Pac-Man

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Pac-Man
Screen from the original arcade version of the game.
Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	Namco Midway
Designer(s)	Toru Iwatani — Game Designer Hideyuki Mokajima San — Programmer Toshio Kai — Sound & Music
Platform(s)	Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Commodore 64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, GBA, Intellivision, iPod, Mobile phone, MSX, NEC PC-8801, NEC PC-9801, Nintendo Entertainment System, Neo-Geo Pocket Color, PlayStation Network, Sega Game Gear, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, ZX Spectrum
Release date	JPN May 22, 1980[1][2] NA 1980[3]
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players, alternating turns
Rating(s)	ESRB: E OFLC: G
Input methods	4-way joystick
Cabinet	Standard upright, mini-upright, and cocktail
Arcade system	Namco Pac-Man
CPU	1x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz
Sound	1x Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz
Display	Vertically oriented, 224 × 288, 16 palette colors

Pac-Man (パックマン, Pakkuman^?) is a Japanese arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the U.S. by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980.^[1][2] Immensely popular in the United States from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is universally considered as one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. Upon its release, the game became a social phenomenon^[4] that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series. It also inspired the Buckner & Garcia single Pac-Man Fever, which in the first half of 1982 became a #9, million-selling pop single.^[5]

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 males and females.^[6] Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time.^[7] The character also appears in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs,^[8] as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs.^[9] According to the Davie Brown Index ^[10], Pac Man is still the most recognized video game character in the United States, even more famous than Mario.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Localization 2 Gameplay 2.1 Ghosts 2.1.1 Names 2.1.2 Behavior 2.2 Split-screen level 2.2.1 Perfect play 3 World Championship 4 Ports 4.1 Atari 2600 port 5 Spin-offs 5.1 Sequels 5.1.1 Ms. Pac-Man 5.1.2 Bally Midway spin-offs 5.1.3 Pac-Man Championship Edition 5.2 Clones 5.3 Non-video games 6 Pac-Man in popular culture 7 Gallery 8 References 9 Further reading 10 External links

[edit] History

The game was developed primarily by Namco employee Toru Iwatani over 18 months. The original title was pronounced pakku-man (パックマン, pakku-man^?) and was inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる, paku-paku taberu^?),^[11] where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.^[12] Although it is often cited that the character’s shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice,^[4] he admitted in a 1986 interview that it was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (口) as well as the basic concept of eating.^[13] 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 entitled Puck Man.

When first launched in Japan by Namco, the game received a lukewarm response, as Space Invaders and other similar games were more popular at the time.^[6]

The following year, the game was picked up for manufacture in the U.S. by Bally division Midway, under the altered title Pac-Man (see below). American audiences welcomed a breakaway from conventions set by Space Invaders, which resulted in unprecedented popularity and revenue that rivaled its successful predecessor, as even Iwatani was impressed with U.S. sales.^[13] The game soon became a worldwide phenomenon within the video game industry, resulting in numerous sequels and merchandising tie-ins. Pac-Man's success bred imitation, and an entire genre of maze-chase video games soon emerged.

The unique game design inspired game publishers to be innovative rather than conservative, and encouraged them to speculate on game designs that broke from existing genres. Pac-Man introduced an element of humor into video games that designers sought to imitate, and appealed to a wider demographic than the teenage boys who flocked to the action-oriented games.

Competitors and distributors were taken completely by surprise by Pac-Man's success in North America in 1980. Marketing executives who saw Pac-Man at a trade show prior to release completely overlooked the game (along with the now classic Defender), while they looked to a racing car game called Rally-X as the game to outdo that year.^[14] The appeal of Pac-Man 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,^[15] and would go on to sell over 350,000 units.^[16]

Pac-Man went on to became 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.^[17] 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.^[18] 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.

[edit] Localization

For the North American market, the name was changed from Puck Man to Pac-Man, as it was thought that vandals would be likely to change the P in Puck to an F, forming a common expletive. Puck Man machines can be found throughout Europe.

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 overall white featuring multicolored artwork on both sides with cheerful Pac-Man characters in different poses while Pac-Man was painted yellow, with very simple and easy-to-stencil artwork on both sides front and back.

[edit] Gameplay

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 (known to most gamers as 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, and then at 30,000. DIP switches inside the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether.

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.

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).

[edit] Ghosts

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,^[19] although opinions differ on the origins of this term.

[edit] Names

The ghosts are introduced during attract mode by the following names and nicknames:

Ghost Color	Original Puck Man[20]						American Pac-Man
	Character	Translation	Nickname	Translation	Alternate character	Alternate nickname	Character	Nickname
Red	Oikake (追いかけ)	chaser	Akabei (赤ベイ)	red guy	Urchin	Macky	Shadow	Blinky
Pink	Machibuse (待ち伏せ)	ambusher	Pinky (ピンキー)	pink guy	Romp	Micky	Speedy	Pinky
Cyan	Kimagure (気まぐれ)	fickle	Aosuke (青助)	blue guy	Stylist	Mucky	Bashful	Inky
Orange	Otoboke (お惚け)	stupid	Guzuta (愚図た)	slow guy	Crybaby	Mocky	Pokey	Clyde

[edit] Behavior

A ghost always maintains its current direction until it reaches an intersection, at which point it may 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.^[21]

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.^[22]

[edit] Split-screen level

This game technically has no end; the player will be given new boards to clear as long as he or she retains at least one life. However, due to a bug in the subroutine that draws the fruit, the right side of the 256th board becomes a garbled mess of text and symbols rendering the level unplayable. 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 "rolls over" this value to zero while drawing the fruit, causing it to attempt to draw 256 fruit. This corrupts the bottom of the screen and the whole right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols.^[23]

Through tinkering, the details of the Split-Screen Level can be revealed. As playable through arcade game emulator MAME some ROMs of the game are equipped with a "rack test" within the DIP switches that will automatically clear a level of all dots as soon as it begins. This method not only makes reaching the 256th board easier (thus making detailed analysis possible), but also allows for a demonstration of what happens after the board has been cleared. If the board is cleared, the game loops back to the first level. The fruits and intermissions display as before, but the ghosts retain their higher speed and immunity to power pellets from the later stages.

However, because of the corruption on this board, there are insufficient dots available for Pac-Man to eat in order to progress. 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). Pac-Man and the ghosts can move freely throughout the right half of the screen, barring some fractured pieces of the maze. While there are claims that someone with enough knowledge of the maze pattern could play through the level, it is generally considered impossible to clear via legitimate means. As a result, enthusiasts usually refer to this board as the "Final Level", the "Split-Screen Level", or simply the ending, and it is known more generally as a kill screen.

[edit] Perfect play

A perfect Pac-Man game occurs when the player achieves the maximum possible score on the first 255 levels (by eating every possible dot, power pellet, fruit and ghost) without losing a single life, then scoring as many points as possible in the last level.^[22][24] 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.^[25][24]

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.^[24] Whether or not this event happened as described has remained in heated debate amongst video game circles since its supposed occurrence. In September 1983, Walter Day, chief scorekeeper at Twin Galaxies, took the U.S. 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; there is no evidence that anyone could.^[24]

[edit] World Championship

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.^[26][27]

[edit] Ports

Pac-Man is one of the few games to have been consistently re-released for over two decades. In the 1980s, it was released for the Apple II series, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit computers, Intellivision, Commodore 64, and the Nintendo Entertainment System (1987 and 1990). In the handheld world, it was released on the Game Boy (1991), Sega Game Gear (1991), Neo-Geo Pocket Color (1999), Pac-Man: Special Color Edition for the Game Boy Color (1999), Pac-Man Collection for the Game Boy Advance (2001), and it is 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. Pac-Man was never ported to the Atari 7800 home video game system. However, there have been efforts to hack the pre-existing Ms. Pac-Man cartridge to create the original Pac-Man (as well as other Pac-Variants) for it.^[28]

Namco has repeatedly re-released 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.

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 the not-yet-released Android OS^[29]

[edit] Atari 2600 port

Main article: Pac-Man (Atari 2600)

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 Atari sold seven million units to a user base of ten million, this port may have been rushed to market and its quality was widely criticized. Having manufactured twelve 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 video game crash of 1983, second only to the home video game version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in terms of unsold inventory.

[edit] Spin-offs

[edit] Sequels

Main article: List of Pac-Man sequels

[edit] Ms. Pac-Man

Pac-Man spawned numerous sequels, the most significant of which is Ms. Pac-Man. Originally called Crazy Otto, this unauthorized hack of Pac-Man was 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.^[7] Namco sued Midway for exceeding their license. Eventually Bally Midway struck a deal with Namco to officially license Ms. Pac-Man as a sequel.

[edit] Bally Midway spin-offs

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 severing business relations with Midway. These other titles were generally considered inferior and unimportant, serving to oversaturate the market for Pac-Man games.^[30][4]

[edit] Pac-Man Championship Edition

Twenty-six years after the original Pac-Man, Microsoft worked with Toru Iwatani and Namco Bandai to produce a re-envisioning of the game, Pac-Man Championship Edition. It was released for the Xbox Live Arcade on June 6, 2007.

[edit] Clones

Main article: Pac-Man clones

Many unauthorized "pirate" versions of the game were also created in order to profit from Pac-Man's fame and playability.

[edit] Non-video games

In 1982, Milton Bradley released a board game based on Pac-Man^[31][32] and another based on Ms. Pac-Man.^[33] Several other pocket games and a card game were also produced.^[34]

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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Pac-Man in popular culture

• An animated children's cartoon series titled Pac-Man ran on Saturday mornings in the United States from 1982 to 1984 on ABC,^[35]

• Pac-Man starred on Buckner & Garcia's 1982 album Pac-Man Fever, appearing on the cover, the album title and the title track of the same name.^{[citation needed]}

• Six Flags Over Texas, a theme park in Arlington, Texas, had a children's play area named Pac-Man Land circa 1981. It was recommissioned as Looney Tunes Land in 1985.^[36]

• Pac-Man has made several appearances in various formats in the animated TV series Family Guy. In Season Three's Episode 19, "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", three of the ghosts attempt to cheer up Pac-Man after he and Ms. Pac-Man split up. In Season Four's Episode 28, "Stewie B. Goode", Stewie Griffin and Brian Griffin get drunk and play a cocktail cabinet version of Pac-Man, eventually getting into an argument over how to play the game.^[37]

• Comedy musician "Weird Al" Yankovic has written a song called "Pac-Man" (a parody of The Beatles' "Taxman") about a man's addiction to the video game. The song has not yet received a commercial release on an offical album^[38], however, it can be found on the compilation Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes No. 4.

[edit] Gallery

Atari 2600 (1982)	Atari 5200 (1983)	Commodore 64 (1983)	Intellivision (1983)
MSX (1984)	NES (1984)	Xbox 360 (2006)	SAM Coupé (unofficial)

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

• Pac-Man at the Killer List of Videogames
• Pac-Man at MobyGames
• Pac-Man guide at StrategyWiki
• The Arcade Flyer Archive entry for Pac-Man
• Arcade History entry
• Pac-Man at The Dot Eaters
• Pac-Man at the Internet Movie Database
• Ms. Pac-Man being used to test cognitive reasoning in chimps
• Video from the C64 Version on archive.org
• Pac-Man’s code disassembled and commented, by Mark Longridge

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