Difference between revisions of "Pac-Man"
(31 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
[[Image:Pac-Man - ARC - USA.jpg|thumb|256x256px|North American arcade cabinet.]] | [[Image:Pac-Man - ARC - USA.jpg|thumb|256x256px|North American arcade cabinet.]] | ||
− | '''''Pac-Man''''' | + | '''''Pac-Man''''' is an action video game developed and published by [[Namco]] on 1980-05-22, and distributed by [[Midway]] in the USA in 1980-10-26. Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade cabinet to date, and the second most profitable. Despite being so lucrative, the game's designer [[Toru Iwatani]] did not receive a bonus or even official recognition from Namco for his creation. |
I remember first playing this game in the mid-1980s. I was with my mother and brother, I think at a laundromat in Pontiac. I remember my brother playing and getting to the second stage, but I, being 3-years-younger, couldn't get past the first. I've since watched people who are really good play Pac-Man in arcades, but I've never had much of a desire to get good myself. The game is just too primitive to keep my interest. | I remember first playing this game in the mid-1980s. I was with my mother and brother, I think at a laundromat in Pontiac. I remember my brother playing and getting to the second stage, but I, being 3-years-younger, couldn't get past the first. I've since watched people who are really good play Pac-Man in arcades, but I've never had much of a desire to get good myself. The game is just too primitive to keep my interest. | ||
==Status== | ==Status== | ||
− | I do not own the game | + | I do not own the game. I've never tried hard to get a decent score, and I've never even come close to the kill screen. |
==Review== | ==Review== | ||
Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
* Nothing | * Nothing | ||
− | == | + | ==Media== |
+ | ===Box Art=== | ||
<gallery> | <gallery> | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Japan.jpg|The original Japanese cabinet is mostly a dull white. The Puck-Man logo uses a ballony type set and there are various cartoon Pac-Mans running around on it wearing boots and gloves. The joystick is an annoying simple rod. | Pac-Man - ARC - Japan.jpg|The original Japanese cabinet is mostly a dull white. The Puck-Man logo uses a ballony type set and there are various cartoon Pac-Mans running around on it wearing boots and gloves. The joystick is an annoying simple rod. | ||
+ | Pac-Man - ARC - Japan - Marquee.jpg|The Japanese Puckman marquee is a bit of an eye-sore. | ||
+ | Pac-Man - ARC - Japan - Side Art.jpg|The Japanese Puckman side art. | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - USA.jpg|The North American cabinet is a more interesting yellow, but while the ghost is pretty good, the cartoon Pac-Man is completely wrong. And the red eyes don't help much either! | Pac-Man - ARC - USA.jpg|The North American cabinet is a more interesting yellow, but while the ghost is pretty good, the cartoon Pac-Man is completely wrong. And the red eyes don't help much either! | ||
+ | Pac-Man - ARC - USA - Marquee.jpg|The North American arcade marquee features the same creepy Pac-Man as the cabinet. | ||
</gallery> | </gallery> | ||
− | ==Documentation== | + | ===Documentation=== |
<gallery> | <gallery> | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Manual.pdf|Arcade manual. | Pac-Man - ARC - Manual.pdf|Arcade manual. | ||
Line 49: | Line 53: | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Video Master's Guide to Pac-Man, The.pdf|The Video Master's Guide to Pac-Man. | Pac-Man - ARC - Video Master's Guide to Pac-Man, The.pdf|The Video Master's Guide to Pac-Man. | ||
How to Win At Video Games.pdf|How to Win At Video Games. | How to Win At Video Games.pdf|How to Win At Video Games. | ||
+ | Pac-Mania - Top Strategies For Home & Arcade Pac-Man - Spiralbound - USA.pdf|Pac-Mania: Top Strategies For Home & Arcade Pac-Man. | ||
+ | Pac-Mania! - Official Pac-Man Joke Book, The - Mass Market - USA.pdf|Pac-Mania!: The Official Pac-Man Joke Book. | ||
</gallery> | </gallery> | ||
− | == | + | ===Screenshots=== |
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | |||
− | == | ||
<gallery> | <gallery> | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Demo (Japan).png|The original ghost names. | Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Demo (Japan).png|The original ghost names. | ||
Line 68: | Line 65: | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Intermission 2.png|Intermission 2: Blinky tears his sheet. | Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Intermission 2.png|Intermission 2: Blinky tears his sheet. | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Intermission 3.png|Intermission 3: Blinky is sewn up. | Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Intermission 3.png|Intermission 3: Blinky is sewn up. | ||
− | Pac-Man - | + | Pac-Man - ARC - Screenshot - Kill Screen.png|The infamous kill screen on level 256. |
</gallery> | </gallery> | ||
− | == | + | ===Design Documents=== |
<gallery> | <gallery> | ||
+ | Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Toru Iwatani.jpg|[[Toru Iwatani]] showing off his original design documents. | ||
+ | Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Labyrinth.jpg| The labyrinth layout. | ||
+ | Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Pac-Man Sprite.jpg|The Pac-Man sprite. | ||
+ | Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Sprites.jpg|Various game sprites. | ||
+ | Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Ghost Behavior.jpg|Ghost movement behavior. | ||
+ | </gallery> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Gallery=== | ||
+ | <gallery> | ||
+ | Pac-Man - ARC - Graphics.png|Arcade graphic memory. Top is background, bottom is sprites. I've matched most of the colors, but the program swaps the palette as needed. Dark blue is drawn black in the game. | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Sprite Sheet.png|Arcade sprite sheet. | Pac-Man - ARC - Sprite Sheet.png|Arcade sprite sheet. | ||
Pac-Man - ARC - Fan Art - Travis 76 - The Madness of Mission 6.jpg|Fan art by Travis 76. | Pac-Man - ARC - Fan Art - Travis 76 - The Madness of Mission 6.jpg|Fan art by Travis 76. | ||
+ | Pac-Man - Fan Art - jdrift01 - Trick or Treat.png|Comic by jdrift01. | ||
</gallery> | </gallery> | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===Videos=== | ||
+ | * [http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014631/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PAC gdcvault.com/play/1014631/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PAC] - Postmortem. | ||
+ | * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuoH0vz3Mqk youtube.com/watch?v=AuoH0vz3Mqk] - Longplay, perfect game & kill screen. | ||
+ | * [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7-SHTktjJc youtube.com/watch?v=l7-SHTktjJc] - Ghost AI explanation. | ||
==Credits== | ==Credits== | ||
Line 85: | Line 98: | ||
| [[Toru Iwatani]] || Game Designer | | [[Toru Iwatani]] || Game Designer | ||
|- | |- | ||
− | | [[Shigeichi Ishimura]] || Hardware Designer, | + | | [[Shigeichi Ishimura]] || Hardware Designer, Audio Designer |
|- | |- | ||
| [[Shigeo Funaki]] || Programmer | | [[Shigeo Funaki]] || Programmer | ||
Line 92: | Line 105: | ||
|} | |} | ||
− | == | + | ==Color Palette== |
− | + | The original arcade version of Pac-Man uses a hardware-based color PROM to determine its colors. The PROM stores a palette of 256 colors in a [[Color Palettes#Single-Byte Palettes|single byte]]. The red, green, and blue channels are defined by the bit pattern BBGGGRRR which allows for eight levels of intensity for red and green and four levels for blue. The display hardware could only work with an index of 16 colors chosen from the palette of 256, and even then, each background tile or sprite could only be composed of up to four colors from the index of 16. Despite having 16 possible colors to work with, the designers occupied four slots with black, resulting in only 13 unique colors. These blacks appear to be used in certain graphics to color things invisible. For example, when a ghost is eaten, there isn't a separate graphic for just its eyes, instead, the ghost's sheet is drawn black, same with pellets. Also, the area inside the maze walls is colored a different black than the background. | |
− | + | ||
− | + | In the table below I've converted the colors from the game into RBG equivalents using an increment of 36 for the red and green channels and an increment of 85 for the blue channel. As far as I know, this does not properly emulate the color PROM's method, and I'm not able to get the true binary value for each color, but it yields a fairly accurate result. More advanced emulators, like MAME probably emulate the PROM, but they also adjust each pixel based on its nearby pixels to better emulate CRTs, so they don't give a true result either. | |
+ | |||
+ | {| class="wikitable" | | ||
+ | ! Index !! Swatch !! Color !! Converted RGB !! Binary / Hex / Decimal !! Uses | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 0 || style="background-color:#000000;" | | ||
+ | | Black || 0, 0, 0 || <tt>00000000 0x00 0</tt> || Background | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 1 || style="background-color:#FC0000;" | | ||
+ | | Red || 252, 0, 0 || <tt>00000111 0x07 7</tt> || Blinky, cherry, strawberry, apple, Galaxian ship | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 2 || style="background-color:#D89055;" | | ||
+ | | Tan || 216, 144, 85 || <tt>01100110 0x66 102</tt> || Orange top, cherry stem | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 3 || style="background-color:#FCB4FF;" | | ||
+ | | Pink || 252, 180, 255 || <tt>11101111 0xEF 239</tt> || Pinky, ghost house door | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 4 || style="background-color:#000000;" | | ||
+ | | Black || 0, 0, 0 || <tt>00000000 0x00 0</tt> || Background | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 5 || style="background-color:#00FCFF;" | | ||
+ | | Cyan || 0, 252, 255 || <tt>11111000 0xF8 248</tt> || Inky, player text | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 6 || style="background-color:#48B4FF;" | | ||
+ | | Light Blue || 72, 180, 255 || <tt>11101010 0xEA 234</tt> || Key top, bell bottom | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 7 || style="background-color:#FCB455;" | | ||
+ | | Orange || 252, 180, 85 || <tt>01101111 0x6F 111</tt> || Clyde, orange | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 8 || style="background-color:#000000;" | | ||
+ | | Black || 0, 0, 0 || <tt>00000000 0x00 0</tt> || Background | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | 9 || style="background-color:#FCFC00;" | | ||
+ | | Yellow || 252, 252, 0 || <tt>00111111 0x3F 63</tt> || Pac-Man, ready!, bell, Galaxian ship | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | A || style="background-color:#000000;" | | ||
+ | | Black || 0, 0, 0 || <tt>00000000 0x00 0</tt> || Background | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | B || style="background-color:#2424FF;" | | ||
+ | | Blue || 36, 36, 255 || <tt>11001001 0xC9 192</tt> || Maze walls, flashing ghosts, ghost pupils, Galaxian ship | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | C || style="background-color:#00FC00;" | | ||
+ | | Green || 0, 252, 0 || <tt>00111000 0x38 56</tt> || Melon, strawberry top, orange leaf | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | D || style="background-color:#48B4AA;" | | ||
+ | | Teal || 72, 180, 170 || <tt>10101010 0xAA 170</tt> || Melon wrinkles and stem | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | E || style="background-color:#FCB4AA;" | | ||
+ | | Salmon || 252, 180, 170 || <tt>10101111 0xAF 175</tt> || Dots, ghost body | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | F || style="background-color:#FCFCFF;" | | ||
+ | | White || 252, 252, 255 || <tt>11111111 0xFF 255</tt> || Flashing ghosts, scores, text, ghost eyes, fruit highlights | ||
+ | |} | ||
+ | |||
+ | More details about the Pac-Man color palette: [http://aarongiles.com/mamemem/part3.html aarongiles.com/mamemem/part3.html]. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ==Titles== | ||
+ | {| class="wikitable" | ||
+ | ! Language !! Native !! Transliteration !! Translation | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | English || Pac-Man || || | ||
+ | |- | ||
+ | | Japanese || パックマン || Pakkuman || Pakku Man | ||
+ | |} | ||
==Links== | ==Links== | ||
Line 101: | Line 177: | ||
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man] - Wikipedia. | * [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man] - Wikipedia. | ||
* [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Pac-Man_(ARC) vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Pac-Man_(ARC)] - Music. | * [http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Pac-Man_(ARC) vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Pac-Man_(ARC)] - Music. | ||
− | + | * [https://tcrf.net/Category:Pac-Man_series tcrf.net/Category:Pac-Man_series] - The Cutting Room Floor. | |
[[Category: Games]] | [[Category: Games]] | ||
Line 131: | Line 207: | ||
[[Category: Action]] | [[Category: Action]] | ||
[[Category: Multi-Player]] | [[Category: Multi-Player]] | ||
+ | [[Category: 4-bit Color Graphics]] |
Revision as of 10:42, 9 November 2018
Pac-Man is an action video game developed and published by Namco on 1980-05-22, and distributed by Midway in the USA in 1980-10-26. Pac-Man is the best-selling arcade cabinet to date, and the second most profitable. Despite being so lucrative, the game's designer Toru Iwatani did not receive a bonus or even official recognition from Namco for his creation.
I remember first playing this game in the mid-1980s. I was with my mother and brother, I think at a laundromat in Pontiac. I remember my brother playing and getting to the second stage, but I, being 3-years-younger, couldn't get past the first. I've since watched people who are really good play Pac-Man in arcades, but I've never had much of a desire to get good myself. The game is just too primitive to keep my interest.
Contents
Status
I do not own the game. I've never tried hard to get a decent score, and I've never even come close to the kill screen.
Review
- Overall: 5/10
- Best Version: Arcade
Good
- The game is pretty solid. It remains challenging and fast-moving the entire time you play.
- The increasingly difficult ghosts and shorter-length power pellets increase the challenge of the game at a nice steady rate.
- Adding a different "personality" to each ghost was a wonderful idea and really adds to the challenge, as did having the ghosts systematically move toward their own corners.
- Changing the bonus fruit is a nice change of pace.
- The cut-scenes between levels was a nice break in the action.
- The game has some pretty memorable sound effects and jingles.
Bad
- The game is too hard. Most players are unable to beat the first level on their first attempt, which is a bit frustrating.
- Overall, there isn't much to do with the game. You're essentially repeating the same actions the entire game.
- Since the game uses a pseudo-randomizer, players can actually just repeat the exact same movements over an over again to beat the game.
- The game lacks a true victory condition. Sure, the kill screen ends the game, but it's insanely difficult to reach, and wasn't even intended in the first place.
- There is a minor bug with collision detection where you can sometimes pass right through a ghost.
Ugly
- Nothing
Media
Box Art
- Pac-Man - ARC - USA - Marquee.jpg
The North American arcade marquee features the same creepy Pac-Man as the cabinet.
Documentation
- Pac-Man - ARC - Manual.pdf
Arcade manual.
- Pac-Man - Arcade Instruction Card.png
The Japanese instruction card.
- Pac-Man - ARC - Ad.jpg
Arcade ad.
- Pac-Man - 5200 - Manual.pdf
Atari 5200 manual.
- Pac-Man - C64 - Manual.pdf
Commodore 64 manual.
- Pac-Man - GB - Manual.pdf
Game Boy manual.
- Pac-Man - NES - Manual.pdf
NES manual.
Screenshots
Design Documents
- Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Toru Iwatani.jpg
Toru Iwatani showing off his original design documents.
- Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Labyrinth.jpg
The labyrinth layout.
- Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Pac-Man Sprite.jpg
The Pac-Man sprite.
- Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Sprites.jpg
Various game sprites.
- Pac Man - ARC - Design Document - Ghost Behavior.jpg
Ghost movement behavior.
Gallery
Videos
- gdcvault.com/play/1014631/Classic-Game-Postmortem-PAC - Postmortem.
- youtube.com/watch?v=AuoH0vz3Mqk - Longplay, perfect game & kill screen.
- youtube.com/watch?v=l7-SHTktjJc - Ghost AI explanation.
Credits
Although Pac-Man doesn't feature credits, fans of the game have discovered the majority of the design staff.
Person | Roles |
---|---|
Toru Iwatani | Game Designer |
Shigeichi Ishimura | Hardware Designer, Audio Designer |
Shigeo Funaki | Programmer |
Toshio Kai | Sound Composer |
Color Palette
The original arcade version of Pac-Man uses a hardware-based color PROM to determine its colors. The PROM stores a palette of 256 colors in a single byte. The red, green, and blue channels are defined by the bit pattern BBGGGRRR which allows for eight levels of intensity for red and green and four levels for blue. The display hardware could only work with an index of 16 colors chosen from the palette of 256, and even then, each background tile or sprite could only be composed of up to four colors from the index of 16. Despite having 16 possible colors to work with, the designers occupied four slots with black, resulting in only 13 unique colors. These blacks appear to be used in certain graphics to color things invisible. For example, when a ghost is eaten, there isn't a separate graphic for just its eyes, instead, the ghost's sheet is drawn black, same with pellets. Also, the area inside the maze walls is colored a different black than the background.
In the table below I've converted the colors from the game into RBG equivalents using an increment of 36 for the red and green channels and an increment of 85 for the blue channel. As far as I know, this does not properly emulate the color PROM's method, and I'm not able to get the true binary value for each color, but it yields a fairly accurate result. More advanced emulators, like MAME probably emulate the PROM, but they also adjust each pixel based on its nearby pixels to better emulate CRTs, so they don't give a true result either.
Index | Swatch | Color | Converted RGB | Binary / Hex / Decimal | Uses |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
0 | Black | 0, 0, 0 | 00000000 0x00 0 | Background | |
1 | Red | 252, 0, 0 | 00000111 0x07 7 | Blinky, cherry, strawberry, apple, Galaxian ship | |
2 | Tan | 216, 144, 85 | 01100110 0x66 102 | Orange top, cherry stem | |
3 | Pink | 252, 180, 255 | 11101111 0xEF 239 | Pinky, ghost house door | |
4 | Black | 0, 0, 0 | 00000000 0x00 0 | Background | |
5 | Cyan | 0, 252, 255 | 11111000 0xF8 248 | Inky, player text | |
6 | Light Blue | 72, 180, 255 | 11101010 0xEA 234 | Key top, bell bottom | |
7 | Orange | 252, 180, 85 | 01101111 0x6F 111 | Clyde, orange | |
8 | Black | 0, 0, 0 | 00000000 0x00 0 | Background | |
9 | Yellow | 252, 252, 0 | 00111111 0x3F 63 | Pac-Man, ready!, bell, Galaxian ship | |
A | Black | 0, 0, 0 | 00000000 0x00 0 | Background | |
B | Blue | 36, 36, 255 | 11001001 0xC9 192 | Maze walls, flashing ghosts, ghost pupils, Galaxian ship | |
C | Green | 0, 252, 0 | 00111000 0x38 56 | Melon, strawberry top, orange leaf | |
D | Teal | 72, 180, 170 | 10101010 0xAA 170 | Melon wrinkles and stem | |
E | Salmon | 252, 180, 170 | 10101111 0xAF 175 | Dots, ghost body | |
F | White | 252, 252, 255 | 11111111 0xFF 255 | Flashing ghosts, scores, text, ghost eyes, fruit highlights |
More details about the Pac-Man color palette: aarongiles.com/mamemem/part3.html.
Titles
Language | Native | Transliteration | Translation |
---|---|---|---|
English | Pac-Man | ||
Japanese | パックマン | Pakkuman | Pakku Man |
Links
- mobygames.com/game/pac-man - MobyGames.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man - Wikipedia.
- vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Pac-Man_(ARC) - Music.
- tcrf.net/Category:Pac-Man_series - The Cutting Room Floor.
- Pages with broken file links
- Games
- Video Games
- Android Games
- Apple II Games
- Arcade Games
- Atari 2600 Games
- Atari 5200 Games
- Atari 8-bit Games
- Commodore 64 Games
- FM-7 Games
- Game Boy Games
- Game Gear Games
- Intellivision Games
- IOS Games
- MSX Games
- Neo Geo Pocket Color Games
- NES Games
- Palm OS Games
- PC-6001 Games
- PC-88 Games
- PC Booter Games
- Sharp X1 Games
- TI-99 Games
- Commodore VIC-20 Games
- Zaurus Games
- ZX Spectrum Games
- Action
- Multi-Player
- 4-bit Color Graphics