Creation
· Toru Iwatani, a Japanese programmer working for Namco, created pac-man. Taking the Japanese kanji symbol for mouth, which resembles a rounded square, and giving it a mouth to consume the pellets formed the Pac-man shape. The name itself comes from the Japanese phrase "pakku pakku taberu." "Pakku pakku" in Japanese is a sound indicating opening and closing your mouth quickly.
Development
· The development phase of Pac-man lasted about 18 months, as Iwatani, assisted by other Namco programmers, worked out the details of maze generation and ghost movement. Fruit was added to give a random element to the game that would encourage players to take risks and not simply follow a set pattern. Each of these details came together in the first Japanese release of the game, named Puck-Man, on May 22, 1980.
Success
The Japanese release met with only a lukewarm reception as shooting games such as Galaxian and Space Invaders were very popular at the time. The game was brought to America by Midway in 1981 and quickly rose in popularity and sales, overtaking even Space Invaders, which had been unrivaled until that point. The name Puck-Man was changed to Pac-man to avoid possible confusion with an English expletive.
No comments:
Post a Comment