ScuzzBlog: Diaries March 2022
Entry 3rd March 2022: Post 1: PAC-MAN - Classics for the Amiga.
PAC-MAN - Classics for the Amiga.
It is interesting that after all the years of computer games there
are still but a handful of really iconic images of games characters.
For me Pac-Man has to be the most simplistic shape stroke icon that
is clearly distinguishable as a games classic. The rumour is that
the guy who developed the game visualised the shape from eating
pizza. Although this was promoted at the time, there are other
views on the real origins.
OK I was sorting a few games bundles out and collating disks and I
found myself clutching this large stack of Pac-Man disks for the
Amiga and I got to thinking how many different versions I had. In
the box was PaC-Mania, and the rest were various versions of the
Deluxe Pac-Man, and Pan-Man87. The best of the bunch was a mini
version that runs on your Workbench desktop. I did like that.
For me the game is pretty timeless. It never seems to age. It is
still very addictive and so easy to get hooked into.
How is your history ? Mine is crap but here goes with what I recall
about the history of Pac-Man.
You have to go back to the arcade days of the late seventies when
Atari was shipping Breakout and the like. In Japan there was this
guy called Nakamura, if I recall, that created Namco and was the
recipient of units of Breakout to which he developed the cabinets.
Namco employed a guy called Toru Iwatani who thought he was going
to design pinball machines. His first game Gee-Bee was a rip off
of PONG meets Breakout.
In 1978 everyone was playing Space Invaders to which Namco again
ripped off with Galaxian. However Toru wanted to design a game
for the girls and so created Puck-Man. In shipping this to the
States a company called Midway reworked the game and added a lot
of what we see today. They were concerned that the name PUCK
would be the subject of graffiti, changing it to something a lot
less complimentary and so changed the name to Pac-Man. It was
released in the States May 22 1980.
The game was a hit with the target audience and Atari set about
porting it to the Woody. Although the Atari version was truly
dreadful it shipped 7.7 million units.
Did you know there are 256 levels of Pac-Man and with the last
level the game basically collapses to a screen full of pixel crap.
Anyhoo... I have put the disks away now. I do have other copies of
the game, like MunchMan and I think there is a Ms Pac-Man . Dunno.
I really don't think there is much else you can do with the game.
All I will say is that the classics live on for like ever and my
top five list has to be PONG, Breakout, Space Invaders, Pac-Man
and then Tetris....
Happy Days.
PAC-MAN - Classics for the Amiga.
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