What was the inspiration for the pac-man computer game character

Whereas most arcade games of the era involved shooting marauding aliens, Pac-Man looked like a miniature, interactive cartoon: a comical tug-of-war between a round, yellow character with an addiction to munching tiny white dots and a quartet of roaming ghosts with big, anxious eyes.

As we now know, Pac-Man was a massive hit, and its grip on pop culture is still strong today. But Pac-Man 's success was far from certain; its designer initially had no interest in games, and the public reaction to it was initially mixed. Here's a brief look at some of the fascinating facts behind Pac-Man 's making, its impact, and its legacy.

When then year-old Toru Iwatani started work at Namco in , he had no particular interest in designing video games. In fact, Iwatani initially expected that he'd work on pinball machines, but instead ended up designing the Breakout -inspired paddle games Gee Bee , Bomb Bee and Cutie Q Two years after Pac-Man 's release in , he designed Pole Position. Japanese arcades of the late s and early s were dark, masculine places full of space shooting games inspired by the success of Space Invaders— including Namco's own enormously successful Galaxian.

In response, Iwatani began thinking about a concept which ran counter to those games. I wanted to come up with a 'comical' game women could enjoy. Iwatani began thinking about ideas based around the word taberu , meaning "to eat. One of the great creation legends of game design is that Iwatani, while eating a pizza, looked down at the pie with a missing slice and used the outline as inspiration for Pac-Man's distinctive shape. The story was furthered by Iwatani himself; when Pac-Man fever was at its height, he even posed with a half-eaten pizza for a publicity photograph.

May 7, No Comments. Jump to Five Fast Facts. For the weekend of May 21—23, , Google changed the logo on its homepage to a playable version of the game in recognition of the 30th anniversary of its release. The Google Doodle version of Pac-Man was estimated to have been played by more than 1 billion people worldwide in , so Google later saved the game so people could keep playing — check it out here. Pac-Man has appeared in many films over the years, including Pixels creator Toru Iwatani has a cameo in the beginning of the film , Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.

In order to achieve that perfect score, Mitchell had to clear all stages without a single miss, and consume all PAC-DOTS, fruits, and ghosts consume 4 ghosts with each Power Pellet. The Atari version of the game sold over 7. In addition, the Coleco mini tabletop version of the game sold over 1. Share on facebook. Share on twitter. Share on pinterest.

Share on linkedin. Entertainment , Games , Software , Technology s , pac-man , video games. Jen Brown. Leave a Comment Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published. I remember that!

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