The game does not fail on level 256 because it cannot store the level number. As always, programmers start counting from zero, so level 1 is stored as index 0, level 2 is index 1, and so on (I’ll use “index” to refer to the number stored, as opposed to the actual level number). Level 256 is stored as index 255, which is 11111111 in binary. No problem. Even moving on to level 257 would just roll the index over to zero and drop Pac-Man back into the first maze. The game should be playable forever.
