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Pac-Man Bounce is Bandai Namco’s latest attempt to resurrect an old franchise on mobile

Bandai Namco is going for something a bit more puzzley with this latest Pac-Man release.

Image Credit: Bandai Namco

The Pac-Man Bounce isn’t the hottest new dance craze — although it oughta be.

No, instead, Pac-Man Bounce is Bandai Namco’s most recent entry in the long-running pellet-munching franchise. It’s a puzzle game for mobile devices that’ll have you trying to bank and direct the yellow pizza guy around stages to collect items and powerups. It is out now, but only for iOS gamers in Canada and Australia. The app gets a worldwide release sometime later this year.

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Developer Victory Square Games, which is a new studio, produced this game, which is one of the first releases in Bandai Namco’s attempt to resurrect some of its older franchises in partnership with smaller studios. In addition to Bounce, Hipster Whale — the company that made the megapopular Crossy Road — is working on Pac-Man 256. That game explores the world of Pac-Man beyond the infamous level 256 bug that would crash the original arcade release.

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If you’re wondering why this game is only available in Canada and Australia, that’s because it is currently in something that developers and publishers call “soft launch.” This is a popular testing phase that games — especially free-to-play ones — go through to ensure that they are market ready. Victory Square will use this time to ensure Bounce’s 100-plus levels are well balanced, that people are enjoying themselves, and that they are spending money at a reasonable rate.

Victory Square will also have time to squash any game-killing bugs before releasing Bounce on a global audience.

So, if you have an iPhone or iPad and live in Canada or Australia, go do the rest of us a service and play through Bounce to make it even better by the time we get the chance to try it.

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