When developing the game, Bandai Namco Studios had the goal of expanding the audience of the Pac-Man series (which was primarily a family friendly series) by making a more "dark" entry. To that end, they looked back at the concepts for the original Pac-Man game, and boiled it down to three major factors: the maze concept, the eat concept, and "how the table can flip all of a sudden". Using these three traits as the basis, Shadow Labyrinth began development.