Pac-Man facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Pac-Man |
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The classic Pac-Man
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| Developer(s) | Namco |
| Publisher(s) |
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| Designer(s) | Toru Iwatani |
| Programmer(s) | Shigeo Funaki |
| Composer(s) | Toshio Kai |
| Series | Pac-Man |
| Platform(s) | Arcade, Apple II, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, VIC-20, IBM PC, Intellivision, TI-99/4A, ZX Spectrum, NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Maze |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Cabinet | Standard upright, mini-upright and cocktail |
| Arcade system | Namco Pac-Man |
| CPU | 1 × Z80 @ 3.072 MHz |
| Sound | Namco WSG (three-channel mono) |
| Display | Vertically oriented, 224 × 288, 16 palette colors |
Pac-Man is a very famous arcade game created by Namco. It first came out in 1980 and quickly became one of the most popular games ever.
In Pac-Man, you control a yellow, round character named Pac-Man. Your goal is to guide him through a maze and eat all the small yellow dots. You must also avoid four colorful ghosts who are chasing you! If Pac-Man eats a large, flashing white dot (called an "energizer"), the ghosts turn blue. When they are blue, Pac-Man can eat them for extra points! Sometimes, fruit also appears in the maze, which you can eat for bonus points. The game has 256 levels, but the very last one cannot be finished because of a small problem in the game's design.
The idea for Pac-Man started in early 1979. Toru Iwatani led a team of nine people to create the game. Iwatani wanted to make a game that both boys and girls would enjoy. At that time, most video games were about war or sports. The idea for Pac-Man's shape came from a pizza with a slice missing. Iwatani also said it was inspired by the Japanese word for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). The characters in the game were made to look cute and colorful to attract younger players.
Because Pac-Man was so popular, many new games and versions were made. There was even an animated TV show by Hanna-Barbera in the 1980s. The game has also been included in many Namco Museum collections. For example, Namco Museum Remix was made for the Wii console.
How to Play Pac-Man
Pac-Man is an action maze chase video game. You control Pac-Man as he moves through a closed maze. Your main goal is to eat all the small dots placed around the maze. You must also avoid four different colored ghosts: Blinky (red), Pinky (pink), Inky (cyan), and Clyde (orange). These ghosts will try to catch Pac-Man. When you eat all the dots, you move on to the next level. The levels are shown by fruit icons at the bottom of the screen. Between some levels, there are short, funny cartoon scenes featuring Pac-Man and Blinky.
If a ghost catches Pac-Man, you lose one life. The game ends when you lose all your lives. Each of the four ghosts has its own special way of moving, almost like a "personality":
- Blinky (red) usually chases Pac-Man directly.
- Pinky (pink) and Inky (cyan) try to get in front of Pac-Man, often by trapping him.
- Clyde (orange) sometimes chases Pac-Man and sometimes runs away from him.
In the four corners of the maze, there are large, flashing "energizers" or "power pellets." When Pac-Man eats one of these, the ghosts turn blue and look dizzy. They also change direction and try to run away from Pac-Man. While the ghosts are blue, Pac-Man can eat them for bonus points! When a ghost is eaten, only its eyes return to the center of the maze. There, the ghost "comes back to life" and starts chasing Pac-Man again. If you eat many blue ghosts in a row, you get even more points for each one. After a short time, the blue ghosts will flash white before turning back to their normal colors and chasing you again.
Eating a certain number of dots in a level makes a bonus item appear. This is usually a fruit, and it shows up under the center box where the ghosts start. You can eat this item for extra points. On the sides of the maze, there are two "warp tunnels." These let Pac-Man and the ghosts travel from one side of the screen to the other. Ghosts move a bit slower when they go through these tunnels.
As you play more levels, the game gets harder. The ghosts move faster, and the energizers don't make them blue for as long. Eventually, the energizers stop working at all. There's a famous problem in the game that makes the 256th level impossible to finish.
Achieving a Perfect Score
A perfect score in the original Pac-Man arcade game is 3,333,360 points. To get this score, a player must earn the highest possible points on the first 255 levels. This means eating every dot, energizer, fruit, and blue ghost without losing a single life. Then, on level 256, the player uses all six of their lives to get the maximum points possible on that level.
The first person to publicly achieve and prove a perfect score was Billy Mitchell. He did this on July 3, 1999. However, some groups that keep game records later removed his score. This happened after an investigation in 2018 suggested that some of his other game scores were not made on original game machines. As of July 2020, seven other players have achieved perfect Pac-Man scores on original arcade machines. The fastest perfect score ever recorded belongs to David Race, who did it in 3 hours, 28 minutes, and 49 seconds.
Images for kids
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Creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, at the 2011 Game Developers Conference
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Pac-Man interactive display at The Art of Video Games
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See also
In Spanish: Pac-Man para niños
