Brave New PacMan
http://www.bravenewpacman.com/
Where PacMan battles Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin...
Showing posts with label Pac-Man. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pac-Man. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating
To play Pac-Man:
http://www.google.com/pacman/
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/05/pac-man-30-years
Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating
By Chris Kohler
May 21, 2010
30 years ago, videogames changed forever.
On May 22, 1980, the Japanese gamemaker Namco installed the first Pac-Man machine in a movie theater in the trendy Shibuya section of Tokyo. On Saturday, the company celebrates the 30th anniversary of the little yellow circle that became videogames’ first enduring character.
Besides being the centerpiece of a novel, addictive game, the adorable Pac-Man became a media superstar, appearing on lunchboxes, in cartoons, on the covers of magazines and even in a Top 10 pop hit.
Unlike the vast majority of its contemporaries, Pac-Man’s dot-eating, ghost-chasing gameplay is still fun today. Versions for platforms like iPhone, virtually unchanged from the original, are still a big moneymaker for Namco Bandai. On Friday, Google unveiled its first-ever interactive “doodle,” a version of Pac-Man.
This is all thanks to the genius of Toru Iwatani (pictured), the game designer who set the tone for Japan and the world. By creating a cute cast of characters and a design sensibility that appealed to wider audiences than the shoot-em-up Space Invaders, Iwatani broadened the appeal and marketability of games, creating what some call the first “casual game.”
Wired.com spoke to Iwatani, now a professor at Tokyo Polytechnic University, at Namco Bandai’s Tokyo headquarters.
Wired.com: You’ve said that Pac-Man was aimed at women, which is why you based it around eating — because women enjoy “fun foods” more.
Toru Iwatani: Around the time that we launched Pac-Man, video arcades were filled with games where you shoot aliens. It seemed very dark. It was for men, it wasn’t fashionable at all. When women would go out, they’d go out in a group of friends or with a boyfriend as a couple. And I realized that if women and couples were going to come to game centers, they had to be cheerful places.
When you think about things women like, you think about fashion, or fortune-telling, or food or dating boyfriends. So I decided to theme the game around “eating” — after eating dinner, women like to have dessert.
If you take a pizza and remove one piece, it looks like a mouth. That’s where my idea came from.
Wired.com: Is that story true, that you thought of the shape of Pac-Man after removing one slice from a pizza?
Iwatani: It’s true.
Wired.com: The attractive design really made Pac-Man stand out. What else did you do to differentiate it from other games of the time?
Iwatani: At that time, it was the beginning of all games. Games hadn’t spread very far at all. Characters were more or less non-existent. There were a lot of ideas at the time, a lot of games that you could come up with. A lot of companies had new concepts for games — in Japan, Taito and other companies were producing games like Space Invaders. The space was more or less vacant.
One point of differentiation was to target women gamers. The second point was the design — the character design and the graphic design were very appropriate for women, who thought it was very cute. Even if the character was an enemy, they wouldn’t be able to hate it. The colors of the maze walls are muted, so you can see the character designs. I think there was some recognition that this was the future of videogames, because this was the first character that was introduced at the time.
Wired.com: Did you take inspiration from Japanese animation or manga?
Iwatani: Very much so. Pac-Man is inspired by all the manga and animation that I’d watch as a kid. The ghosts were inspired by Casper, or Obake no Q-Taro.
The game idea — eating a power cookie and powering up to defeat the ghosts — was inspired by Popeye eating spinach and defeating Bluto, turning the tables on him.
Wired.com: What about Pac-Man would you say came from a Japanese aesthetic, specifically?
Iwatani: Japanese youngsters really wanted “ghost” type characters — not necessarily modeled on creatures, but things that don’t really exist in this world. Even within animation, they want characters that are the products of the writer’s imaginations. In North America at the time, the games were about car races or warfare. They wanted games that simulated the real world, whereas Japan wanted otogibanashi (fairy tales).
Also, when you look at Japanese games, the characters may be deformed in such a way that their heads are half of their total height. This was not popular in the U.S., as you know, they wanted real proportional humans. In Japan, dolls like Hello Kitty are deformed into a different shape, into an animal that doesn’t really exist. The dolls in the U.S. would be a real cat.
Wired.com: When you placed that first Pac-Man machine out in public, where did it go?
Iwatani: May 22 wasn’t the launch date, it was the first location test. The game was still under development, and we were gauging the reaction of consumers. Since this was the first time the machine was shown to the general public, we consider May 22 to be Pac-Man’s “birthday.” After that, we made revisions and improvements based on the results of the location test and it was released in July.
The game was taken to a building in Shibuya that no longer exists. It was a thin, chimney-shaped building with seven or eight floors, consisting of several movie theaters. On the top floor, there was a very long, narrow room where the couples, having just seen movies, would go up to have a little enjoyment before they returned home. So they weren’t necessarily gamers.
The women and couples were very happy about the machine, very excited. They came up to it and put their hands on it, so we thought that our target concept had been very much in sync and correct. They played it, and they were more or less satisfied — they figured out how to play it. It’s not a difficult game.
On the other hand, the core gamers, the men, were not necessarily very excited about it. But it was for people who didn’t play games on a daily basis — women, children, the elderly.
It’s not like people sat around and played the machine all day, though. So we didn’t think it would be a major hit. I didn’t think that the U.S. and Europe would take it up, because it’s a rather slow relaxing game. At that time, what was popular overseas were more thrilling games, and I felt that perhaps the rhythm of Pac-Man wasn’t matching the needs of overseas users.
Wired.com: What did you change about the game after the location test?
Iwatani: The design didn’t change very much. There wasn’t a lot of time before the game was to be released in July, so we just tweaked the game balance, the difficulty level. That was pretty much just changing a few numbers in the program code.
Wired.com: And of course, the game was originally called Puck-Man, but the name was changed for America because someone might vandalize the “P” and turn it into an “F.”
Iwatani: Yes, the U.S. subsidiary said that that would be bad. We wondered, what should we do? And decided to change it to “Pac.” Then, after the American version came out with the “Pac” spelling, we used that for the entire world.
Wired.com: You weren’t involved with games like Ms. Pac-Man, which were created in the United States by Midway. In fact, after Pac-Man you created just one more game, Libble Rabble.
Iwatani: Yes, that was based on the concept of “surround.” It was an interesting game, but unpopular because it was so hard to play — you used joysticks on the left- and right-hand sides to control two arrows on the screen, but when they crossed over each other, the right hand was controlling what was going on on the left side of the screen, like a mirror.
But even now, it’s popular among core gamers.
Wired.com: Why did you stop making videogames after that?
Iwatani: After that, I became a producer. Namco was a small company, and because the organization expanded, I was promoted to section chief. Someone had to coordinate the younger developers that we’d hired.
So although I was still capable and wanted to keep developing games, I was told to serve as the supervisor — the manager of the baseball team, instead of a player.
http://www.google.com/pacman/
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/05/pac-man-30-years
Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating
By Chris Kohler
May 21, 2010
30 years ago, videogames changed forever.
On May 22, 1980, the Japanese gamemaker Namco installed the first Pac-Man machine in a movie theater in the trendy Shibuya section of Tokyo. On Saturday, the company celebrates the 30th anniversary of the little yellow circle that became videogames’ first enduring character.
Besides being the centerpiece of a novel, addictive game, the adorable Pac-Man became a media superstar, appearing on lunchboxes, in cartoons, on the covers of magazines and even in a Top 10 pop hit.
Unlike the vast majority of its contemporaries, Pac-Man’s dot-eating, ghost-chasing gameplay is still fun today. Versions for platforms like iPhone, virtually unchanged from the original, are still a big moneymaker for Namco Bandai. On Friday, Google unveiled its first-ever interactive “doodle,” a version of Pac-Man.
This is all thanks to the genius of Toru Iwatani (pictured), the game designer who set the tone for Japan and the world. By creating a cute cast of characters and a design sensibility that appealed to wider audiences than the shoot-em-up Space Invaders, Iwatani broadened the appeal and marketability of games, creating what some call the first “casual game.”
Wired.com spoke to Iwatani, now a professor at Tokyo Polytechnic University, at Namco Bandai’s Tokyo headquarters.
Wired.com: You’ve said that Pac-Man was aimed at women, which is why you based it around eating — because women enjoy “fun foods” more.
Toru Iwatani: Around the time that we launched Pac-Man, video arcades were filled with games where you shoot aliens. It seemed very dark. It was for men, it wasn’t fashionable at all. When women would go out, they’d go out in a group of friends or with a boyfriend as a couple. And I realized that if women and couples were going to come to game centers, they had to be cheerful places.
When you think about things women like, you think about fashion, or fortune-telling, or food or dating boyfriends. So I decided to theme the game around “eating” — after eating dinner, women like to have dessert.
If you take a pizza and remove one piece, it looks like a mouth. That’s where my idea came from.
Wired.com: Is that story true, that you thought of the shape of Pac-Man after removing one slice from a pizza?
Iwatani: It’s true.
Wired.com: The attractive design really made Pac-Man stand out. What else did you do to differentiate it from other games of the time?
Iwatani: At that time, it was the beginning of all games. Games hadn’t spread very far at all. Characters were more or less non-existent. There were a lot of ideas at the time, a lot of games that you could come up with. A lot of companies had new concepts for games — in Japan, Taito and other companies were producing games like Space Invaders. The space was more or less vacant.
One point of differentiation was to target women gamers. The second point was the design — the character design and the graphic design were very appropriate for women, who thought it was very cute. Even if the character was an enemy, they wouldn’t be able to hate it. The colors of the maze walls are muted, so you can see the character designs. I think there was some recognition that this was the future of videogames, because this was the first character that was introduced at the time.
Wired.com: Did you take inspiration from Japanese animation or manga?
Iwatani: Very much so. Pac-Man is inspired by all the manga and animation that I’d watch as a kid. The ghosts were inspired by Casper, or Obake no Q-Taro.
The game idea — eating a power cookie and powering up to defeat the ghosts — was inspired by Popeye eating spinach and defeating Bluto, turning the tables on him.
Wired.com: What about Pac-Man would you say came from a Japanese aesthetic, specifically?
Iwatani: Japanese youngsters really wanted “ghost” type characters — not necessarily modeled on creatures, but things that don’t really exist in this world. Even within animation, they want characters that are the products of the writer’s imaginations. In North America at the time, the games were about car races or warfare. They wanted games that simulated the real world, whereas Japan wanted otogibanashi (fairy tales).
Also, when you look at Japanese games, the characters may be deformed in such a way that their heads are half of their total height. This was not popular in the U.S., as you know, they wanted real proportional humans. In Japan, dolls like Hello Kitty are deformed into a different shape, into an animal that doesn’t really exist. The dolls in the U.S. would be a real cat.
Wired.com: When you placed that first Pac-Man machine out in public, where did it go?
Iwatani: May 22 wasn’t the launch date, it was the first location test. The game was still under development, and we were gauging the reaction of consumers. Since this was the first time the machine was shown to the general public, we consider May 22 to be Pac-Man’s “birthday.” After that, we made revisions and improvements based on the results of the location test and it was released in July.
The game was taken to a building in Shibuya that no longer exists. It was a thin, chimney-shaped building with seven or eight floors, consisting of several movie theaters. On the top floor, there was a very long, narrow room where the couples, having just seen movies, would go up to have a little enjoyment before they returned home. So they weren’t necessarily gamers.
The women and couples were very happy about the machine, very excited. They came up to it and put their hands on it, so we thought that our target concept had been very much in sync and correct. They played it, and they were more or less satisfied — they figured out how to play it. It’s not a difficult game.
On the other hand, the core gamers, the men, were not necessarily very excited about it. But it was for people who didn’t play games on a daily basis — women, children, the elderly.
It’s not like people sat around and played the machine all day, though. So we didn’t think it would be a major hit. I didn’t think that the U.S. and Europe would take it up, because it’s a rather slow relaxing game. At that time, what was popular overseas were more thrilling games, and I felt that perhaps the rhythm of Pac-Man wasn’t matching the needs of overseas users.
Wired.com: What did you change about the game after the location test?
Iwatani: The design didn’t change very much. There wasn’t a lot of time before the game was to be released in July, so we just tweaked the game balance, the difficulty level. That was pretty much just changing a few numbers in the program code.
Wired.com: And of course, the game was originally called Puck-Man, but the name was changed for America because someone might vandalize the “P” and turn it into an “F.”
Iwatani: Yes, the U.S. subsidiary said that that would be bad. We wondered, what should we do? And decided to change it to “Pac.” Then, after the American version came out with the “Pac” spelling, we used that for the entire world.
Wired.com: You weren’t involved with games like Ms. Pac-Man, which were created in the United States by Midway. In fact, after Pac-Man you created just one more game, Libble Rabble.
Iwatani: Yes, that was based on the concept of “surround.” It was an interesting game, but unpopular because it was so hard to play — you used joysticks on the left- and right-hand sides to control two arrows on the screen, but when they crossed over each other, the right hand was controlling what was going on on the left side of the screen, like a mirror.
But even now, it’s popular among core gamers.
Wired.com: Why did you stop making videogames after that?
Iwatani: After that, I became a producer. Namco was a small company, and because the organization expanded, I was promoted to section chief. Someone had to coordinate the younger developers that we’d hired.
So although I was still capable and wanted to keep developing games, I was told to serve as the supervisor — the manager of the baseball team, instead of a player.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Arcade Games Make A Comeback
http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/arcade-games-make-a-comeback/1187268
Arcade Games Make A Comeback
Feb 15, 2008
When David Ellis was in high school, he, like millions of other teenagers, became mesmerized by videogames. That was back in the 1980s, however, when the most popular place to play a videogame was in an arcade.
These days, Ellis, who is today a game designer for North Carolina-based Vicious Cycle Software, is at the forefront of a very retro trend: installing those grand old game playing consoles at home. He bought his first game console, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator, in 1997. Since then, Ellis has snapped up more than a dozen and has even written a book, The Official Price Guide To Classic Video Games. "I like the older games because they are so much more creative than what is in the arcades now. Today, everything is a fighting or shooting or driving game," he says.
Home entertainment today is squarely focused on the kinds of high-definition graphics offered up by systems such as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The graphics and speed of those machines can't be matched by the arcade games of 30 years ago. But many people miss the thrill of arcade games--of getting swallowed up by the monstrous machines and immersed in the abstract graphics.
"These old-school games might not have the best graphics," says videogame industry analyst Billy Pidgeon of IDC. "But the game mechanics are sound, and the game play is a lot better than many of today's new titles. That game play lets the players hold on to their youth."
The golden age of arcade games, collectors generally agree, lasted from around the 1978 to the mid-1980s. Despite their size, arcade machines had only a dash of electronics--little more than a few circuit boards and a reasonably sized CRT monitor to show the action. The vivid and bigger-than-life artwork featured on the sides of the machines was never matched by what was on the screen--but it sparked the imagination and competitive juices of waves of teenagers.
"A big part of the appeal is nostalgia," says Rick Kirby, president of Betson Enterprise, in Carlstadt, N.J. For 70 years, Betson has been a major supplier of coin-op machines, including pinball, jukeboxes and of course videogame arcade machines to commercial businesses. More recently, Kirby says, he's seeing orders for machines from individuals, many of whom look to get a machine that reminds them of their youth. "The last few years, we've seen an all-time high in sales of machines for home use."
That nostalgia and passion for arcade games was even chronicled in last year's documentary film King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which focused on a cross-country duel between game rivals Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell as each competed to become the 2007 Guinness World Records holder for the high score in "Donkey Kong."
While Donkey Kong may have been one of the stars of a film, according to Kirby, there isn't as much interest in the great ape as there is another character from the early days: Ms. Pac-Man. At first merely an unauthorized sequel to "Pac-Man," this game became a bigger hit. Debuting in 1982, it scored points for girls' rights to play in the arcade. Today, restored "Ms. Pac-Man" machines are among Betson's top sellers.
"The combo 'Ms. Pac-Man' and 'Galaga' machine is certainly one of our most popular games," says Kirby. Original versions of classic arcade machines can be found for sale on sites including eBay for only a few hundred dollars.
Enthusiasm for arcade-style games isn't limited to teenage boys-turned-grownups. "The buyers of these machines are families, husbands and wives who grew up playing the games in the arcades and today want them for their game rooms," Kirby notes.
Collectors, such as the likes of Ellis, however, still revel in the vintage machines--even if they come encrusted with decades worth of spilled soda, old gum and scratches from the thousands of winners--and losers--of the past. "These were the games I grew up with, and I want the vintage machines," says Ellis. There is, he concedes, a downside to the classics: "The originals can break down, and collectors have to repair them."
As a result, many buyers today are snapping up modern versions of the classic machines. Those machines are pricier--often topping $2,500--but in many cases they can play up to 80 game titles. Having one machine--instead of say, 80--is a far more realistic option in most homes. And worrying about breakdowns becomes less problematic. "The modern machines are more reliable," says Kirby. "That is what we're seeing from many buyers. They want the game they remember, but they don't want to have to make it work."
Whether it is a modern version or an original from the 1980s, Ellis says that these games offer something that today's games on the PlayStation fail to deliver. "I can get the quick fix from these arcade machines. I can play for 10 minutes and have my gaming urge satisfied."
Arcade Games Make A Comeback
Feb 15, 2008
When David Ellis was in high school, he, like millions of other teenagers, became mesmerized by videogames. That was back in the 1980s, however, when the most popular place to play a videogame was in an arcade.
These days, Ellis, who is today a game designer for North Carolina-based Vicious Cycle Software, is at the forefront of a very retro trend: installing those grand old game playing consoles at home. He bought his first game console, Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator, in 1997. Since then, Ellis has snapped up more than a dozen and has even written a book, The Official Price Guide To Classic Video Games. "I like the older games because they are so much more creative than what is in the arcades now. Today, everything is a fighting or shooting or driving game," he says.
Home entertainment today is squarely focused on the kinds of high-definition graphics offered up by systems such as the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The graphics and speed of those machines can't be matched by the arcade games of 30 years ago. But many people miss the thrill of arcade games--of getting swallowed up by the monstrous machines and immersed in the abstract graphics.
"These old-school games might not have the best graphics," says videogame industry analyst Billy Pidgeon of IDC. "But the game mechanics are sound, and the game play is a lot better than many of today's new titles. That game play lets the players hold on to their youth."
The golden age of arcade games, collectors generally agree, lasted from around the 1978 to the mid-1980s. Despite their size, arcade machines had only a dash of electronics--little more than a few circuit boards and a reasonably sized CRT monitor to show the action. The vivid and bigger-than-life artwork featured on the sides of the machines was never matched by what was on the screen--but it sparked the imagination and competitive juices of waves of teenagers.
"A big part of the appeal is nostalgia," says Rick Kirby, president of Betson Enterprise, in Carlstadt, N.J. For 70 years, Betson has been a major supplier of coin-op machines, including pinball, jukeboxes and of course videogame arcade machines to commercial businesses. More recently, Kirby says, he's seeing orders for machines from individuals, many of whom look to get a machine that reminds them of their youth. "The last few years, we've seen an all-time high in sales of machines for home use."
That nostalgia and passion for arcade games was even chronicled in last year's documentary film King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, which focused on a cross-country duel between game rivals Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell as each competed to become the 2007 Guinness World Records holder for the high score in "Donkey Kong."
While Donkey Kong may have been one of the stars of a film, according to Kirby, there isn't as much interest in the great ape as there is another character from the early days: Ms. Pac-Man. At first merely an unauthorized sequel to "Pac-Man," this game became a bigger hit. Debuting in 1982, it scored points for girls' rights to play in the arcade. Today, restored "Ms. Pac-Man" machines are among Betson's top sellers.
"The combo 'Ms. Pac-Man' and 'Galaga' machine is certainly one of our most popular games," says Kirby. Original versions of classic arcade machines can be found for sale on sites including eBay for only a few hundred dollars.
Enthusiasm for arcade-style games isn't limited to teenage boys-turned-grownups. "The buyers of these machines are families, husbands and wives who grew up playing the games in the arcades and today want them for their game rooms," Kirby notes.
Collectors, such as the likes of Ellis, however, still revel in the vintage machines--even if they come encrusted with decades worth of spilled soda, old gum and scratches from the thousands of winners--and losers--of the past. "These were the games I grew up with, and I want the vintage machines," says Ellis. There is, he concedes, a downside to the classics: "The originals can break down, and collectors have to repair them."
As a result, many buyers today are snapping up modern versions of the classic machines. Those machines are pricier--often topping $2,500--but in many cases they can play up to 80 game titles. Having one machine--instead of say, 80--is a far more realistic option in most homes. And worrying about breakdowns becomes less problematic. "The modern machines are more reliable," says Kirby. "That is what we're seeing from many buyers. They want the game they remember, but they don't want to have to make it work."
Whether it is a modern version or an original from the 1980s, Ellis says that these games offer something that today's games on the PlayStation fail to deliver. "I can get the quick fix from these arcade machines. I can play for 10 minutes and have my gaming urge satisfied."
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