Pac-Man Turns 30

Pac-Man, the lovable character that looks like a yellow pizza with a slice or two missing, turns 30 tomorrow. In the early 1980’s, the original Pac-Man game hit the arcades and caught on fast, and became one of the most played games at the time and for years to follow. Not bad for a game that simply has you eat countless dots and avoid a group of ghosts that seem to have no sense of direction in life.

Since the original launch, Pac-Man has starred in numerous titles, has seen countless bits of memorabilia and toys, and even saw himself star in his own TV show. According to Wikipedia, in 1981, there was even a hit song that was released by Buckner & Garcia called “Pac-Man Fever”. That was merely a year after the launch of the original game, so it’s easy to see just how popular the game was. There are few games today that literally inspire a song to be written.

In the book of Guinness World Records, Pac-Man’s responsible for eight of the current records, including Most Successful Coin-Operated Game. Of course as you’d imagine, there are also records to those who’ve accomplished great things in the game, such as a perfect run through the entire thing. Unfortunately, because the original game crashes after level 256, the game is not quite as indefinite as some have been led to believe. Because of this, it’s now rather difficult to set an impressive record with the original.

To help celebrate Pac-Man’s birthday, Google’s homepage today shows not only a creative custom Pac-Man game board layout (to help spell Google), but it’s actually a game in itself. If you wait a few moments, or push the “Insert Coin” button, you can play the game right there from Google’s homepage. If you have a second player that wants to join in, you can hit the Insert Coin button underneath the search.

There are few things Google does that truly impress me, but this is definitely one of them.

Happy birthday, Pac-Man!

The original arcade classic was imagined by Namco developer Toru Iwatani in 1979, although it didn’t reach the U.S until the fall of 1980. As the legend goes, Iwatani was inspired by his partially eaten pizza pie and turned it into a gaming character: a big yellow dot that gobbled up smaller dots, and avoided four deadly ghosts, as it careened through a maze.