Pac-Man – The Story of the Famous Come-Come

pac-man it is not a mere electronic game nor just a familiar “face”. Much more than that, Pac-Man has become a cultural symbol, both in Japan and in video games. The game was made primarily for Arcadian in the early 1980s. Even with very simple mechanics, the game became very popular.

The round, yellow character that resembles a pizza, run through a maze trying to get the points and run away from the ghosts. This is a brief and explained summary of the game. The hope of the game was to attract both girls and boys. And that goal was achieved, with a little humor and a nice comic appeal the game became famous.

A little bit of the history of amarelão

Toru Iwatani, a designer at the game company called Namco, wanted to create a game that resembles a cartoon. Toru says his inspiration for creating the character was a pizza he was eating. The pizza was missing two pieces, which looked like a mouth. So in 1980 the game was released under the name of Puck-Man.

Pac-man - the famous eat-eat

In the same year, an American company bought the rights to the game. It was then that the main character was renamed Pac-Man. In 1981 the game became famous throughout the American territory. The game surpassed another success, asteroids, earning over a billion dollars in its first year. Pac-Man was one of the first games to do a big advertising campaign. T-shirts, cups, mugs, sweaters, pants, books, board games, and more were game-themed.

The game was considered revolutionary for the time. The mechanics of "Power Up", was featured much earlier in Pac-Man than in the franchise Mario Bros. This mechanic gives the character a temporary special ability. Another thing that caught my attention was artificial intelligence. Each ghost had its own distinct personality and roles in the game. While one went after Pac-Man, some tried to surround him and the other only went if the others were close.

In 1981 two sequels were released, being basically the same game. The difference was that the main character in one was a female character, in the other it was a child version. As time went by, new and more modern versions of the game emerged. Until, in 1982, a animation based on Pac-Man, and in 1987 it arrived in Brazil, being shown by Bandeirantes TV.

Pac-man - the famous eat-eat

Some facts about Pac-Man

  • Billy Mitchell holds the record for being able to complete the game in 6 hours, achieving a score of 3,333,360 points without dying once;
  • In the first 18 months, more than 350,000 Pac-Man arcade machines were sold. Leading to almost a billion dollars;
  • The original ghosts in the game have names: Blinky the red, Inky the blue, Pinky the pink and Clyde the orange;
  • The original game was only 24 KB in size;
  • The character also had exhalation on Popeye, who ate and grew strong;
  • In 1981, a song called “Pac-Man Fever” was released, which sold over 2.5 million copies;
  • Pac-Man was the best-selling game for the Atari 2600 console, with over 7 million copies sold;

Have you ever played any pac-man game? Did you know its story? Let us know in the comments what you think and share the article on social media.

Read more articles from our website

Thanks for reading! But we would be happy if you take a look at other articles below:

Read our most popular articles:

Do you know this anime?