Rally-X

Rally-X is a maze chase game where the player controls a blue Formula One racecar. The objective is to collect yellow flags that are scattered around an enclosed maze while avoiding collision with red-colored cars that pursue the player. Mazes scroll in the four cardinal directions and are clustered with dead ends, long corridors, and stationary boulders that are harmful to the player. Each level contains ten flags that increase their point value when collected in succession.

One of the flags is a "Special Flag", indicated by an S next to it, which doubles the value of each flag collected thereafter. The player can temporarily stun the red cars with smoke screens, which depletes a portion of their fuel meter at the right of the screen. The meter constantly depletes the longer the player takes in a level, and acts as a timer. If the fuel meter gets about 3/4 low, the meter will turn red.

Rally-X was created by Namco and designed by Hirohito Ito, with hardware developed by Kouichi Tashiro. It was produced as a successor to Head On (1979), an older arcade game from Sega that similarly involved collecting items in a maze while avoiding enemy cars that pursued the player. Head On was a popular title in Japanese arcades, which gave Namco the idea of creating a game that built on its mechanics. Rally-X was created on a version of the Pac-Man arcade system board that supports multi-directional scrolling. The programming was done by Kazuo Kurosu, who went on to design the multi-directional shooter Bosconian (1981), and featured music from Pac-Man composer Toshio Kai.

Rally-X was first demonstrated in Japan in January 1980, before receiving a wide release on October 3, 1980. When preparing to release the game overseas, Namco believed Rally-X had more foreign appeal than Pac-Man with its audiovisual presentation and challenge, which it believed American audiences would prefer to the simplicity and "cuteness" present in Pac-Man. Namco presented Rally-X at the 1980 Amusement & Music Operators Union (AMOA) tradeshow in Chicago, Illinois, alongside Pac-Man, King & Balloon, and Tank Battalion. An often-repeated story is that out of the games presented, specifically Pac-Man, the attending industry analysts believed Rally-X was the stand-out and the one destined to be successful.

The game was a commercial success in Japan, where it became the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1980, and Namco's third highest that year below Pac-Man and Galaxian. In contrast, the game was not as successful in North America. By July 1981, Midway had sold 2,500 Rally-X arcade machines, significantly less than the company's other releases at the time. Dick Pearson of RePlay highlighted its colorful visuals and sound effects in a preview from the tradeshow, comparing its gameplay favorably to Pac-Man and writing that it "shows promise as an entertaining maze video game".

A writer for Cash Box provided similar comments, further applauding its scoring system and layer of strategy. In 1991, Gamest listed it as being a "masterpiece" alongside New Rally-X, and believed its underwhelming critical and commercial reception was attributed to it being ahead of its time. Staff considered it a successor to Head On, as well as being influential for the maze genre.

Rally-X is credited as being one of the first games to feature continuous background music and a bonus round, predating Sega's Carnival, which was released in June 1980.

In response to player feedback from the original, Namco released a sequel named New Rally-X in 1981, which was designed to improve on the original's flaws and make it easier for newcomers. It also adds a "Lucky Flag" that awards bonus points based on how much fuel remains. New Rally-X has been seen as an improvement over the original and has been ported to several consoles and compilations, such as mobile phones and the Xbox 360. Rally-X Arrangement, included in Namco Classic Collection Vol.