Pac-Man

Pac-Man
Pac flyer.png
North American Flyer
Developer(s) Namco
Publisher(s) Namco, Midway
Designer(s) Tōru Iwatani – Game designer
Shigeo Funaki (舟木茂雄) – Programmer
Toshio Kai (甲斐敏夫) – Sound & Music
Composer(s) Toshioi Kai
Platform(s) Arcade
Release date(s) JPN May 22, 1980[1][2]
NA 1980[3]
Genre(s) Maze
Mode(s) Up to two players, alternating turns
Rating(s) ESRB: E
OFLC: G
Cabinet Standard upright, mini-upright and cocktail
Arcade system Namco Pac-Man
CPU 1x ZiLOG Z80 @ 3.072 MHz[4][5]
Sound 1× Namco WSG (3-channel mono) @ 3.072 MHz
Display Vertically oriented, 224 × 288, 16 palette colors

Pac-Man (Japanese: パックマン Pakkuman) is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980.[1][2] Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. [6][7][8][9] Upon its release, the game—and, subsequently, Pac-Man derivatives—became a social phenomenon[10] that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series and a top-ten hit single.[11]

When Pac-Man was released, the most popular arcade video games were space shooters, in particular Space Invaders and 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.[12] Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time.[13] The character also appears in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs,[14] as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs.[15] 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.[16] Pac-Man is one of the longest running video game franchises from the golden age of video arcade games, and one of only three video games that are on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., (along with Pong and Dragon's Lair).[17]

Contents

Gameplay

Screenshot of play area

The player controls Pac-Man through a maze, eating pac-dots. When all dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage, between some stages one of three intermission animations plays.[18] Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If an enemy 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. 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 enemies. The enemies turn deep blue, reverse direction and usually move more slowly. When an enemy is eaten, its eyes remain and return to the center box where it is regenerated in its normal color. Blue enemies flash white before they become dangerous again and the amount of time the enemies remain vulnerable varies from one stage to the next, but the time period generally becomes shorter as the game progresses. In later stages, the enemies do not change colors at all, but still reverse direction when a power pellet is eaten.

In addition to dots and power pellets, bonus items, usually in the form of fruit 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.

Enemies

North American Pac-Man title screen, showing the official enemy names.

The enemies in Pac-Man are known variously as "monsters", "ghosts" or "ghost monsters." [19][20][21] Despite the seemingly random nature of the enemies, their movements are strictly deterministic, which players have used to their advantage.[22] In an interview, creator Toru Iwatani stated that he had designed each enemy with its own distinct personality in order to keep the game from becoming impossibly difficult or boring to play.[23] The behaviors of each enemy have been exactly determined by reverse-engineering the game.[24]

Enemy Color Original Pac Man[25] American Pac-Man
Character (Personality) Translation Nickname Translation Alternate
character		 Alternate
nickname		 Character (Personality) 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

Split-screen

The 256th split-screen level cannot be completed due to a software bug.

Pac-Man technically has no ending—as long as the player keeps at least one life, he or she should be able to continue playing indefinitely. However, this is rendered impossible by a bug. Normally, no more than seven fruits are displayed on the screen 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, making the level unplayable. However, through additional analysis, it has been revealed what happens if the 256th level is cleared - the game loops back to the first level, causing fruits and intermissions to display as before, but with the enemies retaining their higher speed and invulnerability to power pellets from the later stages.[26]

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, energizer, fruit, and enemy) without losing a single life then scoring as many points as possible in the last level.[27][28] As verified by the Twin Galaxies International 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.[28][29]

In September 2009, David Race of Beavercreek, Ohio, became the sixth person to achieve a perfect score. His time of 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 22 seconds set a new record for the fastest time that a perfect score had been reached.[30]

In December 1982, an 8-year-old boy, 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.[28] 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.[28]

Development

The North American Pac-Man cabinet design differs significantly from the Japanese Puck Man design.

The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Tōru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title was Pakkuman (パックマン?), inspired by the Japanese folk hero "Paku" who was known for his appetite as well as by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる?),[31][32] where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.[33]

Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice,[10] he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (口).[34] Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.[35]

Later that year, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway.[34] 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. The cabinet artwork was also changed.[36]

Impact and legacy

When first launched in Japan by Namco in 1980, the game received a lukewarm response, as Space Invaders and other similar games were more popular at the time.[12] However, the game found far more success in North America. Pac-Man's success in North America took competitors and distributors completely by surprise 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.[37] 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 up to that point. Pac-Man outstripped Asteroids as the best-selling arcade game of the time,[38] and would go on to sell over 350,000 units.[39]

Pac-Man went on to become an icon of video game culture during the 1980s, and a wide variety of Pac-Man merchandise was marketed with the character's image, from t-shirts and toys to hand-held video game imitations and even specially shaped pasta. An animated TV series produced by Hanna–Barbera aired on ABC from 1982 to 1984. [40] The Killer List of Videogames lists Pac-Man as the #1 video game on its "Top 10 Most Popular Video games" list.[41] At one time, a feature film based on the game was also in development.[42][43] In 2010, a computer-generated animated series was reported to be in the works.[44][45]

Guinness World Records has awarded the Pac-Man series eight records in Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, including First Perfect Pac-Man Game for Billy Mitchell's July 3, 1999 score and "Most Successful Coin-Operated Game". On June 3, 2010, at the NLGD Festival of Games, the game's creator Toru Iwatani officially received the certificate from Guinness World Records for Pac-Man having had the most "coin-operated arcade machines" installed world wide: 293,822. The record was set and recognized in 2005 and mentioned in the Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008, but finally actually awarded in 2010.[21]

Pac-Man has been referenced in numerous other media. In music, the Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever", which went to #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.[11] "Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song titled "Pac-Man" that was a parody of the Beatles' "Taxman", in 1981. [46] Hip hop emcee Lil' Flip sampled sounds from the game Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man to make his top-20 single "Game Over". Namco America filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment for unauthorized use of these samples. The suit was eventually settled out of court.[47][48]

The game has also inspired various real-life recreations, involving either real people or robots. One event called Pac-Manhattan set a Guinness World Record for "Largest Pac-Man Game" in 2004.[49][50][51]

Ports

Pac-Man is one of the few games to have been consistently published for over two decades. One of the first ports to be released was the much maligned port for the Atari 2600.

The Atari 2600 Pac-Man only somewhat resembled the original, and its flickering ghosts were widely criticized.[52][53][54]

It was also released for the Apple II series, Atari's 5200 and 8-bit computers, IBM Personal Computer, Intellivision, the Commodore 64 and VIC-20 and Nintendo Entertainment System. For handheld game consoles, it was released on the Game Boy, Sega Game Gear and the Neo Geo Pocket Color.

The game has also been featured in Namco's long-running Namco Museum video game compilations. Downloads of the game have been made available on game services such as Xbox Live Arcade, GameTap and Virtual Console. Namco has also released mobile versions for BREW, Java, iOS, as well as Palm PDAs and Windows Mobile-based devices. A port of Pac-Man for Android[55] can be controlled not only through an Android phone's trackball but through touch gestures or its on-board accelerometer.

In addition, Namco has repeatedly re-released the game to arcades. In 2001, Namco released a Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga "Class of 1981 Reunion Edition" cabinet with Pac-Man available for play as a hidden game. To commemorate Pac-Man's 25th anniversary in 2005, Namco released a revision that officially featured all three games.

Sequels and spin-offs

The game spawned various sequels and spin-offs, only one of which was designed by Tōru Iwatani . Some of the follow-ups were not developed by Namco either - including the most significant, Ms. Pac-Man, released in the United States in 1981. 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 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.[13] Namco sued Midway for exceeding their license. Eventually, Bally Midway struck a deal with Namco to officially license Ms. Pac-Man as a sequel.

Following Ms. Pac-Man, Bally Midway released several other unauthorized spin-offs, such as Pac-Man Plus, Jr. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man and Professor Pac-Man, resulting in Namco severing business relations with Midway.[10][56]

Pac-Man Championship Edition (2007)

Various platform games based on the series have also been released by Namco, such as 1984's Pac-Land and the Pac-Man World series, which features Pac-Man in a 3-D world. More modern versions of original game have also been developed, such as the multiplayer Pac-Man Vs. for the Nintendo GameCube and Tōru Iwatani-developed Pac-Man Championship Edition.

The initial configuration of the Google Pac-Man banner

For the weekend of May 21–23, 2010, Google changed the Google logo on its homepage to a Google Doodle of a fully playable version of the game[57] in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the game's release. The game featured the ability to play both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man simultaneously.[58] After finishing the game, the website automatically redirected the user to a search of Pac-Man 30th Anniversary.[59] Companies across the world experienced slight drops in productivity due to the game, though the reported $120 million total loss "spread out across the entire world isn't a huge loss, comparatively speaking". Some organizations even temporarily blocked Google's website from workplace computers on the Friday it was uploaded, particularly where it violated regulations against recreational games.[60][61][62] Because of the popularity of the Pac-Man doodle, Google decided to allow access to the game through a separate web page.[63]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Namco Bandai Games Inc. (2005-06-02). "Bandai Namco press release for 25th Anniversary Edition" (in Japanese). bandainamcogames.co.jp/. Archived from the original on 2007-12-30. http://web.archive.org/web/20071230012914/http://www.bandainamcogames.co.jp/bnours/hotnews/index.php?id=21. Retrieved 2007-10-10. "2005年5月22日で生誕25周年を迎えた『パックマン』。 ("Pac-Man celebrates his 25th anniversary on May 22, 2005", seen in image caption)" 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Tony Long (2007-10-10 (questionable)). "Oct. 10, 1979: Pac-Man Brings Gaming Into Pleistocene Era". Wired.com. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/dayintech_1010. Retrieved 2007-10-10. "[Bandai Namco] puts the date at May 22, 1980 and is planning an official 25th anniversary celebration next year." 
  3. ↑ Year 1980 shown on North American Pac-Man title screen.
  4. ↑ "Game Board Schematic" (PDF). Midway Pac-Man Parts and Operating Manual. Chicago, Illinois: Midway Games. December 1980. http://www.arcadedocs.com/vidmanuals/P/Pac-Man.pdf. Retrieved 2009-07-20. 
  5. ↑ Nitsche, Michael (2009-03-31). "Games and Rules". Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Worlds. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. p. 26. ISBN 0-262-14101-9. "[...] they would not realize the fundamental logical difference between a version of Pac-Man (Iwatani 1980) running on the original Z80 [...]" 
  6. ↑ http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2010/05/22/Pac-Man-still-going-strong-at-30/UPI-74821274544243/
  7. ↑ http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/dayintech_1010
  8. ↑ http://www.gamespot.com/ds/action/pacnroll/review.html?tag=rvwBody
  9. ↑ http://books.google.com/books?id=to5zEwOC9BcC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=pac-man+synonymous+with+video+games&source=bl&ots=OPOfCdrk7r&sig=jt7D_L19pq9TiXxyqB8RfFUU-CU&hl=en&ei=-B2HTJyxNsGqlAfSwe0m&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CCsQ6AEwBTge#v=onepage&q=pac-man%20synonymous%20with%20video%20games&f=false
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Green, Chris (June 17, 2002). "Pac-Man". Salon.com. http://www.salon.com/ent/masterpiece/2002/06/17/pac_man/print.html. Retrieved February 12, 2006. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Pac-Man Fever". Time Magazine. April 5, 1982. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921174,00.html. Retrieved October 15, 2009. "Columbia Records' Pac-Man Fever ... was No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 last week." 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Goldberg, Marty (2002-01-31). ""Pac-Man: The Phenomenon: Part 1"". Classicgaming.com. http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=249. Retrieved 2006-07-31. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Parish, Jeremy (2004). ""The Essential 50: Part 10 - Pac Man"". 1UP.com. http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3122102. Retrieved 2006-07-31. 
  14. ↑ "The Legacy of Pac-Man". Archived from the original on 1998-01-21. http://web.archive.org/web/19980121102807/http://www.gamecenter.com/Features/Exclusives/Pacman/. 
  15. ↑ "Pac Man Bootleg Board Information". Archived from the original on 2007-07-02. http://web.archive.org/web/20070702002820/http://users.adelphia.net/~68hc11/bootpac/bootpac.htm. 
  16. ↑ Davie Brown Entertainment :: Davie Brown Celebrity Index: Mario, Pac-Man Most Appealing Video Game Characters Among Consumers
  17. ↑ http://www.thocp.net/software/games/golden_age.htm#PacMan
  18. ↑ Pacman Game; retrieved May 21, 2010. Ch. 4
  19. ↑ http://arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=765&image=2
  20. ↑ "What is Pacman?". Pacman.com. Namco. http://pacman.com/en/about. Retrieved 14 July 2010. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Martijn Müller (June 3, 2010). "Pac-Man wereldrecord beklonken en het hele verhaal" (in dutch). NG-Gamer. http://www.ng-gamer.nl/game-nieuws/11117_pacman-wereldrecord-beklonken-en-het-hele-verhaal/. 
  22. ↑ The Pac-Man Dossier, Jamey Pittman Ch. 3
  23. ↑ Mateas, Michael (2003). "Expressive AI: Games and Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). Proceedings of Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands. http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~mateas/publications/MateasDIGRA2003.pdf. 
  24. ↑ The Pac-Man Dossier, Jamey Pittman Ch. 4
  25. ↑ DeMaria, Rusel & Wilson, Johnny L. (2003-12-18). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. ISBN 0-07-223172-6. 
  26. ↑ Don Hodges. "Pac-Man's Split-screen level analyzed and fixed". http://www.donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get2.htm. Retrieved 2008-04-29. 
  27. ↑ Pac-Man review at OAFE
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 28.3 Ramsey, David. "The Perfect Man - How Billy Mitchell became a video-game superstar and achieved Pac-Man bliss." Oxford American, issue 53. Spring 2006.
  29. ↑ "Pac-Man at the Twin Galaxies Official Scoreboard". Twin Galaxies. Archived from the original on May 23, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060523220516/http%3A//www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx%3Fc%3D22%26pi%3D2%26gi%3D3229%26vi%3D3365. Retrieved 2006-07-22. 
  30. ↑ Twin Galaxies Announces New All Time Pac-Man Champion, Twin Galaxies, September 11, 2009
  31. ↑ "Top 25 Smartest Moves in Gaming". Gamespy.com. http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july03/25smartest/index6.shtml. Retrieved July 26 2010. 
  32. ↑ Kohler, Chris (2005). Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. Brady Games. ISBN 0-7440-0424-1. 
  33. ↑ ""Daijisen Dictionary entry for ぱくぱく (paku-paku), in Japanese"". http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%B1%E3%81%8F%E3%81%B1%E3%81%8F&dtype=0&dname=0na&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=14705600. Retrieved 2007-01-27. 
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Lammers, Susan M. (1986). Programmers at Work: Interviews. New York: Microsoft Press. p. 266. ISBN 0-914845-71-3. http://www.pacmanmuseum.com/history/Toru-atwork.php. 
  35. ↑ Kohler, Chris. "Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating". Wired. http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/05/pac-man-30-years/. Retrieved 15 July 2010. 
  36. ↑ Kent, Steve. Ultimate History of Video Games, p.142
  37. ↑ Bowen, Kevin (2001). "Game of the Week: Defender". ClassicGaming.com. http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/defender.shtml. Retrieved 2006-08-17. 
  38. ↑ "Player 2 Stage 4: Two Superstars". The Dot Eaters. http://thedoteaters.com/p2_stage4.php. Retrieved 2006-08-17. 
  39. ↑ Bowen, Kevin (2001). "Game of the Week: Pac-Man". ClassicGaming.com. http://www.classicgaming.com/rotw/pacman.shtml. Retrieved 2006-08-17. 
  40. ↑ "The Pac-Page (including database of Pac-Man merchandise and TV show reference)". http://pac-man.classicgaming.gamespy.com/. Retrieved 2008-10-24. 
  41. ↑ McLemore, Greg. "The Top Coin-Operated Videogames of All Times". Killer List of Videogames. Archived from the original on July 17, 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20060717132729/http%3A//www.klov.com/TOP100.html. Retrieved 2006-07-22. 
  42. ↑ "Crystal Sky, Namco & Gaga are game again". Crystalsky.com. Retrieved on 11 August 2008.
  43. ↑ Jaafar, Ali (19 May 2008) "Crystal Sky signs $200 million deal". Variety.com. Retrieved on 4 September 2008.
  44. ↑ White, Cindy. (17 June 2010) "E3 2010: Pac-Man Back on TV?". IGN.com. Retrieved on 7 July 2010.
  45. ↑ Morris, Chris. (17 June 2010) "Pac-Man chomps at 3D TV. Variety.com. Retrieved on 7 July 2010.
  46. ↑ Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes #4, a Demento Society members-only compilation from 1994, contains the demo. It was never commercially recorded or released.
  47. ↑ Simon Carless, "Namco, Sony Music Settle Over Pac-Man Samples", Gamasutra, Aug. 29, 2005.
  48. ↑ Marcus Lai, "Namco and Sony settle Pac-Man lawsuit", Punch Jump, Aug. 29, 2005.
  49. ↑ "About Pac-Manhattan". Pac-Manhattan. 2004. http://www.pacmanhattan.com/about.php. Retrieved 2009-07-03. 
  50. ↑ ""Roomba Pac-Man Web Site"". http://pacman.elstonj.com. Retrieved 2009-10-10. 
  51. ↑ Lau, Dominic. "Pacman in Vancouver". SFU Computing Science. http://www.cs.sfu.ca/news/index.cgi/articles/2007-11-15-1.html. Retrieved 2009-07-03. 
  52. ↑ "Creating a World of Clones". Philadelphia Inquirer: p. 16. October 9. 
  53. ↑ Thompson, Adam (Fall). "The King of Video Games is a Woman". Creative Computing Video and Arcade Games 1 (2): 65. http://www.atarimagazines.com/cva/v1n2/mspacman.php. 
  54. ↑ Ratcliff, Matthew (August). "Classic Cartridges II". Antic 7 (4): 24. http://www.atarimagazines.com/v7n4/classicii.html. 
  55. ↑ Nguyen, Vincent (28 May 2008). "First LIVE images and videos of FULLSCREEN Android demos!". http://androidcommunity.com/first-live-images-of-fullscreen-android-demo-20080528/. Retrieved 2008-07-05. 
  56. ↑ "Ms. Pac-Man". Killer List of Videogames. http://www.klov.com/M/Ms._Pac-Man.html. Retrieved 2006-07-31. 
  57. ↑ "Google gets Pac-Man fever". cnet. May 21, 2010. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20005528-52.html. 
  58. ↑ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20005528-52.html
  59. ↑ "'Insert Coin': Google Doodle Celebrates Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary". ABC. ABC. 2010-05-21. http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/google-celebrates-pac-mans-30th-anniversary-doodle/story?id=10709477. Retrieved 2010-05-21. 
  60. ↑ http://technology.canoe.ca/2010/05/21/14037951.html
  61. ↑ http://www.inquisitr.com/73441/google-pac-man-insert-coin/
  62. ↑ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20005622-52.html
  63. ↑ Google Pac-Man

Further reading

  • Trueman, Doug (November 10, 1999). "The History of Pac-Man". GameSpot. Comprehensive coverage on the history of the entire series up through 1999.
  • Morris, Chris (May 10, 2005). "Pac Man Turns 25". CNN Money.
  • Vargas, Jose Antonio (June 22, 2005). "Still Love at First Bite: At 25, Pac-Man Remains a Hot Pursuit". The Washington Post.
  • Pac-Man Guide at MameWorld. In-depth strategy guide, including basic techniques, chase patterns and enemy behavior.
  • Hirschfeld, Tom. How to Master the Video Games, Bantam Books, 1981. ISBN 0-553-20164-6 Arcade strategy guide to several games including incarnations of Pac-Man. Includes hand drawings of some of the common patterns for use in the arcade Pac-Man.
  • Hirschfeld, Tom. How to Master Home Video Games, Bantam Books, 1982. ISBN 0-553-20195-6 Follow-up guide covering home versions among others.
  • The Pac-Man Dossier. A complete description of enemy behavior and gameplay via source code analysis and studied observation, including additional information on the split screen, the collision bug, and the Namco easter egg.

External links

Pac-Man
Arcade
Pac-Man · Ms. Pac-Man · Super Pac-Man · Pac-Man Plus · Professor Pac-Man · Pac & Pal · Jr. Pac-Man · Pac-Land · Pac-Mania · Pac-Man Arrangement · VR · Pac-Man Battle Royale
Pinball
Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man · Baby Pac-Man
Console
Pac-Man (Atari 2600) · Pac-Attack · Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures · Pac-In-Time · World · Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness · Adventures in Time · Collection · Ms. Pac-Man: Quest for the Golden Maze · Fever · World 2 · Vs. · Pac-Pix · Pinball Advance · Pac 'n Roll · World 3 · World Rally · Championship Edition (DX) · Party
Miscellany
Pac-Man clones · 3-Demon · Pac-Man (TV series) · "Pac-Man Fever" (song)
Wikipedia book Book:Pac-Man series · Category Category:Pac-Man · Portal Portal:Video games