Pac-man is one of the simplest computer games ever invented. It is essentially the challenge of a circle with a mouth to travel all around a maze eating dots along its way, without being killed by four ghosts that follow you around.

The traditional maze has a centre box where the four ghosts come out of, and a symetrical pattern. Every open spot has a dot on it that disappears when the Pac-man goes over it.

The goal to the game is to get points, which can be earned in a number of ways. Each dot the pac-man eats earns him some points, usually ten points. Sometimes, fruit will appear around the maze, and if you eat it, it earns you even more points. The last way of getting points is to eat a power pill, which are scattered about the maze, that immediately make the ghosts susceptible to your mouth. Once you take one of the pills, for a limited time, you can eat the four ghosts for quite a few points. The first ghost you eat is worth 200 points, the second in a row is worth 400, the third worth 800 and the fourth worth 1600. When you eat the ghost, it returns to the box where it started (presumably as the ghost's ghost), and returns to its form as a ghost that can kill you. The game can theoretically go on forever, because as soon as you eat all of the dots, a new full maze is set up.

The challengers are four ghosts. In the early parts of the game, they are not very intelligent, often making bad turns for their persuit. The four ghosts are-

• The red ghost is Blinky
• Pinky is, obviously pink
• The teal or blue ghost is named Inkey
• The orange ghost, and the only one to stray from the '-ky' formula is Clyde

You lose a life by being eaten by Blinky, Pinky, Inkey or Clyde. You have three lifes, including the one you started with.

History

A Japanese game designed named Toru Iwatani and several other programmers designed a game named 'Puckman' in 1977. It was relatively successful, but was not a real hit. It came to America 1980 when Midway acquired the rights to it. However, Midway games changed the name from Puckman to Pac-man because it was determined that American vandals could easily change the 'P' in Puckman into the letter 'F' (by scratching out the middle part of the P's top), thus producing a rather nasty curse word. The game was very successful in America - and continues to be.after many years

It is now almost universally considered to be the most successful arcade game of all time.

Variations

Strategy