May 22, 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of a moment that shook the video game industry and profoundly changed the way we play: the debut of Pac-Man, which first hit arcades in Japan on May 22, 1980.
Pac-Man is a maze game in which the eponymous hero munches dots while dodging multicolored ghosts, racing for “power pellets” that let Pac-Man turn the tables and eat the enemies chasing him. It sounds deceptively simple, but its charming design and exquisitely tuned gameplay earned it legions of fans and inspired digital creators.
Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri called it “the textbook for game designers”—high praise that has even more impact when you realize what we call “ghosts” in English are called monsutaa (“monsters”) in Japanese. 40 years on, Pac-Man might seem like ancient history. But gaming would not be where it is today without it—and neither would Japan, most likely.
Pac-Man was more than a well-designed arcade game, more even than a big hit. It was a global social phenomenon that transformed the way the world looked at the medium of video gaming. Today we take it for granted that games can even be called a “medium”—that they contain memorable characters, that they punctuate the action with dramatic cutscenes, that they can rival the mindshare of television or movies, that they can weave themselves into the fabric of daily life.
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Article URL : https://kotaku.com/pac-man-the-japanese-game-that-took-over-the-world-tu-1843548980