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Pac-Man, an immensely popular video game originally known as Pakku man, was first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. It was first developed as an arcade game by Namco and licensed for distribution in the U.S. by Midway.
Pac-Man is universally considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. The game became a social phenomenon that sold piles of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series and music.
When Pac-Man was released, most arcade video games in North America were primarily space shooters such as Space Invaders, Defender or Asteroids.
The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both genders. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. The character also appears in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs.
According to the Davie-Brown Index, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness of any video game character among American consumers, recognized by 94 percent of them.
I recently had the privilege of visiting one of the many mazes in Pac World and interview not only Pac-Man, but his wife, Ms. Pacman and their son Baby Pacman.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Thanks for letting me speak to you folks!
Pac-Man: Your welcome!
Ms. Pac-Man: Your welcome!
Baby Pac-Man: Your welcome!
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: …Tell me little guy, how old, are you?
Baby Pac-Man: I’m 38 years old.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: …(Ahem). Oh! That’s very good!
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Moving on. Pacman, you have become an icon of video game culture during the 1980s, and a great deal of Pac-Man merchandise was marketed with the character’s image, from t-shirts and toys to hand-held video game imitations and pasta. The Killer List of Videogames lists Pac-Man as the #1 video game
of all time on its “Top 10 Most Popular Video games” list. Pac-Man, and other video games of the same general type, are often cited as an identifying cultural experience of Generation X, particularly its older members, sometimes called Baby Busters.
Your success of the Pac-Man series has resulted in Guinness
World Records awarding the series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer’s Edition 2008. These records include “First Perfect Pac-Man Game” for Billy Mitchell’s July 3, 1999 score; “Most Successful Coin-Operated Game”; and “Largest Pac-Man Game”, when, in 2004, students from New York University created Pac-Manhattan, a real life reenactment of the game, in which people dressed as Pac-Man and the four ghosts chased each other around Manhattan city blocks. Each player was teamed with a controller who communicated the player’s positions using cellular phones. Is that not so?
Pac-Man: Ah, thanks there. Yes, we have earned a lot of recognition over the years.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Pacman, how did you got to this point?
Pac-Man: My game was developed primarily by…
Ms. Pac-Man: (Ahem!)
Pac-Man: Sorry dear, heh. OUR game was developed primarily by Namco employee Toru Iwatani over eighteen months. The original Japanese title was pronounced Pakku-man; it was inspired by a Greek word, onomatopoeic, which describes the sound of Pacman’s mouth movement when opened widely and closed in succession.
The character’s shape reportedly was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, Iwatani admitted in a 1986 interview that was only a half-truth; the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi, as well as the basic
concept of eating. Iwatani’s efforts to appeal to a wider audience -
beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers – would eventually lead him to adding elements of a maze. The result was a game he named Puck Man.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Puck Man? Interesting. I didn’t realize that!
Pac-Man: You see, when Namco first launched me in Japan, our game received a lukewarm response, since Space Invaders and other similar games were more popular at the time.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Yes, before Pac-Man, Space Invaders was an extremely popular arcade game!
Pac-Man: The following year, Bally division Midway picked up our game for manufacture in the United States under the altered title Pac-Man.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Pardon me Pac-Man, why was your name changed?
Pac-Man: For the North American market, the name was changed from Puck Man to Pac-Man. Why? Because of concern that vandals likely would be tempted to change the P in Puck to an F, forming a common expletive. Puck Man machines can be found throughout Europe.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Oh, I can see. That makes sense.
Pac-Man: When Midway released Pac-Man in the United States, the company also redesigned the cabinet’s artwork, as the Namco-style artwork was more costly to mass produce. Puck Man was painted white overall, featuring multicolored artwork on both sides with cheerful Pac-Man characters in different poses. However, Pac-Man
was painted yellow, with very simple and easy-to-stencil artwork on both sides, front and back.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: That artwork of yours has become a highly recognized graphic image to this day.
Pac-Man: Yes, it has been. American audiences welcomed a breakaway from conventions held by Space Invaders. This resulted in unprecedented popularity and revenues that rivaled its successful predecessor. Even Iwatani was impressed with U.S. sales. The game soon became a worldwide phenomenon within the video game industry, resulting in numerous sequels and merchandising tie-ins. Our success bred imitators, including an entire genre of maze-chase video games.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Yes, I’ve noticed that! I’ve played a lot of maze games, but they have never matched the enjoyment of your game!
Pac-Man: Thank you. Our unique game design inspired game publishers to be innovative rather than conservative. They were encouraged to try new game designs that broke from existing genres. Pac-Man introduced an element of humor into video games that designers sought to imitate. They appealed to a wider demographic than the teenage boys who flocked to the action-oriented games.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Oh yes! I remember as a kid, spending countless hours at arcades and roadhouses playing your game! So much fun!
Pac-Man: We appreciate that. Competitors and distributors were taken completely by surprise by Pac-Man’s success in North America in 1980. Marketing executives saw Pac-Man at a trade show before it was released. They completely overlooked the Pac-Man game (along with the now classic Defender), while they focused on a racing car game called Rally-X as the game to outdo that year. Pac-man’s appeal was such that the game caught on immediately with the public; it quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry before. Pac-Man outstripped Asteroids as the greatest selling arcade game of the time, and would go on to sell over 350,000 units.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Very interesting Pac-Man! Now, moving on to gameplay. For those in the audience who are new to Pac-Man, please tell us how a person plays the game.
Pac-Man: The player controls Pac-Man through a maze, eating pac-dots. When all dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage. Four ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If a ghost touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points by default — DIP switches inside
the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Ok…
Pac-Man: Near the corners of the maze are four larger, flashing dots known as power pellets that provide Pac-Man with the temporary ability to eat the ghosts. The ghosts turn deep blue, reverse direction, and usually move more slowly when Pac-Man eats a power pellet. When a ghost is eaten, its eyes return to the ghost home where it is regenerated in its normal color. Blue ghosts flash white before they become dangerous again and the amount of time the ghosts
remain vulnerable varies from one board to the next, but the time period generally becomes shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the ghosts do not change colors at all, but still reverse direction when a power pellet is eaten.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Fascinating! Please, tell us more.
Pac-Man: In addition to pac-dots and power pellets, bonus items, usually referred to as fruits (though not all items are fruits) appear near the center of the maze. These items score extra bonus points when eaten. The items change and bonus values increase throughout the game. Also, a series of intermissions play after certain levels toward the beginning of the game, showing a humorous set
of interactions between Pac-Man and Blinky (the red ghost).
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Haha! I love those intermissions! They give me a chance to breath, and lighten tension from the game!
Pac-Man: Yes they do for us too!
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Pacman, tell us more about the Ghosts.
Pac-Man: The Ghosts? Oh yes. Well. Initially, Pac-Man’s enemies were referred to as monsters on the arcade cabinet, but soon became colloquially known as ghosts.
The ghosts are bound by the maze in the same way as Pac-Man, but generally move slightly faster than the player, although they slow down when turning corners and slow down significantly while passing through the tunnels on the sides of the maze (Pac-Man passes through these tunnels unhindered). Pac-Man slows down
slightly while eating dots, potentially allowing a chasing ghost to catch him.
Blinky, the red ghost, speeds up after a certain number of dots are eaten (this number gets lower in higher levels). The accelerated Blinky is unofficially called Cruise Elroy.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Ha. That’s funny.
Pac-Man: Heh. Indeed! Unless your’e being chased by him!
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Yes. Uh, of course!
Pac-Man: Ms. Pac-Man, please tell him the Ghost’s names and nicknames.
Ms. Pac-Man: Yes dear.
The ghosts are introduced during attract mode by the following names and nicknames:
From Original Pac-Man:
Red: Oikake – Translation: chaser – Nickname: Akabei – Translation: red guy Alternate Character: Urchin – Alternate Nickname: Macky -
From American Pac-Man: Shadow – Nickname: Blinky
From Original Pac-Man:
Pink: Machibuse – Translation: ambusher – Nickname: Pinky – Translation: pink guy Alternate Character: Romp – Alternate Nickname: Micky – From American Pac-Man: Speedy – Nickname: Pinky
From Original Pac-Man: Cyan: Kimagure – Translation: fickle – Nickname: Aosuke – Translation blue guy Alternate Character: Stylist – Alternate Nickname: Mucky – From American Pac-Man: Bashful – Nickname: Inky
From Original Pac-Man:
Orange: Otoboke – Translation: stupid – Nickname: Guzuta – Translation: slow guy
Alternate Character: Crybaby – Alternate Nickname: Mocky -
From American Pac-Man: Pokey – Nickname: Clyde
Ms. Pac-Man: (Phew). Baby Pac-Man, please tell the nice man about their behavour please?
Baby Pac-Man: Ok. A ghost always maintains its current direction until it reaches an intersection, at which point it can turn left or right. Periodically, the ghosts will reverse direction and head for the corners of the maze (commonly referred to as “scatter mode”), before reverting to their normal behavior. In an interview, Iwatani stated that he had designed each ghost with its own distinct personality in order to keep the game from becoming impossibly difficult or boring to play. However, while players generally agree that the behaviors of each ghost add depth and challenge to the game, no consensus has been reached on exactly how to describe those behaviors.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Okay.
Baby Pac-Man: Despite the seemingly random nature of some of the ghosts, their movements are strictly deterministic, enabling experienced players to devise precise sequences of movements for each level (termed “patterns”) that allow them to complete the levels without ever being caught. A later revision of the game code altered the ghosts’ behavior, but new patterns were soon developed for
that behavior as well. Players have also learned how to exploit other flaws in the ghosts’ behavior, including finding places where they can hide indefinitely without moving, and a code bug occasionally allows Pac-Man to pass through a non-blue ghost unharmed. Several patterns have been developed to exploit this bug. A common rumor speculates that this only happens when Pac-Man’s mouth is completely closed.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Intriguing! Pacman, tell me, is there a “kill screen?”
Pac-Man: Why yes. Now that you mention it. There is. The 256th split-screen level is unplayable because of a software bug. Pac-Man technically has no ending—as long as the player keeps at least one life, they should be able to continue playing indefinitely. However, because of a bug in the routine that draws the fruit, the right side of the 256th board becomes a garbled mess of text and symbols, rendering the level impossible to pass by legitimate means. Normally, no more than seven fruits are displayed at any one time, but when the internal level counter (stored in a single byte) reaches 255, the subroutine erroneously causes this value to “roll over” to zero before drawing the fruit. This causes the routine to attempt to draw 256 fruits, which corrupts the bottom of the screen and the whole right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Very interesting!
Pac-Man: Through tinkering, the details of the corruption can be revealed. Some ROMs of the game are equipped with a “rack test” feature that can be accessed through the game’s DIP switches. This feature automatically clears a level of all dots as soon as it begins, making it easier to reach the 256th board very quickly, as well as allowing players to see what would happen if the 256th board is cleared (the game loops back to the first level, causing fruits
and intermissions to display as before, but with the ghosts retaining their higher speed and invulnerability to power pellets from the later stages). When the rack test is performed in an emulator, a person can more easily analyze the corruption in this level.
Ms.Pac-Man: Pac-Man and the ghosts can move freely throughout the right half of screen, barring some fractured pieces of the maze. Despite claims that someone with enough knowledge of the maze pattern could play through the level, it is technically impossible to complete since the graphical corruption eliminates most of the dots on the right half of the maze. A few edible dots are scattered in the corrupted area, and these dots reset when the player loses a life (unlike in the uncorrupted areas), but these are insufficient to complete the level. As a result, the level has been given a number of names, including “the Final Level”, “the Blind-Side”, and the ending. It is known more generally as a kill screen.
Baby Pac-Man: Mom! Dad! Let me tell him about the perfect play!
Pac-Man: Alright.
Ms. Pac-Man: Go ahead sweety.
Baby Pacman: A perfect Pac-Man game occurs when the player achieves the maximum score on the first 255 levels (by eating every possible dot, energizer, fruit, and monster) without losing a single life, then scoring as many points as possible in the last level. As verified by the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard on July 3, 1999, the first person to achieve the maximum possible score (3,333,360 points) was Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida, who performed the feat in about six hours.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Wow, that was an impressive achievement!
Baby Pac-Man: In December 1982, an eight-year-old boy named Jeffrey R. Yee supposedly received a letter from U.S. President Ronald Reagan congratulating him on a worldwide record of 6,131,940 points, a score only possible if the player has
passed the Split-Screen Level. Whether or not this event happened as
described has remained in heated debate among video-game circles since its supposed occurrence. In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies, took the US National Video Game Team on a tour of the East Coast to visit video game players who claimed they could get through the Split-Screen. No video game player could demonstrate this ability. In 1999, Billy Mitchell offered $100,000 to anyone who could provably pass through the Split-Screen
Level before January 1, 2000; the prize went unclaimed.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Very impressive, Baby Pac-Man! But can you tell us when and where the first Pac-Man World Championship was held?
Baby Pac-Man: Of course! On June 5, 2007, the first Pac-Man World Championship was held in New York City, which brought together ten competitors from eight countries to play the new Pac-Man Championship Edition just prior to its release on Xbox Live Arcade. The top two scorers, Robert Glashuettner of Austria and Carlos Daniel Borrego of Mexico, competed for the championship in a single five-minute round. Borrego was named Pac-Man World Champion and won an Xbox 360 console, specially decorated with Pac-Man artwork and signed by Toru Iwatani.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Well done guy! Your son is very knowledgable, folks!
Pac-Man: He’s a chip off the old yellow block!
Ms. Pac-Man: Thank you. We’ve worked hard raising him.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Moving on to Ports. Pac-Man is one of the few games to have been consistently rereleased for over two decades. Pacman, please tell us the various systems you have played on.
Pac-Man: In the 1980s, it was released for the Apple II series, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, the Atari 8-bit computers, IBM Personal Computer, Intellivision, Commodore 64, and Nintendo Entertainment System (1987 and 1990). For handheld games, it was released on the Game Boy (1991), Sega Game Gear (1991), and Neo Geo Pocket Color (1999), as well as Pac-Man: Special Color Edition for the Game
Boy Color (1999), Pac-Man Collection for the Game Boy Advance (2001), and an unlockable in Pac ‘n Roll for the Nintendo DS. However, it has been most widely distributed in Namco’s long-running Namco Museum series, first for the PlayStation in 1996 and for many major consoles released since, as well as the handheld systems Game Boy Advance, PSP, and Nintendo DS. An Xbox 360 port was
released via Xbox Live Arcade on August 9, 2006. Pac-Man is also available in its original form as part of the GameTap service. On September 12, 2006, a port was released for play on the popular iPod music player. There have been efforts to hack the pre-existing Ms Pac-Man cartridge (as well as other variants in the Pac-Man series) to create the original Pac-Man.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Hmmm. I see.
Pac-Man: Namco has repeatedly rereleased this game to arcades. In 2001, Namco released a 20-Year Reunion cabinet featuring Ms Pac-Man and Galaga that permits the unlocking of Pac-Man for play. In 2005, Namco released a board openly featuring all three of the games on the 20-Year Reunion board in honor of Pac-Man’s 25th Anniversary. The NES version later became a Classic NES Series
title for the Game Boy Advance, and was also released for download via the Wii’s Virtual Console service in May 2007.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: YES! I love it when they bring back the classics to the new game systems.
Pac-Man: Namco’s wireless division, Namco Networks America Inc., released a line of Pac-Man games for cell phones in 2002, starting with the original arcade version and following up with Pac-Man game extensions like Pac-Man Bowling and Pac-Man Pinball. This division also launched a networked game, Ms. Pac-Man For Prizes, in 2004. Pac-Man mobile games are available on both BREW and Java
platforms across major cellular carriers, as well as on Palm PDAs and Windows PC phones. There is a port of Pac-Man for Android[30] which can be controlled not only through an Android phone’s trackball but through touch gestures or its on-board accelerometer.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Now, Pacman. I know the following subject may be unpleasant for you, but please, tell us about The Atari 2600
Pac-Man: (Sniff) I’m sorry, I get so emotional every time it comes up.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Take your time.
Pac-Man: The Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man was developed by programmer Tod Frye and published in 1982 by Atari. It was the first port of the arcade game, Atari being the licensee for the video game console rights. Although it sold seven million units to a user base of 10 million, this port’s quality was widely criticized. Having manufactured 12 million cartridges with the expectation that the game would increase sales of its console, Atari incurred large financial losses from remaining unsold inventory. This was one of the catalysts that led to the North American video game crash of 1983, second only to the home video game version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in terms of unsold inventory.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: I’m so sorry about that Pacman. But look at you now! You’re outdone yourself!
Ms. Pac-Man: Yes he has.
Baby Pac-Man: I’m proud of you dad.
Pac-Man: Thanks.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Now folks, there have been numerous Pacman spin-offs. Tell us about them, Ms Pacman.
Ms. Pac-Man: Pac-Man spawned numerous sequels, the most significant of which is Ms. Pac-Man. Originally called Crazy Otto, I was an unauthorized hack of Pac-Man, created by General Computer Corporation and sold to Midway without Namco’s permission. The game features several improvements to and changes from the original Pac-Man, including faster gameplay, more mazes, new intermissions, and moving bonus items. Some consider Ms. Pac-Man to be superior to the original, and even the best in the entire series. Namco sued Midway for exceeding their license. Eventually, Bally Midway struck a deal with Namco to officially license Ms. Pac-Man as a sequel.
Pac-Man: I’ve been in love with her from the moment we met!
Ms. Pac-Man: Heh.
Following Ms. Pac-Man, Bally Midway released several unauthorized spin-offs, such as Pac-Man Plus, Baby Pac-Man, and Professor Pac-Man, resulting in Namco business relations with Midway. These other titles were generally considered inferior and unimportant, serving to oversaturate the market for Pac-Man games.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: I’ve always enjoyed your version Baby Pacman. Pacman, I believe that Microsoft and Xbox Live came up with a new version?
Pac-Man: Yes. Twenty-six years after the original Pac-Man, Microsoft worked with Toru Iwatani and Namco Bandai to produce a remake of the game, Pac-Man Championship Edition. It was released for the Xbox Live Arcade on June 6, 2007.
Of course, as we discussed earlier, many unauthorized pirate versions of the game were also created in order to profit from Pac-Man’s fame and playability.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Yes. They are the TRULY inferior games! Pacman, any non-video games out there for die-hard fans?
Pac-Man: Why, yes! In 1982, Milton Bradley released a board game based on Pac-Man and another based on Ms. Pac-Man. Several other pocket games and a card game were also produced.
A group of students from the Computer Science department of Simon Fraser University had developed a “life-sized” Pac-Man system, using laptops and mobile phone tracking to track the location of the dots, ghost, and the Pac-Man. It has become a regular activity of Computer Science Frosh Week, and is usually played in Downtown Vancouver.
A real-life version of Pac-Man has also been played around the Washington square park area of New York, in a game-christened PacManhattan.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Haha! I would love to go to Vancouver and New York just to see those games!
Ms. Pac-Man: (Whispering): Dear…Tell him about the movie!
Pac-Man: Oh yes! In 2004, Crystal Sky Pictures announced they were producing a theatrical film adaption titled Pac-Man: The Movie. It will combine live-action and special effects. The film was included in a $200 million deal with Grosvenor Park.
Baby Pac-Man: Dad! Tell him about the fruit machine!
Pac-Man: Heheh. In the early 1980s in the UK, JPM released a fruit machine called “Fruit Snappa”. Numbers on the reels move the “Pac-Man” around a maze, eating prizes.
VGOTheMeekGeekVGV: Wonderful! Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man. Thank you for taking the time to talk with me this evening!
Pac-Man: Thank you! Now if you don’t mind, we have to chomp on some power pellets and Ghosts! Come on folks! Bye!
