Retro Geeky Goodies - PacMan

 Toru Iwatani, an employee of the Japanese company Namco Limited, developed the game we now know as Pac-man, though it was originally released under another name. (More on that later)

One of his goals was to create a game that would appeal more to girls, who were not heavy arcade game players in 1979, when development began.

Just over a year later, in May of 1980, the public first met the yellow gobbler. Girls loved the game, with its maze, and ghost enemies that were cute, rather than menacing.  

The original name of the game was Pakkuman.  In Japan, the sound made when the mouth is repeatedly opened and closed is vocalized as "paku-paku ."  So, the character made that sound, and the name somehow morphed into Puck-Man.

Well, along came Midway, a division of Bally Technologies, who won the right to manufacture the product in the United States.  They rightly saw a potential problem with the name.

They wisely took note of the fact that some crude individuals might well deface the game by replacing the initial P with the letter F.  That would have produced a PR Nightmare for Bally.  So, they proactively changed the name from Puck-Man to Pac-man.

The four ghosts became widely referred to as ghosts due to a software limitation in the Atari 2600 game system.  In the Atari version, the images flickered.  This was not originally intended.  

But, Atari begin dubbing them ghosts in their instruction manuals to make it seem to be an intended effect.  So, they became known to the game playing public as a result of a defect.  And ghosts they've been ever since.

Image courtesy ClkerFreeVectorImages, via Pixabay

Speaking of the ghosts, if you are one of the few people on the planet who isn't personally acquainted with them, here's an introduction, including their colors, nicknames, and characteristics, as shown on the title screen:

BLINKY - red - Shadow

PINKY - pink - Speedy

INKY - cyan - Bashful

CLYDE - orange - Pokey

Pac-Man is widely regarded as one of the most popular and well known video arcade games ever.  In the world of gaming it was, and still is, a real winner.  

The yellow hero of the game enjoys a 94% recognition rate within the American public.  That's the highest for any video game character, ever.

Namco, the company that brought the game out, was clearly a winner, as was the company that employed him, for obvious reasons.  It holds the all time record for revenue production among video games.

Toru Iwatani (center), creator of PAC-MAN

Developer Toru Iwatani was the obvioius recipient of the admiration of other developers as well as gamers around the world. 

iwatari also won a very small role as  video technician in the 2015 movie "Pixels."  However, he was unable to win the role of himself.  That honor went to Denis Akiyama.

WINNING THE ACTUAL GAME

To win the game, a player is required to get to level 256 with no miss-steps whatsoever, and scoring  the maximum possible 3,333,360 points in the process.  

Only seven people have ever done this.  The first to do so was Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, Florida.  The fastest winning (just under 35 hours) was achieved by David Race.

For those occasions that call for something special, yet small and simple, here are some ideas that will lighten your wallet by less than twenty dollars.

They are fun for party prizes, stocking stuffers, and saying "Thank You."  

And you know what?  There's nothing wrong with a 'just because' gift, either - especially when it's so affordable.