Pac-Man

Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze action 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.

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. 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.

Becoro # 2024-03-07 21:17:38 - source

software: Emulated on MAME,

hardware: Namco Pac-Man arcade hardware,

display: raster

First game to sell over 100,000 units in the States alone!

Also the first major commercialized gaming icon, the little guy with a big mouth. What more needs to be said? Who doesn't know Pac-Man?

# 2006

collected in
Namco Museum (Dreamcast)
Return of Arcade (Windows)

emulated by
Namco Museum Vol. 1 (PS)
Pac-Man Arcade Emulator (Amstrad CPC)

ported to
Pac-Man (Sharp X1)
Pac-Man Collection (GBA)
Pac-Man (X360)
Pac-Man (MSX)
Pac-Man (TI99)
Pac-Man (VIC-20)
Pac-Man (ZX Spectrum)
Pac-Man (ColecoVision)
Pac-Man (MICRO 7 - FM7)
Pac-Man (NEC PC8001)
Pac-Man (NEC PC8801)
Pac-Man (NEC PC9801)
Pac-Man (Sharp MZ)
Namco Museum: 50th Anniversary (GBA)
Pac-Man (Intellivision)
Pac-Man (Famicom Disk System)
Pac-Man (NES)
Pac-Man (Atari 400/800)
Pac-Man (Game Gear)
Pac-Man (GB)
Pac-Man (custom)
Pac-Man (Apple II E)
Pac-Man (Atari 2600)
Pac-Man (Atari 5200)
Pac-Man (C64)
Pac-Man (MS-DOS)

prequel of
Ms. Pac-Man (Arcade)

version of
Pac-Man (Atari ST)
Pac-Man (WinCE)
Pac-Man (X68000)
Famicom Pac-Man (X68000)
Pac-Man on E's (Atari ST)
Pac-Man (Atari 400/800)
Pac-Man (Atari 400/800)

was remade as
Pac-Man Collection (GBA)