Pac-Man
Pac-Man,[a] originally called Puck Man 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. 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, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
This article is about the video game. For the character, see Pac-Man (character). For the series of games, see List of Pac-Man video games. For other uses, see Pac-Man (disambiguation).Pac-Man
Shigeo Funaki
Shigeichi Ishimura
Shigeichi Ishimura
Toshio Kai
1-2 players alternating turns
Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports.[5][6] 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 (Japanese: 口). 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.
Pac-Man was a widespread critical and commercial success, leading to several sequels, merchandise, and two television series, as well as a hit single, "Pac-Man Fever", by Buckner & Garcia. The character of Pac-Man has become the official mascot of Bandai Namco Entertainment.[7] The game remains one of the highest-grossing and best-selling games, generating more than $14 billion in revenue (as of 2016) and 43 million units in sales combined, and has an enduring commercial and cultural legacy, commonly listed as one of the greatest video games of all time.
Release
Location testing for Puck Man began on May 22, 1980, in Shibuya, Tokyo, to a relatively positive fanfare from players.[24] A private showing for the game was done in June, followed by a nationwide release in July.[12] Eyeing the game's success in Japan, Namco initialized plans to bring the game to the international market, particularly the United States.[26] Before showing the game to distributors, Namco America made a number of changes, such as altering the names of the ghosts.[26] The biggest of these was the game's title; executives at Namco were worried that vandals would change the "P" in Puck Man to an "F", forming Fuck Man.[12][33] Masaya Nakamura chose to rename it to Pac-Man, as he felt it was closer to the game's original Japanese title of Pakkuman.[12] In Europe, the game was released under both titles, Pac-Man and Puck Man.[34]
When Namco presented Pac-Man and Rally-X to potential distributors at the 1980 AMOA tradeshow in November,[35] executives believed that Rally-X would be the best-selling game of that year.[12][36] 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.[37] 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[38] and releasing them in December.[39]
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.[40] This version of the game was widely criticized for its inaccurate portrayal of the arcade version and for its peculiar design choices, most notably the flickering effect of the ghosts.[41][42][43] 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.[44]
Namco released a version for the Nintendo Famicom in 1984 as one of the console's first third-party titles,[45] as well as a port for the MSX computer.[46] The Famicom version was later released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Tengen, a subsidiary of Atari Games. Tengen produced an unlicensed version of the game in a black cartridge shell, released during a time when Tengen and Nintendo were in disagreements over the latter's stance on quality control for its consoles; this version was re-released by Namco as an official title in 1993, featuring a new cartridge label and box. The Famicom version was released for the Famicom Disk System in 1990 as a budget title for the Disk Writer kiosks in retail stores.[45] The same year, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for the Game Boy, which allowed for two-player co-operative play via the Game Link Cable peripheral. A version for the Game Gear was released a year later, which likewise enabled support for multiplayer. In celebration of the game's 20th anniversary in 1999, Namco re-released the Game Boy version for the Game Boy Color, bundled with Pac-Attack and titled Pac-Man: Special Color Edition.[47] The same year, Namco and SNK co-published a port for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which came with a circular "Cross Ring" that attached to the d-pad to restrict it to four-directional movement.[48]
In 2001, Namco released a port of Pac-Man for various Japanese mobile phones, being one of the company's first mobile game releases.[49] The Famicom version of the game was re-released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series, released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Famicom; this version was released in North America and Europe under the Classic NES Series label.[50] Namco Networks released Pac-Man for BREW mobile devices in 2005.[51] The arcade original was released for the Xbox Live Arcade service in 2006, featuring achievements and online leaderboards. In 2009 a version for iOS devices was published; this release was rebranded as Pac-Man + Tournaments in 2013, featuring new mazes and leaderboards. The NES version was released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2007. A Roku version was released in 2011,[52] alongside a port of the Game Boy release for the 3DS Virtual Console. Pac-Man was one of four titles released under the Arcade Game Series brand, which was published for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.[53] In 2021, according to Nintendo Direct, it was announced that Hamster Corporation would release Pac-Man, along with Xevious, for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 as part of its Arcade Archives series, marking the first two Namco games to be included as part of the series.
Pac-Man is included in many Namco compilations, including Namco Museum Vol. 1 (1995),[54] Namco Museum 64 (1999),[55] Namco Museum Battle Collection (2005),[56] Namco Museum DS (2007), Namco Museum Essentials (2009),[57] and Namco Museum Megamix (2010).[58] In 1996, it was re-released for arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, alongside Dig Dug, Rally-X and special "Arrangement" remakes of all three titles.[59][60] Microsoft included Pac-Man in Microsoft Return of Arcade (1995) as a way to help attract video game companies to its Windows 95 operating system.[61] Namco released the game in the third volume of Namco History in Japan in 1998.[62] The 2001 Game Boy Advance compilation Pac-Man Collection compiles Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Pac-Attack and Pac-Man Arrangement onto one cartridge.[63] Pac-Man is a hidden extra in the arcade game Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga - Class of 1981 (2001).[64][65] A similar cabinet was released in 2005 that featured Pac-Man as the centerpiece.[66] Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1993) and Pac-Man World 2 (2002) have Pac-Man as an unlockable extra. Alongside the Xbox 360 remake Pac-Man Championship Edition, it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012 as part of Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.[67] The 2010 Wii game Pac-Man Party and its 2011 3DS remake include Pac-Man as a bonus game, alongside the arcade versions of Dig Dug and Galaga.[68][69] In 2014, Pac-Man was included in the compilation title Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, alongside several other Pac-Man games.[70] The NES version is one of 30 games included in the NES Classic Edition.[71]
Reviews
Reviewing home console versions in 1982, Games magazine called the Atari 5200 implementation a "splendidly reproduced" version of the arcade game, noting a difference in maze layouts for the television screen. It considered the Atari 2600 version to have "much weaker graphics", but to still be one of the best games for that console. In both cases the reviewer felt that the joystick controls were harder to use than those of the arcade machine, and that "attempts to make quick turns are often frustrated".[140]
Technology
The original arcade system board had one Z80A processor, running at 3.072 MHz, 16 kbyte of ROM and 3 kbyte of static RAM. Of those 1 kbyte each was for video RAM, color RAM and generic program RAM. There were two custom chips on the board: the 285 sync bus controller and the 284 video RAM addresser, but daughterboards made only from standard parts were also widely used instead. Video output was (analog) component video with composite sync. A further 8 kbyte of character ROM was used for characters, background tiles and sprites and an additional 1 kbit of static RAM was used to hold 4bpp sprite data for one scanline and was written to during the horizontal blanking period preceding each line. Sprite size was always 16x16 pixels, one of the four colors per pixel was for transparency (of the background).
The monitor was installed 90 degree rotated clockwise, the first visible scanline started in the top right corner and ends in the bottom right corner. The horizontal blanking period, which starts after the level indicator at the bottom is drawn, had a duration of 96 pixel clock ticks, enough time to fetch 4 bytes of sprite data per 16 clock ticks for 6 sprites. Although attribute memory exists for them, sprites 0 and 7 are unusable: Their pixel fetch timing windows are occupied by the bottom level indicator (which just precedes the hblank) for sprite 0 and two rows of characters at the top of the screen, which just follow the hblank, for sprite 7.[206]