Pac-Man at 30: How One Game Changed Video Gaming Forever

Hey gamers ok so I’ve been putting off writing this article for like forever cause how do you even start talking about something as massive as Pac-Man turning 30 I mean this game basically WAS my childhood yknow Like I literally learned my lefts and rights from playing it at the arcade down the street from my house back in the day

The Beginning of an Obsession

Ok so lets go waaaaay back My first memory of Pac-Man isnt even playing it Its standing on my tippy toes trying to see over this crowd of teenagers at the local pizza place They were all huddled around this new machine making these weird wakka wakka noises I was like 6 or 7 maybe and my older brother finally took pity on me and lifted me up so I could see what all the fuss was about

And there it was This bright yellow circle chomping its way through a maze while these colorful ghosts chased it I was HOOKED right from that moment even tho I had to wait forever to actually play it myself cause there was always such a huge line Can you believe we used to put quarters on the machine to like mark our spot in line Kids today would never understand the struggle lol

How Pac-Man Took Over Pretty Much Everything

So this games actually older than me but when I was growing up it was still EVERYWHERE Like no joke I had

• Pac-Man bed sheets
• A Pac-Man lunchbox that I thought made me look so cool
• Pac-Man cereal which tbh wasnt even that good but I begged my mom for it every time we went shopping
• This awful Pac-Man halloween costume that was basically just a yellow garbage bag with the face painted on it But I thought I was the hottest thing ever wearing it

My friend Tommy had this thing where he’d sing the Pac-Man theme song everytime he ate anything He’d be like wakka wakka wakka with every bite of his sandwich at lunch We all thought it was hilarious but looking back his poor teachers mustve been losing their minds

The Actual Game Stuff That Made It Amazing

K so for anyone who somehow doesn’t know Pac-Man the games pretty simple ur this yellow dude going thru a maze eating dots while running away from ghosts Sounds boring when u say it like that but trust me it was ADDICTING

The ghosts all had different personalities which was mindblowing at the time

• Blinky the red guy was basically the jock of the ghost world Always chasing u down My friend Sarah was convinced he had a crush on Pac-Man but that’s a whole other story
• Pinky was the sneaky pink one who tried to trap u We used to say Pinky was the smart one who actually went to ghost college
• Inky was blue and super unpredictable Like that one friend who says theyre coming to ur party but u never know if they’ll actually show up
• And then theres Clyde the orange ghost who honestly seems like he’d rather be anywhere else Just doing the bare minimum of ghost work to get his paycheck

We used to make up all these backstories for the ghosts Like maybe they were just misunderstood and Pac-Man was actually the bad guy eating all their dots Which were actually like ghost food or something My best friend Joey wrote this whole comic series about the ghost break room and what they talked about when Pac-Man wasnt around

The Urban Legends Were INSANE

omg ok so there were sooo many rumors about secret levels and codes in Pac-Man Tommy (yeah same Tommy from the lunch thing) swore his cousin knew a guy who found a secret warp level where u could play as the ghosts His uncle supposedly worked at Nintendo which like didnt even make Pac-Man but we were kids and believed anything

There was this other kid Kevin who said if u beat the game 100 times in a row without dying the screen would turn red and u’d get infinite lives We spent an entire summer trying to test that one out Spoiler alert its totally not true but my high score got pretty impressive that year

The Google Doodle That Basically Broke The Internet

So when Google did their playable Pac-Man logo for the 30th anniversary it was like everyone collectively lost their minds My boss Steve was so mad cause literally nobody got any work done that day We were all trying to beat each others scores and coming up with excuses to why we needed just 5 more minutes at our desks

I remember my coworker Lisa who’s like this super serious accountant type she got SO into it She missed a really important meeting cause she was “in the zone” and didnt hear people calling her name The best part She blamed it on her computer freezing and somehow got away with it You go Lisa

The Weird Ways Pac-Man Changed Everything

Its crazy to think about but Pac-Man actually changed so much stuff about games and just like culture in general

Like before Pac-Man games were mostly just shooting stuff in space Which dont get me wrong is cool and all but it was pretty much just guys playing them Pac-Man came along and suddenly everyone was gaming My grandma was a beast at Pac-Man no joke She had all the patterns memorized and everything Wed go visit her and shed be like “let me just finish this level” and then absolutely destroy her high score while we waited

It also gave us 1 Those little scenes between levels which was super new back then My favorite was the one where Pac-Man chases Blinky I always imagined him yelling “how do YOU like it” 2 The whole power-up thing which is in like every game now The sound when u got a power pellet was so satisfying ur like “oh yeah its payback time ghosties” 3 Characters that people actually cared about Like we had opinions on the ghosts personalities How wild is that They were just different colored blobs but we saw them as actual characters

The Perfect Game Mystery

Ok so theres this guy Billy Mitchell who got a perfect score in Pac-Man which is like 3333360 points exactly First off who has that kind of time Secondly and more importantly WHO HAS THAT KIND OF SKILL Like u have to play for 6 hours straight without messing up once

I tried to do this once in college Stay up all night and get the perfect score Lasted about 20 minutes before I got hungry and went to get pizza The irony of leaving Pac-Man to eat is not lost on me now

Playing It Today vs Back Then

So now u can play Pac-Man on ur phone which is cool and all but its not the same u know Like yeah the game is there but ur missing

• The sticky joystick that sometimes got stuck going left
• The weird arcade smell that was like old carpet pizza and excitement
• That kid who’d always hover behind u going “ur doing it wrong” until u finally snapped and let them play
• Holding ur quarter watching the current player like “cmon die already its my turn”

But I guess its cool that kids today can still play it Even if they’ll never know the joy of finally having enough quarters to play after mowing lawns all summer

Some Super Random Pac-Man Facts That Live in My Brain Rent Free

• The game was gonna be called Puck-Man but they changed it cause they were worried people would change the P to an F Which lets be honest wouldve definitely happened
• In Japan they had Pac-Man ice cream Im still sad we never got that here
• Someone made a real life Pac-Man maze once but they had to shut it down cause people kept running into walls Maybe they shouldve made the walls not actual walls just saying
• The ghosts names in Japanese are completely different and way harder to pronounce
• My cousin Tony once played Pac-Man for so long he said he started seeing dots when he closed his eyes We were all pretty sure he was making it up but it sounds cool

The Future of The Man The Myth The Legend

So whats next for our boy Pac Well theres

• Talk about a movie which could either be amazing or terrible no in between
• VR Pac-Man which honestly sounds terrifying imagine those ghosts in 3D coming at u no thank u
• Some people use Pac-Man to teach coding which wouldve made me way more interested in computer class back in the day
• Competitive Pac-Man is actually a thing like people win money playing it Which wouldve blown my 7 year old minds

Why We Still Cant Get Enough

I think we still love Pac-Man cause

• Its simple anyone can play but its actually super hard to master
• It reminds us of simpler times when ur biggest worry was running out of quarters
• The characters are just so iconic Like even my little cousin who thinks anything older than Fortnite is ancient knows who Pac-Man is
• It never gets old somehow Like I can still sit down and play it for hours

In Conclusion Cause I Should Probably Wrap This Up

Its pretty wild that were here 30 years later still talking about this yellow circle that eats dots and runs from ghosts But Pac-Man isnt just a game its like this shared memory we all have Whether ur my age and grew up with the arcade or ur younger and played it on ur phone or computer its still just magic

Every time I hear that wakka wakka sound Im instantly transported back to that pizza place standing on my toes trying to see the screen And isnt that what great games are supposed to do Make us feel something even years later

So heres to u Pac-Man Thanks for the memories the quarters well spent and for teaching us that sometimes running away from ur problems and eating a lot is actually the answer

BTW if anyone wants to challenge my high score im always down Just dont expect me to play for 6 hours straight I’ve got like actual adult responsibilities now Unfortunately

#gaming #pacman #childhoodmemories #wakkaforevr

About the author Just ur average 30 something who spent their college fund on arcade games Still cant beat my grandmas high score tho Thanks for making me look bad Grandma Betty