Pac-Man: Five facts for Pac's 40th birthday
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Before Fortnite, Animal Crossing, Little Big Planet and FIFA, there was Pac-Man.
Arguably one of the worlds most well known games, the little yellow circle known as Pac-Man is now 40 years old!
He was first launched on May 22 1980, and a lifetime of maze-crazed dot-eating missions began.
To celebrate here are five facts about Pac Man!
The ghosts have names!
The aim of the game is to eat all the dots whilst getting from one end of the maze to the next.
But it's not that simple, you also have to avoid the four ghosts who all have names...
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde.
In addition to their names they all have their own personalities.
The creator had no game-making training
The person who designed and developed Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani had NO formal training when he created Pac man.
Pac-Man was originally called 'Puck-Man' in Japan because the character looked like a hockey puck!
Can you get the high score?
The maximum high score for Pac-Man is 3333360 points!
This score has been achieved by just 12 people... so far!
Ms Pac-Man was a different version of the game
Pac-Man was 'for female gamers'
Pac-Man was designed to get more girls into gaming!
At a gaming conference in 2011, Toru Iwatani said:
"The reason I created Pac-Man was because we wanted to attract female gamers."
Most of the games already out in the 1980's were largely based on shooting and violence and Pac-Man was created as a lighter alternative!
According to Toru Iwatani, the cuter, friendly design of Pac-Man was to encourage women to play more games.
Nom-nom-nom... Pac's name comes from the sound of eating
Pac-Man in Japanese means "pakupaku", which translates to the sound of munching or eating!
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