Pac-Man, originally titled in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It was released in Japan on May 22, 1980 and by Midway Manufacturing in North America in October 1980. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue and vulnerable, allowing Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for bonus points.
Pac-Man was designed by Toru Iwatani, who led a nine-man team; the game's development began in early 1979. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes that appealed to traditionally masculine interests, such as war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, which refers to gobbling something up; the title was changed to Pac-Man for the North American release due to fears of vandals defacing cabinets by converting the P into an F, as in fuck.
Pac-Man is regarded as one of the most influential and greatest video games of all time. It was a widespread critical and commercial success, leading to several sequels, extensive merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single, "Pac-Man Fever", by Buckner & Garcia. The character of Pac-Man became the official mascot of Namco and later Bandai Namco Entertainment. The game remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling video games, generating more than $14 billion in revenue () and 43 million units in combined sales, and retains an enduring commercial and cultural legacy.
Gameplay
Pac-Man is an action maze chase video game; the player controls the eponymous character through an enclosed maze. The objective of the game is to eat all of the dots placed in the maze while avoiding four colored ghosts—Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange)—who pursue Pac-Man. When Pac-Man eats all of the dots, the player advances to the next level. Levels are indicated by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen. In between levels are short cutscenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky in humorous, comical situations.
If Pac-Man is caught by a ghost, he loses a life; the game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four ghosts has its own unique artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personality": Blinky gives direct chase to Pac-Man; Pinky and Inky try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him; and Clyde switches between chasing and fleeing from Pac-Man depending on his distance from him.
Placed near the four corners of the maze are large flashing "energizers" or "power pellets". When Pac-Man eats one, the ghosts turn blue with a dizzied expression and reverse direction. Pac-Man can eat blue ghosts for bonus points; when a ghost is eaten, its eyes make their way back to the center box in the maze, where the ghost "regenerates" and resumes its normal activity. Eating multiple blue ghosts in succession increases their point value. After a certain amount of time, blue-colored ghosts flash white before turning back into their normal forms. Eating a certain number of dots in a level causes a bonus item—usually a fruit—to appear underneath the center box; the item can be eaten for bonus points. To the sides of the maze are two "warp tunnels", which allow Pac-Man and the ghosts to travel to the opposite side of the screen. Ghosts become slower when entering and exiting these tunnels.
The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses: the ghosts become faster, and the energizers' effect decreases in duration, eventually disappearing entirely. An integer overflow causes the 256th level to load improperly, rendering it impossible to complete. This is known as a kill screen.
Development After acquiring the struggling Japanese division of Atari in 1974, Namco began producing its own video games in-house rather than licensing them from other developers to distribute in Japan. Company president Masaya Nakamura created a small video-game development group within the company that studied several NEC-produced microcomputers for their potential for creating games. Among the first people assigned to the division was 24-year-old employee Toru Iwatani. He created Namco's first video game Gee Bee in 1978, which, while unsuccessful, helped the company gain a stronger foothold in the quickly growing video-game industry. He assisted in the production of two sequels, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q, both released in 1979.
The Japanese video-game industry had surged in popularity with games such as Space Invaders and Breakout, and the market became flooded with similar titles. Iwatani felt that the crude graphics and violence of arcade games limited their appeal to men only and that arcades were seen as seedy environments. For his next project, Iwatani chose to create a nonviolent, cheerful game that appealed mostly to women, as he believed that attracting women and couples into arcades would create a more family-friendly atmosphere. Iwatani considered women's most frequent activities and then decided to center his game around eating, feeling that women like to eat sweets. His game was initially titled Pakkuman, based on the Japanese onomatopoeia term "paku paku taberu", referencing the mouth movement of opening and closing in succession.
The game that later became Pac-Man began development in early 1979 and took one year and five months to complete, the longest for any video game to that date. Iwatani enlisted the help of nine other Namco employees to assist in production, including composer Toshio Kai, programmer Shigeo Funaki and hardware engineer Shigeichi Ishimura. To appeal to a broad audience including women, Iwatani opted for simple gameplay and cute, attractive character designs. While the game was being developed, Namco was also designing Galaxian, which employed a revolutionary RGB color display, allowing sprites to display several colors simultaneously and obviating the need for colored strips of cellophane that had become commonplace. This technological accomplishment allowed Iwatani to greatly enhance his game with bright pastel colors, which he felt would help attract players. The idea for energizers was a concept that Iwatani borrowed from Popeye, a cartoon character who temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating spinach. It is believed that Iwatani was partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protects children from monsters by devouring them. Frank Fogleman, the cofounder of Gremlin Industries, believes that the maze-chase gameplay of Pac-Man was inspired by Sega's Head On (1979), a similar arcade game that was popular in Japan.
Iwatani has often claimed that the character of Pac-Man was inspired by the shape of a pizza with a missing slice that he observed at lunch, but in a 1986 interview, he said that this was only partially true and that the character's appearance was also the result of rounding and simplifying the Japanese character "kuchi" (口), meaning "mouth". The four ghosts were designed as cute, colorful and appealing, using bright, pastel colors and expressive blue eyes. Iwatani had used this idea in the development of Cutie Q, which features similar ghost-like characters. He was inspired by the television series Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga series Obake no Q-Taro.
Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists because they often appeared as villainous characters in animation. The idea for the fruit bonuses was based on graphics displayed on slot machine. Namco president Masaya Nakamura had originally requested that all of the ghosts be colored red and appear indistinguishable from one another. Iwatani believed that the ghosts should appear in different colors, and his colleagues unanimously supported his idea. The ghosts were programmed to display their own distinct personalities in order to prevent the game from becoming too boring or impossibly difficult to play. Each ghost's name provides a hint to its strategy for chasing Pac-Man: Shadow ("Blinky") always chases Pac-Man, Speedy ("Pinky") tries to get ahead of him, Bashful ("Inky") uses a more complicated strategy and Pokey ("Clyde") alternates between chasing and escaping. The ghosts' Japanese names are おいかけ, chase; まちぶせ, ambush; きまぐれ, fickle; and おとぼけ, playing dumb, respectively.
To alleviate the tension of constant pursuit, humorous intermissions between Pac-Man and Blinky were added. The sound effects were among the last features added to the game, created by Toshio Kai. In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and emitted gurgling noises to describe to Kai how he wanted the eating effect to sound. Upon completion, the game was titled Puck Man.
Release Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980 in Shibuya, Tokyo. Non-gamers responded well to it, finding it easy to learn, while many arcade regulars were unimpressed. A private showing for the game was held in June, followed by a nationwide release in July. Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initiated plans to bring the game to the international market, particularly the United States. Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America implemented several changes, such as changing the ghosts' names. The game's title was also changed because Namco executives worried that vandals would change the "P" in Puck Man to an "F". Masaya Nakamura chose to rename the game Pac-Man, which he felt was closer to the original Japanese title of Pakkuman. In Europe, the game was released under both titles. After the Puck Man title was abandoned but before Pac-Man was selected, early American promotional material used the name Snapper.
When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November 1980, executives believed that Rally-X would become the best-selling game of the year. According to Play Meter magazine, both Pac-Man and Rally-X received mild attention at the show. Namco had initially approached Atari to distribute Pac-Man, but Atari refused the offer. Midway Manufacturing subsequently agreed to distribute both Pac-Man and Rally-X in North America, announcing their acquisition of the manufacturing rights on November 22 and releasing the games in December.
Ports Pac-Man was ported to several home video-game systems and personal computers. The most infamous of these is the 1982 Atari 2600 conversion designed by Tod Frye and published by Atari, Inc. This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate recreation of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, especially the flickering effect of the ghosts. However, it was a commercial success, selling over seven million copies. Atari released versions for the Intellivision, VIC-20, Commodore 64, Apple II, IBM PC compatibles, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum and the Atari 8-bit computers. A port for the Atari 5200 was released in 1983, a version that is considered as a significant improvement over the Atari 2600 version.