Power-up
[4] Items that confer power-ups are usually pre-placed in the game world, spawned randomly, dropped by beaten enemies or picked up from opened or smashed containers.
[3] Every maze in the game contains four Power Pellets which temporarily give Pac-Man the ability to eat ghosts, turning the tables on his pursuers.
The effect of the power-up was illustrated by one of the first cut scenes to appear in a video game, in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other around.
[10] In 1984, Sabre Wulf introduced power-ups in the form of flowers which, when blossoming, provided effects such as speed up and invincibility.
[4] The original game idea was to have an always big Mario as a technical advance, but later the power-up was introduced to make him "super" as a bonus effect.
[12] The development team thought it would be interesting to have Mario grow and shrink by eating a magic mushroom, just like in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
[13] Other power-ups introduced in this game were the Super Stars and Fire Flowers, which gave Mario invincibility and the ability to shoot fireballs at enemies, respectively.
Examples: Defensive power-ups typically consist of items like shields (usually a "force field") surrounding the character that deflects projectiles or absorbs a certain amount of damage, or invincibility/invulnerability.
Invincibility (or "invulnerability") comes in two main forms: either the player character merely becomes intangible to harmful things, or can also damage enemies by contact.
In many games, invulnerability is also temporarily granted after the player gets hit or loses a life, so that the character will not be hurt/killed twice in quick succession.
Examples: In some games, using certain items or abilities requires the expenditure of a resource such as ammunition, fuel or magic points.
Examples: Other power-ups consist of items whose main feature is that they are found in large numbers, to encourage the player to reach certain spots in the game world.
