Pac-Man (Character)

Pac-Man

CHARACTER

Everyone's favorite ghost-chasing, power-pellet-eating, dot-hunting yellow circle.

Overview

Pac-Man's design in Pac-Man Party

Pac-Man is the eponymous player character originally introduced in Namco's hit arcade game Pac-Man. He was designed by Tōru Iwatani, the creator of the Pac-Man franchise. Pac-Man's name is derived from the phrase "paku-paku," which is Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound made by opening and closing one's mouth repeatedly, typically while eating.

Since his debut in 1980, Pac-Man's incredible popularity has led him to become a worldwide social phenomenon and Namco's official mascot character. He has appeared in dozens of games, including numerous spin-off titles and many unauthorized "bootleg" games (typically clones of the original arcade game). His likeness appears across a wide variety of Pac-Man-related merchandise, and he has starred in two of his own animated television series.

According to a market survey, Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness of any video game character among American consumers; he was recognized by 94% of those surveyed, surpassing both Mario (Character) and Sonic in terms of familiarity.

Design

The origins of Pac-Man's character design are a matter of some debate. His creator Tōru Iwatani has repeatedly claimed in interviews that he was struck by inspiration while eating a pizza; after removing a single slice, the circular pie resembled a head with an open mouth. However, he has also stated that Pac-Man's design was derived from a rounded version of the square-shaped Japanese character "kuchi," which means "mouth".

Iwatani in a promotional photo

In spite of internal feedback during the original game's development, Iwatani pushed to keep Pac-Man's design as simple as possible, preferring to leave any finer details to players' imaginations. He also desired to make a "cute" arcade game with appealing characters that could potentially attract a wider audience of players, particularly women. Pac-Man's distinctive yellow color was chosen because Iwatani felt that yellow was a "peaceful" or "neutral" color which represents neither friend nor foe. Although Pac-Man appears within the game itself as a simple yellow circle with a mouth, the Japanese cabinet art for the original arcade game portrays him as an anthropomorphized yellow sphere with eyes, arms, legs and a long nose; this depiction of Pac-Man has informed nearly every design iteration of the character since his debut.

The character's name was written in English as "Puck-Man" on the cabinet art for the initial Japanese release of the 1980 arcade game. However, his name was changed to "Pac-Man" during the game's North American localization because Namco feared vandals might easily change the "P" in "Puck" to an "F" in order to create profanity.

Games

Pac-Man started out as a single game. The game Pac-Man quickly became a smash hit on both Eastern and Western shores. Due to this fact Namco (Company) quickly extended the loveable circle into more and more games. The series quickly expanded into Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Jr. Pac-Man, Pac and Pal, and more. The series has been one of the only to be published for over 20 years. Pac-Man was also moved into 3D games when Namco decided to make Pac-Man World (Game), a 3D adventure game loosely based around collecting dots.

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