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Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man [a] in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and released by Namco for arcades.In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America.
Pac-Man [a] is a Japanese video game franchise developed, published and owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment, a video game publisher that was previously known as Namco. Entries have been developed by a wide array of other video game companies, including Midway Games, Atari and Mass Media, Inc., and was created by Toru Iwatani.
TitleDetailsWorld's Largest Pac-Man Original release ...Release years by system: 2015 – ArcadePac-Man Chomp Mania Original release date ...Notes: Developed by Raw ThrillsPac-Man Chomp Mania Original release date ...Pac-Man Battle Royale Original release ...Pac-Man VR Original release date (s): ...Pac-Man Battle Royale Original release ...May 21, 2020 · May 22, 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of a moment that shook the video game industry and profoundly changed the way we play: the debut of Pac-Man, which first hit arcades in Japan on May 22, 1980.
- Overview
- Gameplay
- Achievements
- Development
- Home Ports
- Other versions
- In other games
- Namco Museum Vol. 1 port
- Play Online
(パックマン Pakkuman, originally known as Puckman in Japan) is the first video game in the Pac-Man series. Conceived by Toru Iwatani, the game was developed and manufactured by Namco, and first released in Japan in a location testing phase on May 22, 1980; a full release followed in July. In the United States, the game was licensed to Bally Midway for manufacturing, releasing on October 26, 1980.
Being the first video game in the Pac-Man series, the game is the debut appearance of Pac-Man and the Ghosts. Pac-Man was a widespread and commercial success upon its initial release in 1980, spawning a media franchise consisting of several sequel and spin-off games, TV shows, merchandise and more.
is an action maze chase game where the player guides the titular Pac-Man across an enclosed maze. Pac-Man's goal is to eat all 240 dots and the four Energizers within the maze to clear the round, while avoiding the four Ghost Monsters that roam around the maze. The player uses the control stick to move Pac-Man up, down, left and right across the maze walls.
The four Ghost Monsters, Blinky (Shadow), Pinky (Speedy), Inky (Bashful) and Clyde (Pokey) will periodically emerge from the Ghost House located in the center of the maze seeking to capture Pac-Man by colliding into him. Each of them will target Pac-Man differently: Blinky targets Pac-Man directly, Pinky targets Pac-Man from in front of him, Inky will target Pac-Man depending on Blinky and Pac-Man's location and Clyde will target Pac-Man; albeit moving away towards the bottom left corner of the maze if he gets near Pac-Man. If one of the Ghost Monsters touch Pac-Man, he will fold in on himself and the player loses one of their remaining lives. The game ends when all lives are lost.
Near the four corners of the maze are four Energizers. After eating an Energizer, Pac-Man will temporarily power up and will cause the Ghost Monsters to become scared and vulnerable; while scared, Ghost Monsters are dark blue-colored, move slower and reverse direction in attempt to make distance from Pac-Man. Pac-Man can eat scared Ghost Monsters for bonus points by eating them in this state. Once eaten, the screen will freeze for a brief moment, and their remaining eyes will quickly scatter back to the Ghost House to regenerate their body in their regular state (any fleeing eyes moving while the screen freezes will continue to move). The Ghost Monsters will flash white (about five times) before they revert back to their original dangerous state, signalizing Energizer effects wearing off. If another Energizer is eaten while there are still scared Ghost Monsters, the bonus point value for eating ghosts is reset back to 200 points. Additionally, if another Energizer is eaten while there are still Ghost Monsters without bodies fleeing, they will not be effected by the Energizer once they regain their body.
Pac-Man eats Dots by moving towards them, but he will slow down upon eating them in a path. Pac-Man is also able to make sharper turns than the Ghost Monsters by holding down the joystick in the indicated direction as he is approaching a maze wall's corner.
When 70 and 170 dots are eaten within a round, a bonus item will appear beneath the Ghost House for eight seconds, which can be eaten for bonus points. The bonus items (which are usually fruits) will change in later rounds, indicated by the items present in the bottom right corner of the screen. The bonus items in later rounds will be worth more points. Across the middle of the maze are Warp Tunnels, which Pac-Man can enter to emerge from the other side of the maze. Ghost Monsters can also enter this tunnel, though they will slow down upon entering it; this can give Pac-Man an advantage towards escaping the ghosts.
Upon eating all the dots and Energizers within the maze, the round is cleared. The game process repeats, though in the following rounds, the game will increase in difficulty: ghosts will become faster and will spend less time scattering; the Energizer effects will also last for shorter periods of time in later rounds until they eventually cause the ghosts to simply reverse direction and not turn scared at all by the 21st round. A series of intermissions (also referred to as as Coffee Breaks) play after certain levels toward the beginning of the game, showing a humorous set of interactions. There are three total, appearing after levels 2, 5, and 9. The third intermission appears several times afterward on later levels.
Arcade Game Series (PC, PS4, Xbox One)Xbox 360became accustomed to the video game industry following the releases of Gee Bee, Bomb Bee and Cutie Q; despite the titles being considered commercial failures. In Japan, video games had surged in popularity following the success of games such as Space Invaders and Breakout. At the time, game developer Toru Iwatani; who previously designed Gee Bee and Cutie Q for Namco, felt arcade games only appealed to men for many games sharing themes of crude graphics, shooter gameplay and violence. He decided to create a concept for a game with cuter characters that would appeal to women, as he believed that making a game that would appeal to women would make arcades appear more family friendly, since he felt that arcades at the time had seedy environments. When deciding on the game's theme, Iwatani thought of what women enjoyed, and settled on the theme of eating for the game and characters since women enjoyed eating sweets and other desserts.
The game and its concepts went into development in 1979 alongside Namco's shooter game Galaxian, which would be Namco's first video game with an RGB video display, allowing for colorful palette selections and graphics. The RGB display would be pivotal for the idea of the project which eventually became Pac-Man, so it could display vibrant colors for the characters.
Throughout the years, there have been conflicting sources of the Pac-Man character's origins. From Toru Iwatani, the inspiration was pizza without a slice, which gave him a vision of "an animated pizza, racing through a maze and eating things with its absent-slice mouth". However, in a 1986 interview, Toru Iwatani said that the design of the character also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for a mouth, kuchi (口). Additionally, possibly by coincidence, a separate Pac-Man brand by Tomy existed six years prior to Iwatani's creation. Pac-Man's name comes from the onomatopoeic Japanese word paku-paku (パクパク), a term for gobbling something up. The idea for Pac-Man powering up using Energizers was a concept Iwatani borrowed from the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man, a cartoon character that temporarily acquires superhuman strength after eating a can of spinach; as well as being partly inspired by a Japanese children's story about a creature that protected children from monsters by devouring them. In a design session, Iwatani noisily ate fruit and made gurgling noises to describe to Toshio Kai, Pac-Man's sound designer, how he wanted Pac-Man's eating effect to sound.
Ghosts were chosen as the game's main antagonists because they were used as villainous characters in animation. The four ghosts were designed to be cute, colorful, and appealing, using bright, pastel colors and blue eyes. Toru Iwatani cited the inspiration of the ghosts from Casper the Friendly Ghost and the manga Obake no Q-Taro. When the ghosts were decided as the antagonists, Namco president Masaya Nakamura requested that all ghosts be colored red and indistinguishable from each other. The idea was opposed by Toru Iwatani, who thought the ghosts should be colored differently; this idea was supported by his colleagues. During an internal vote, all of Namco's staff were in favor of the multicolor ghosts on a 40-0 vote; Nakamura agreed to let the ghosts be multicolored. The ghosts were given different personalities and methods of chasing Pac-Man in order to balance the game difficulty and prevent the game from becoming boring. Each of the ghosts were given character names to distinguish their methods of pursuing Pac-Man, and would become more difficult to avoid in later rounds. Upon the game's completion, the character and game was titled Pakkuman (パックマン), romanized as Puckman in English. Tadashi Yamashita illustrated the character's limbed design alongside the game's logo and cabinet art.
first appeared on home consoles in 1981, and has appeared on nearly every system since. The game has been released for the following systems and devices in some way, shape or form.
•Amstrad CPC
•Possibly bootleg in origin, or an unreleased prototype.
•Nearly identical to the Atari 400/800/XL/XE version.
•Android
•Delisted from the Google Play Store and replaced with Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013.
There are many variations of Pac-Man that are fundamentally the same as the original game, but feature several differences that make them stand out. These games include:
•Tomy LSI Game Pac-Man (1981)
•Pac-Man (Atari 2600) (1982)
•Pac-Man Plus (1982)
•Pac-Man (speed-up chip) (198?)
•Pac-Man (Galaxy Games StarPak 2) (1998)
The first Pac-Man is also featured in some newer games in the series. The following Pac-Man games contain the original arcade version.
•Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1994)
•Pac-Man World (1999)
•Pac-Man World 2 (2002)
•Pac 'n Roll (2005)
•Pac-Man World 3 (2005)
This version of the game, introduced in Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995), is notable for being perhaps the most frequently rereleased "official" version of Pac-Man from 1995 to 2005. This version of the game often featured a border based on the classic Puckman artwork surrounding it. Being based off the original's source code, it is mostly faithful to the arcade version, but a few things were altered in gameplay:
•Pinky always aims exactly four spaces in front of Pac-Man when in chase mode (in the original, this became four spaces up and four spaces to the left when Pac-Man was facing up, due to a glitch).
•Inky's behavior has been considerably altered; he exclusively aims for Blinky's position in chase mode.
•The ghosts' eyes will not travel up through the one-way paths when returning to regenerate.
•When a ghost is sent back to the Ghost Home to regenerate, they will always come back out instantly, even if Pac-Man lost a life on the current round. (Incidentally, this fixes a glitch that can occur in the original where Pac-Man can trap Pinky, Inky, and Clyde in the Ghost Home.)
•Ghosts will exit the Ghost Home to the right if their target position happens to be there. In the original game, they will only exit to the right if the behavior mode (i.e. scatter, chase, frightened) changes while they are in the Ghost Home.
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Feb 20, 2024 · The history of Pac-Man does not start with the game itself. Prior to Pac-man there were other games very similar in design. Pac-man belongs to a genre of games called Dot-Eat games or in Japanese ドットイートゲーム (dotto īto gēmu). This genre, characterized by navigating mazes, avoiding enemies, and consuming dots or targets, traces ...
In Japanese slang, paku paku describes the snapping of a mouth open and shut, and thus the central character, resembling a small pizza with a slice cut out for the mouth, was given the name Pac-Man. The game was made challenging by a group of four “ghosts” on each level that tried to catch and consume Pac-Man; the roles of predator and prey ...
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May 21, 2020 · The game wasn’t called “Pac-Man” back then, but rather “PuckMan,” which offers a glimpse into its origins. “Paku paku taberu” is a popular Japanese phrase for gobbling something up ...
