Interview with Pac-Man Creator

Rogueywon writes "The UK's Times newspaper has a featured interview with Toru Iwatani, creator of Pac-Man. The article offers an insight into the inspiration behind the old arcade classic and reflects on the lack of material gain that the franchise has brought to its creator." From the article: "Iwatani sits down and tells the whole story, starting exactly 26½ years ago when a 24-year-old Namco programmer strolled into a now demolished restaurant in central Tokyo, called Shakeys. It was here that he ordered the marguerita pizza that, with one slice removed, provided the visual inspiration for Pac-Man's famous profile. "

Let me be the first to say

[BlackCobra43]

wakka wakka wakka wakka

exactly...

[MarcoAtWork]

as much as the game idea was fun and the graphics attractive, I think for me pacman was mostly about the sounds, the startup jingle, the wakkawakkawakka and let's not forget the death sound: I really wonder who came up with those!

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Thedeviluno]

Ms. Pac-man swallows!

Re:That's awesome...

[kniLnamiJ-neB]

While Pac-man was fun, I don't think your statement applies here... if his "all" was a nearly complete yellow circle, some dots, and some ghosts, he was a pretty shallow guy.

Re:That's awesome...

[koi88]

if his "all" was a nearly complete yellow circle, some dots, and some ghosts, he was a pretty shallow guy.

Just like this Einstein guy who put his life into an equation consisting of only three letters.

Re:That's awesome...

[rttichnor]

Just like this Einstein guy who put his life into an equation consisting of only three letters.

Damn, that was good !!!

(Score:5, Whoopass)

Re:That's awesome...

[mink]

Right Said Fred is at least a 2 hit wonder!
I'm 2 sexy and Don't Talk Just Kiss.

When I gave the album with I'm 2 sexy a listen (years after it was overplayed on the radio) I found a CD full of good tracks that were worth listening to.

Chumbawumba also IMO is more then that. Frankly, I like the French version of Tubthumping better then the English one. On the Tubthumping album there are a few other good tracks, again more then I expected given the radio play of Tubthumping.

I cant comment on devinyls as I don't

Marguerita pizza???

[TopShelf]

WTF is that? The Japanese do some pretty crazy things to pizza. When I visited about 10 years ago, I remember seeing a poster for a pizza with strange sea creature parts, mayo, and corn sprinkled on it. Blech...

Re:Marguerita pizza???

[russellh]

Yeah. Those Japanese. Importing the classic Napoletana pizza [google.com]. Crazy!

Re:Marguerita pizza???

[Gogo0]

They like a different kind of mayonaise (kind of like American mayonaise but with soy sauce and worsteshire (sp) sauce mixed in) on their Okonomiyaki -kind of a pan-fried pizza with various goodies on top (left-overs work well). It is pretty different from an actual pizza, but the general idea is the same.

Re:Marguerita pizza???

[Reignking]

It has nothing to do with the drink -- it is basically your normal cheese pizza.

Re:Marguerita pizza???

[radish]

Margherita is the actual, you know, italian name for pizza with just tomato and mozarella on it.

Re:Marguerita pizza???

[mink]

Thats not Pizza. It's a omelette / pancake thing with toppings. Search google for Okonomiyaki for details and recipes.

Shakey's? As in the pizza parlor?

[Richard Steiner]

Wow... I miss Shakey's Pizza. The Shakey's Pizza Parlor that was in Minnetonka, MN just west of Hwy 7 and 494 is the first place I ever saw a video arcade machine -- a pong game! :-)

Re:Shakey's? As in the pizza parlor?

[Momoru]

Oh yeah thats where I was first introduced to video games too, my Shakeys was near Washington DC...I spent hours (with no quarters) just watching the demo screens and others play all those great old games, though I must have been there later then you because they had Centipead, Aarkanoid, and that game with the spys and the elevators by the time I was there....what ever happened to Shakeys anyways?

Re:Shakey's? As in the pizza parlor?

[crow]

It seems that Shakey's [shakeys.com] is still around. Clearly not in the same numbers as it once was, though.

Re:Shakey's? As in the pizza parlor?

[oldwolf13]

>> ...and that game with the spys and the elevators...

Elevator Action!

Used to love that game

Re:Shakey's? As in the pizza parlor?

[dwbassett42]

Shakey's is a little different in Japan than it is in the U.S. They have an all you can eat pizza-by-the-slice buffet, but since they use super-thin crust on thier pizza, your average American can eat dozens of slices before they are seriously full. Many of the pizzas are generally not palatable to most Americans, but if you don't mind corn and tuna on your pizza you'll be fine. Eating tons of pizza does make the management unhappy with you though. (I almost got kicked out of one for eating too much, and

A great game for a budding game programmer

[tcopeland]

Writing a Pacman clone is a great exercise if you're trying to learn how to program games. There's graphics, hit detection, path-finding, "AI" strategy, high score tracking; all kinds of good stuff to think about.

Another good one is Tetris [infoether.com]; lots of interesting challenges in there.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[sneakers563]

AI? I thought the ghosts in Pacman followed predetermined paths irrespective of what the player is doing, hence the ability of the player to "cheat" and use a predefined pattern to successfully complete the maze. I don't think the ghosts actually reacted to the player until Ms. Pacman.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[tcopeland]

> ghosts in Pacman followed predetermined paths

You're probably right, so a true clone wouldn't need an AI strategy.

I guess I was thinking of what someone would do who was writing a version of Pacman today and that came to mind...

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[sneakers563]

It's a small point, anyway. I distinctly remember, however, buying a "Beat Ms. Pacman" strategy guide in elementary school and reading that the patterns given in the book wouldn't work 100% of the time like the older patterns for Pacman did. I felt ripped off.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[tcopeland]

> buying a "Beat Ms. Pacman" strategy guide
> in elementary school

Nice, those were hard-earned dollars, I daresay. $5 for cutting the neighbor's lawn and all that.

My sad elementary school experiences involved accidentally overwriting a brand new game while trying to back it up on a TRS-80 Model III. Oh the agony...

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[sneakers563]

Beat Ms. Pacman? I'm sure the anti-Rockstar people would object against that, as well...

LOL - I thought about the dual meaning while I was typing that.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[Meagermanx]

Just when I thought people couldn't be more disturbingly perverted...

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[badasscat]

AI? I thought the ghosts in Pacman followed predetermined paths irrespective of what the player is doing, hence the ability of the player to "cheat" and use a predefined pattern to successfully complete the maze.

No, you're confusing patterns that were "discovered" that allowed you to win by beating the AI (which do exist), with patterns that the ghosts followed (which don't). The ghosts follow no pre-determined patterns - in fact each one is programmed to act and react in a different manner from the other. I don't recall all the differences but there are things like one of them being smart enough not to come near you while you're close to a power pellet, one of them being able to see you all the way on the other side of the board, etc. There is real uniqueness in how they act, though you wouldn't notice it unless you really played a lot.

The patterns come about because the AI is not advanced enough that it's going to do anything different given the same situation. So, assuming that Pac-Man travels at the same speed in every game (which he does), and you don't screw up, you can use the same pattern every time and the ghosts will act in the same way. But that doesn't mean they're not using AI.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[Sancho]

I think even this was changed in a later board revision of Pac Man, and by Ms. Pac Man, it was right out.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[sneakers563]

Interesting - That's almost exactly what I remember reading about Ms. Pacman. I wonder if the improvment to the AI in Ms. Pacman that I'm remembering was simply adding some variability to the ghosts' actions.

I found this paper [gatech.edu] with an interview with the creator that bears out what you're saying. It's pretty cool, actually, that they gave the ghosts different personalities; I stand corrected.

Re:A great game for a budding game programmer

[jackbird]

Yeah, they added randomness. That's why you almost never see original Pac-Man in the wild (it's a money-loser in terms of time per quarter once someone gets the patterns down), but Ms. Pac-Man can be found in dive bars reasonably often. Also why the ghosts sometimes do really stupid stuff in Ms. Pac-Man, like turn tail right before killing you.

Tetris fun for a budding game programmer

[dtungsten]

I can speak from personal experience on that one. I wrote a Tetris game just for the fun/challenge of it. This was after I made a text adventure as a programming assignment (the assignment was make a text adventure) as part of a regular programming class (not a games-oriented elective). If I were teaching a class in game (or even other complex) programming, a Tetris clone would definitely be an assigned project.

Re:Tetris fun for a budding game programmer

[tcopeland]

Cool! Yup, lots of different ways to approach the shapes, and the animation or whatever that happens when you fill a row, and so on. Good times.

Toru Iwatani

[Bnderan]

What was his name before running it through the Star Wars name generator? [insectdissection.com]

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Someone wanna fact check this UL

[snorklewacker]

Story is that the name of the game was originally "Puck-Man" (due to the shape), but that vandals were scratching out part of the "P" on the console to spell the obvious derivative word.

Any truth to that?

Re:Someone wanna fact check this UL

[GeneralHorel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man [wikipedia.org]

Re:Someone wanna fact check this UL

[drunken-sosage]

two additional links
http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=P&gam e_id=9149
http://www.puckman.net/main.html

Re:Someone wanna fact check this UL

[macdaddy357]

I want to know if it is true that pac-man is named after the infamous cannibal, Alfred E. Packer. [google.com] Allegedly "pack-man" has meant cannibal since then.

Okay...

[Sierpinski]

Okay so he got the icon from a slice-removed pizza pie. But where, I ask, WHERE did he get the idea for that 'wakka wakka' sound?

Re:Okay...

[Doom bucket]

"Wakka Wakka" is the japanese equivelent of "Munch Munch".

Different languages have different "sounds".

Re:Okay...

[lightspawn]

But where, I ask, WHERE did he get the idea for that 'wakka wakka' sound?

Fozzie Bear, of course.

Re:Okay...

[oldwolf13]

You know I always thought it sounded more like "Wadda wadda wadda"...

Where the 'dd"'s sound a little like a t.

A nurse was helping me with some bandages the other day and she mentioned Pac Man for some reason... so I figured she remembered it. I of course, immediately hummed the theme songs and proceeded to "wadda wadda wadda"

She looked at me kind of strangely after that.

Remids me of the old joke...

[Anne_Nonymous]

"Computer games don't affect kids. I mean, if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around darkened rooms, munching magic pills, and listening to repetitive electronic music."

Re:Remids me of the old joke...

[game kid]

Kristian Wilson [sover.net] clearly forgot the "oh wait..." part back then.

Re:Remids me of the old joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm, sounds like a rave to me.

Re:Remids me of the old joke...

[ipxodi]

If you grew up in the 70s and 80s, that IS what you did!

Tivola

[tepples]

As for the Dreamcast logo, look at these spirals [splorp.com], especially the last four.

Re:All that remains

[mink]

There is a treat in Japan that is depicted as a spiky white circle with a red swirl. I always think of them when I look at my Dreamcast.

Shakey's Pizza

[nigel_q]

Shakey's Pizza is a chain from the US... They're still around in Japan, but less so than they were 20 years ago. They talk about it in the 2nd Wayne's World movie. Incidentally, there's still one in Roppongi near the Meiji Shrine, I think there's still one in Kichijoji... The one in Shibuya is gone... The all you can eat lunch buffet is a great deal!