Pac man

 

 in the primordial ooze there dominated

two rectangles a tiny spaceship and

another tiny spaceship these simple

playable things were all that was known

yet from this soupy concoction of utter

simplicity there rose a new paradigm of

gaming not just an object to be played

but a man named Pat over three decades

since his creation pac-man has become a

household name Wacka walking his way

towards greatness in a way that nobody

could have fathomed many chalked this

yellow dude's monumental success down

to

his addicting challenging gameplay while

others argue it was just an anomaly a

statistical improbability that

snowballed from a lucky spark of initial

momentum one fact that is not arqued

however is that he was huge and still is

even your grandma who tries to sendfruitcake through an unplugged fax

machine nose of pac-man

but how much does sweet old Edith really

know about pac-man how much do you

really know about pac-man behind this

circular sensation or ideas that

revolutionized the realm of gaming in

ways that I didn't think were possible

until writing this script so let us roll

back the space-time continuum to an era

where video games were taking their

first steps out of infancy a time when

computer technology was exploding and

reaganomics had yet to enter the

American vocabulary before the Power

Rangers and before even Richard

Simmons

pac-man was preparing to eat his way

into the hearts of the world and leave

behind him a story you never knew WackaWacka Wacka

hey Chad can you spot me a corner for

another round of pac-man I spent the

last of my coinage on this rad tracksuit

only if you give me a lift home and your

bitchin car dude of course dude I drove

here my DeLorean cuz gas is only $1 a

gallon radical according to thorough

research this was a typical conversation

between two arcade goers in 1980 the

Year pac-man was released and now

when

Blake gets his quarter from Chad let's

check out what they see stunning the

gameplay needs no explanation but in

case you're waka waka ignorant the

objective is to avoid these four

colourful ghosts while eating all of

those yellow pellets there's also a

variety of fruit for your munching that

gives you extra points as well as powerpellets that make the ghosts vulnerable

to pac-man's chopping while this

gameplay was innovative at the time and

is still fun to this day it's only one

piece of the proverbial revolution pie

that changed video games forever we've

cOvered the gameplay crust

now let's lop in that DeliciouS apple

filling represented by game design a lot

of food metaphors lately I know but

you're just gonna have to deal with it

it's only because we here at recycle

love you and want you to associate our

content with delicious food and boobs

and some men asked for you ladies

mmm-hmm

speaking of which Pacman's innovative

game design choices are highlighted

quite well by the new demographic that

moved into the arcade scene upon hisrelease a site entirely foreign to

gamers of that era then sometimes still

now women that's right

pac-man was the first video game that

Women actually gave a [_J about and

that was no accident

the creator of pac-man Toru lwatani

admits he purposely designed the yelow

dudes debut to be appealing to men and

Women alike of course he made sure the

gameplay was competitive and rewarding

as we've discussed but he also made

Sure

the game was nonviolent bright and

colorful and perhaps most importantly he

made sure the characters were all

adorable

I mean blinky pinky inky and Clyde with

their big eyes all chasing around a

little yellow man thing l just want tothing but a Man Thing this was the

closest gaming had come to representing

a character people could identify with

and this changed everything

pac-man was an identity in icon a

character nobody had thought to do this

before it seems so obvious now but

innovative thinking always seems

obvious

in hindsight especialy when you take

notice of the ridiculous amounts of

success it generates these game design

choices started a revolution for

instance after pa-man's release in

japan the government was forced to mint

more 100-yen pieces because so many

were

sitting idly within pac-man arcade

Consoles many grocery stores even

cleared out their normal inventory and

replaced it with nothing but pac-man

machines lI'm not making this up people

just look at the merchandise pac-man

cereal pac-man stickers pac-man shoespillowcases bedsheets clothing figurines

toilet seats pac-man was everywhere and

everyone wanted a piece all these

demographics all these machines

appearing in unrelated stores all this

merchandise pac-man was making

money in

any way he could selling himself for a

premium to anyone willing to buy

pac-man

was becoming a dirty filthy corporate

everyone was banging pacman including

business professionals on their lunch

break that hot girl you went to high

school with that weird guy you went to

high school with those Dagda kids from

across the street that Indian guy who

works at 7-eleven

Indian guy who owns the 7-eleven that

other Indian guy works at well he just

bought a pac-man machine for a store to

make money off of

like many store owners at the time buthe was still bangin pac-man in his own

way even Nancy Reagan was bagging

pacman

just say no more like so where do we go

from here first let's see where we've

been before pac-man video games were

popular within a small demographic

namely young men but with the

introduction of the wakka wakka fella

video games truly reached the public eye

for the first time thanks in part to his

unique ability .