Pac-Man

Source metadata
Type	Video Games
Start date	1980-05-22
Tags	Pizza Time Theatre, ShowBiz Pizza Place, Pac-Man
Contributors	Front-Row-Joe, ThatRockHistorian76

Pac-Man is an arcade maze video game developed by Namco and originally released in Japan on May 22, 1980. One of the staples of the video game craze of the early 1980s, the game reached instant massive success in the US when it was released there in October 1980 , and is now considered one of the greatest and most influential video games of all time.

History

Development

The character Pac-Man was designed by Tōru Iwatani, who had designed Namco's first video game, Gee Bee, released in October 1978. His shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, but, according to Iwatani, was created when Iwatani rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi. The character was originally named Puck Man, the name being derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, or gobbling something up. The game was programmed by Shigeo Funaki and Shigeichi Ishimura; Funaki, along with Toshio Kai, also composed the game's music. The game's art was done by Hiroshi Ono.

Release

Puck Man was released in Japan on May 22, 1980, by Namco, its developer. Out of fear of the possibility that vandals would deface cabinets and change "Puck" to an expletive, the game and it's protagonist's name was changed to "Pac-Man" for the North American release. Pac-Man was released in the United States in October 1980, and instantly became a huge success. The game's popularity inspired the 1981 Buckner & Garcia song "Pac-Man Fever." In Japan and Germany, Pac-Man was distributed by Namco, while in the US and France, it was distributed by Midway. Owing to its extreme popularity, the game was available at several Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre and ShowBiz Pizza Place locations--some would even have multiple machines side by side, such as Redwood City, CA (380 Convention Way).

Gameplay

Pac-Man is a maze game where the player controls the titular character (essentially a yellow circle with a mouth). Their goal is to eat all the dots ("pellets") in each level while avoiding four ghosts (or "monsters"). Pac-Man's only defense is eating one of four large dots ("Power Pellets") in the maze's corners, which will temporarily scare off the ghosts and make them edible. Eating them will send them back to the center, where they will regenerate and leave to continue roaming around. The ghosts switch between "scattering" (staying in one corner of the maze) and "chasing" down Pac-Man at set intervals. In addition, each ghost has unique AI patterns during "chase" mode: Blinky (red) always targets Pac-Man directly, Pinky (pink) tries to get in front of him, Inky (cyan)'s target depends on the position of both Pac-Man and Blinky, and Clyde (orange) normally targets Pac-Man but flees to his designated corner if he gets too close. Various fruits also spawn in the middle of the maze, awarding bonus points when eaten.

Credits

Name	Start	End	Serial	Notes
Hiroshi Ono
Toshio Kai
Shigeo Funaki
Tōru Iwatani
Shigeichi Ishimura

Import provenance

Imported from Cheese-E-Pedia at source revision 274f085c7132d784f81b7a4cbd96e7a0922db854. Source material is provided under CC BY-SA 4.0.