Game analysis # 4

Pac-man

Pac-man was developed in Japan by Namco and originally released as Pukk-man although it only became a huge success when introduced to North America. The main reasons attributed to its success are that the game had such a wide range of appeal, not just the standard teenage boy group, and also for its originality compared to its rivals which were mostly space themed.

The game involves navigating Pac-man around a maze, avoiding four ghosts and collecting all of the dots to progress to the next level. This new concept allowed new players to become involved and widened the range groups who would typically play video games.

Pac-man was also the first game to inject humour into games as in between levels there would be funny little interactions between Pac-man and the red ghost, ‘Blinky’. The gameplay was simple and fun, by collecting fruits the gamer could score extra points and the four power pellets placed at the corners of the maze would make the ghosts run away instead of chasing and allowed the player to eat them to gain yet more extra points.

Although there is technically no end to the game, there is a bug in the programming which means that on screen 256 half the screen becomes muddled and unplayable. The game is a cult classic and is still played to this day. There are even competitions running to see who can achieve the highest score and there have even been patterns developed so that player can go round an entire level without encountering any ghosts. The fact that it is still very much in use is evidence of this games lasting fun appeal.