] The team wanted the game's backgrounds to be vibrant and colorful, and to have the characters move smoothly to replicate the show's animation style.

[7] Kishimoto cited Konami's sports video game Track & Field (1983) as the "number one influence" on Pac-Land.

[1] However, the United States Copyright Office[2] and John Szczepaniak in the second volume of The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers (2015), when including biography details taken from Kishimoto's resume, lists the release date as October 1984.

[9] Atari Corporation developed and published an Lynx portable version in 1992, and Dempa Softworks released an X68000 conversion in 1994.

He called it an "interesting game" where Pac-Man is an "animated character that moves along a horizontally scrolling landscape" while praising the "very colouful" graphics and stating it is "easy to play once you've got the hang of it.

"[3] Japanese publication Famitsu praised the PC Engine version's graphics and overall challenge, awarding it the "Silver Hall of Fame" badge.

[23] Computer + Video Games called the PC Engine version a "marvelous conversion" for its vibrant visuals, stage layouts, gameplay and accuracy to the coin-op game;[20] they had a similar response for the Atari Lynx version, claiming its accuracy to the original would entice fans of the arcade release.

[22] Reviewing the Lynx conversion, IGN praised the game's colorful graphics, controls and faithfulness to the arcade original.

[25] Raze disliked the Lynx port's limited amount of lives and lack of continues, saying that the high difficulty would repel younger players.