10 interesting facts about the game "Pac-Man" (14 photos)

Surely, many of you remember the cult game "Pac-Man", in which we most often played on the Dendy console. The game was though simple, but very funny and interesting. And today I would like tell you some interesting and fun facts about this iconic game that a lot of people don't know about.





1. Pac-Man was released in Japan in 1979, but She did not enjoy such popularity in her homeland until she became interested in the American company "Midway", which will later release cult fighting game "Mortal Kombat".



Only in 1980, when the game began to be released in the United States, did it gained extraordinary popularity. And in 1984 the game was ported and to home consoles, including NES (Dendy).

2. The creator of Pac-Man was a Japanese named Toru Iwatani. AND the most interesting thing is that when he got a job at Namco, he did not have any experience and education in the field of game design. That is, he was self-taught. But nevertheless, they saw talent in him and took him to work.





One day, Toru ordered a pizza for the office. And when he took one piece, then I saw a character in the remaining pizza for a future game.



By the way, Toru Iwatani even appeared in the movie "Pixels" with Adam Sandler, where he played himself in the scene of hunting for a huge Pac-man.



3. Due to the fact that with each new level the complexity of the game increased, as did the speed of enemies, the developers thought that no one will be able to reach the last level 256.

But over time, the players noticed that each ghost moves according to a pattern, that is, according to a programmed behavior model:



Through these behaviors, players have learned build your routes and practically pass the levels safely. It was these players who discovered that at level 256 a glitch awaited them (screen of death).



4. To date, the absolute champion and record holder on the game of Pac-Man is an American Billy Mitchell. In 1999 when Billy was 33 years old, he was able to set an absolute record by passing completely the whole game, eating all the dots, ghosts and fruits, and not losing not a single life. Thus he managed to earn 3333360 points, that no one before him could do.



5. The game "Pac-man" became a kind of answer to the game "Space Invaders", which was a great success with the audience. Namco bosses instructed to create a game similar to "Space Invaders" that can compete with it. IN as a result, the game "Pac-Man" was born, which even managed to outshine "Space Invaders".



6. Iwatani deliberately planned to make ghosts multi-colored, as I assumed that bright colors would be pulled up to the game as well as a female audience.



7. In 2010, in honor of the game's 30th anniversary, Google made a doodle. Everyone entering the browser could see the playing field with maze in the form of the inscription "Google" and play "Pac-man". By the way, This doodle is still available today. You can play it here.



8. Pac-Man has become so successful and iconic that various developers began to produce its numerous clones. Behind Over the past 40-odd years, several dozen games have been released on this topics.



9. The company "ID software" in 1992 released a cult 3D shooter "Wolfenstein 3D". But what about Pac-Man? Yes, even though in the third episode, you can get to the secret level 10. In this case the main character gets into exactly the same labyrinth as in the Pac-Man game, and now he has to collect all the treasures in the level. But the main problem lies in the fact that he is being hunted by the very ghosts that cannot be kill.

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10. Created in Japan, the original game was called not "Pac-Man", while "Puck-Man" is from the Japanese "Paku-Paku" which means sound opening and closing mouth. But when a year later the game hit the United States, Midway decided that this name is not very suitable for games, because in any case there are kids who will paint over the letter "P" on the slot machine to make it look like an "F". I think it is not worth talking about what the word will turn out in this case. Thus, the game and acquired the name "Pac-man".