Pac-Man (パックマン Pakkuman?) is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of 1980s popular culture. Upon its release, the game—and, subsequently, Pac-Man derivatives became a social phenomenon that sold a bevy of merchandise and also inspired, among other things, an animated television series and a top-ten hit single.
When Pac-Man was released, the most popular arcade video games were space shooters, in particular Space Invaders and Asteroids. The most visible minority were sports games that were mostly derivative of Pong. Pac-Man succeeded by creating a new genre and appealing to both genders. Pac-Man is often credited with being a landmark in video game history, and is among the most famous arcade games of all time. It is also the highest-grossing video game of all time, having generated more than $2.5 billion in quarters by the 1990s.
The character has appeared in more than 30 officially licensed game spin-offs, as well as in numerous unauthorized clones and bootlegs. According to the Davie-Brown Index, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness of any video game character among American consumers, recognized by 94 percent of them. Pac-Man is one of the longest running video game franchises from the golden age of video arcade games, and one of only three video games that are on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. (along with Pong and Dragon's Lair).
Split-screen
The 256th "Split-Screen" level cannot be completed due to a software bug.
Pac-Man was designed to have no ending - as long as the player keeps at least one life, he or she should be able to play the game indefinitely. However, a bug keeps this from happening: Normally, no more than seven fruits are displayed at the bottom of the screen at any one time. But when the internal level counter, which is stored in a single byte, reaches 255, the subroutine that draws the fruits erroneously "rolls over" this number to zero, causing it to try to draw 256 fruits instead of the usual seven. This corrupts the bottom of the screen and the entire right half of the maze with seemingly random symbols, making it impossible to eat enough dots to beat the level. Because this effectively ends the game, this "split-screen" level is often referred to as the "kill screen". Emulators and code analysis have revealed what would happen should this 255th level be cleared: The fruits and intermissions would restart at level 1 conditions, but the enemies would retain their higher speed and invulnerability to power pellets from the higher stages.
Development
The North American Pac-Man cabinet design differs significantly from the Japanese Puck Man design. The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Tōru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title was Pakkuman (パックマン?), inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic slang phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる?), where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.
Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (口). Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost enemy characters. The result was a game he named Puck Man.
Later in 1980, the game was picked up for manufacture in the United States by Bally division Midway, which changed the game's name from Puck Man to Pac-Man in an effort to avoid vandalism to the letter 'P'. The cabinet artwork was also changed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man
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Icons - The History Of Pacman - Part 2by RetrospectiveHouse1,446 views
Fuck Man
GamingBoy58 1 month ago
What a cool, informative video and a great story!
The part about the P in Puck-Man having the tip shaved off to alter the word is so funny xD
rockymountainrandom 1 month ago
now we have stupid call of duty
drwasup 3 months ago
Very cool!
coolster01 3 months ago
When you don’t know what true for you, everyone else has unusual influence.
Values are deeply held personal beliefs that form your own priority code for living.
Values are the individual biases that allow you to decide which actions are true for you alone.
What are your values?
slapcompany 4 months ago