Pac-Man Facts
"Pac-Man" is one of the most popular video games in the world. It was released by the Japanese arcade company Namco in October 1980 and became an instant hit with more than 100,000 coin-operated machines sold in the first year and 7 million copies for the Atari the following year.
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Development
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The original "Pac-Man" was created in 1980 by a team led by a 25-year-old Japanese developer named Tohru Iwatani. Iwatani's original design for the Pac-Man character was inspired by the Japanese character for mouth, "kuchi," which resembles a simple box shape that was rounded out to a circle for the game. The original name was "Pakkuman" or "Puckman" because of the protagonist's round shape, but the name was changed to "Pac-Man" before its North American release to avoid confusion with an English vulgarity. The North American release was in partnership with the American arcade company Midway.
"Ms. Pac-Man"
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The sequel to "Pac-Man", "Ms. Pac-Man", was released in 1981. Gameplay was left mostly the same in "Ms. Pac-Man", but changes from the original include the addition of a bow, an eye and a mole to the main character. The game also included four new mazes, new fruit and music as well as additional intermission animations. A new, female ghost named Sue was also added.
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Sequels
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Official sequels to the original "Pac-Man" arcade game include "Super Pac-Man", "Pac & Pal", "Pac-Land" (a side-scrolling action game), "Pac-Mania", "Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures" and "Pac-Man 25th Anniversary", released in 2005.
The Ghosts/Monsters
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The four ghosts that chase Pac-Man in the original game--named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde in the North American release--are programmed with distinct personalities. Their movements, originally pre-programmed, were quickly memorized by players, and later versions of the game were corrected to randomize the movements of the ghosts. The ghosts are based on Obake no Q-Taro, a famous cartoon ghost in Japan. They are referred to as both "monsters" and "ghosts" in the game, although the Pac-Man TV show compromised by calling them "ghost-monsters".
Cartoon
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Beginning in 1982, ABC aired 21 episodes of "The Pac-Man Show", an animated cartoon that ran for two years. The show's plot featured a heroic Pac-Man who saves his friends and family in Pac-Land from the ghosts and an evil figure named Mezmaron (who does not appear in the arcade game). The show featured two prime-time specials and later aired on USA's "Cartoon Express".
Additional Trivia
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In July 1999, Billy Mitchell of Florida achieved the first perfect score (3,333,360) in the arcade version of "Pac-Man". The perfect game took more than six hours and required Mitchell to complete each of the 256 screens, successfully getting every dot, fruit and ghost. Mitchell was able to do this without losing a single life.
In business terms, the "Pac-Man defense" refers to when a company protects itself from hostile takeovers by buying out the larger company instead.
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