With several Guinness World Records and dozens of games to his name the impact of Pac-Man, partially designed to look like a pizza with a slice missing, is huge. Fewer than ten people have achieved this on an original arcade unit, the fastest entering the record books in 3 hours, 28 minutes and 49 seconds. The game’s 256 th level has a glitch making it unplayable, meaning it’s possible to hit a high score of 3,333,360 points by eating all the dots, fruits and ghosts. Perhaps the biggest challenge out there for fans of Pac-Man remains the achievement of a perfect score on the original game. This in part led to Atari’s demise, the videogames crash of 1983 and the rumoured burial of thousands of unsold cartridges in a secret landfill site. Atari had produced 12 million cartridges but only managed to sell 7 million. At the height of popularity in 1982 the Atari 2600 conversion was criticised for its bad-quality and odd design choices. It hasn’t always been a story of success for Pac-Man, however. His impact has taken him outside of the world of games to star in cartoons, have hit singles, feature in films and get his own playable Google Doodle. Along the way he has entered the 3D world, featured in all number of game genres and introduced us to his family Ms. Pac-Man has featured in over 80 games selling upwards of 43 million units, worth over $14 billion. Over the following 40 years, there has been a host of sequels, spin-offs, rip-offs and remakes. Image credit: Science Museum Group.Īfter his arcade success, Pac-Man was converted to consoles for home video game audiences. One of many Pac-Man clones released in the 1980s – a video game ‘Gobbledegook’, by Jupiter Cantab, England, 1983. While Oikaké (chaser) always chases Pac-Man around the maze, Kimaguré (fickle) is fickle, chasing or ambushing Pac-Man and sometimes just wandering off. These ghosts were each programmed with a different personality and their Japanese names were hints to their behaviour. Familiar to Western audiences by their nicknames the four main ghosts are Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde. Pac-Man is joined on screen by a collection of ghosts who chase him around the maze as he tries to gobble up dots. The player uses a joystick to control the circular character, moving it around a maze and eating wafers whilst avoiding an encounter with one of four ghosts. Atari adapted the Namco arcade game ‘Pac-Man’ for its Atari 2600, a console originally released in October 1977. The then-revolutionary RGB colour displays allowed Iwatani and his team to create attractive characters with bright colours which helped bring new fans to gaming. He wanted to create a non-violent game, hoping that his game would attract women and couples to the arcades. Creator Toru Iwatani felt that arcade games at the time were often violent and appealed mainly to men. Part of the reason for this success was the universal appeal. Within a year more than 100,000 arcade units had been sold grossing more than $1 billion in quarters. The US welcomed this new title and Pac-Man became a huge success in the growing number of arcades around the country. After a quick name change (courtesy of American Execs at Midway fearing what vandals might change the title to) Pac-Man hit the arcades. Initial feedback was positive and so later that year Namco took its new title to trade shows around the world. Ten years earlier in May 1980 Namco began public testing of its new arcade game Puck Man. My love for the little yellow circle started in a very analogue fashion playing the MB Games boardgame spin-off at the age of five with my cousin in 1990. The undisputed granddaddy of gaming mascots turns 40 this month so here’s a look at why we’ve all been in the throes of Pac-Mania for the past four decades. To celebrate 40 years since the release of Pac-Man, Head of Commercial Experiences and gaming fan Mark Cutmore explores the story of the much-loved character and pop-culture icon.
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