PAC-MAN – GAMING CHARACTER ARCHIVE #012

PAC-MAN – GAMING CHARACTER ARCHIVE #011

Before Lara. Before Mario. Before Sonic. Before Gordon Freeman, Duke Nukem and Guybrush Threepwood.

There was a yellow bloke eating dots while four ghosts tried to murder him.

For #011 of the Gaming Character Archive, we’re going right back to the arcade era and taking a look at Pac-Man, one of the characters that helped turn videogames from machines you played into something people could actually recognise, remember and obsess over.

Simple idea.
Simple character.
Ridiculously effective.

#011 is Pac-Man, a particularly useful Archive subject: he debuted in 1980, was designed by Namco’s Toru Iwatani, became a major international hit, and went far beyond being simply a character in an arcade game. The BFI describes Pac-Man as having become cultural shorthand for videogames themselves, while the official Pac-Man history records his 1980 Japanese and North American releases and subsequent explosion in popularity.

He also gives the Archive something we’ve not really had before: a character whose entire personality had to be communicated through a handful of pixels and gameplay behaviour. The four ghosts have distinct behaviours too, helping make the original game much more characterful than its extremely simple visual presentation might suggest.

So #011 isn’t simply another famous gaming character. It’s a look at one of the points where the idea of a recognisable videogame character really took off.

Gramepa’s editorial ratings

Appetite — 100
Maze Navigation — 99
Ghost Avoidance — 94
Power-Pellet Timing — 98
Patience — 71
Arcade Endurance — 100

I suspect that last one is scientifically sound.

#Gaming #GamingHistory #PacMan #RetroGaming #ArcadeGaming #Namco #Gramepa