Celebrating forty years of the maze-maneuvering, dot-gobbling, ghost evading and chasing magic known as Pac-Man!
Custom Sprites – Pac-Man: New sprites of Pac-Man (Midway marquee, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Mania pose), Baby Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, USA Pac-Man marquee ghost, Kinky (Pac-Man Arrangement)
Mini-logos (Namco): Pac-Man (redid the USA marquee), Baby Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Jr.
All new sprites and mini-logos have been added to the GFX Generators, where Pac-Man also got a new portrait drawn by me and colored to fit in with the Marvel Super Heroes Vs. portraits. Also added to the Box Tributes in the main generator was a red-top NES Namco overlay.
No description of the 80s Pac-Man craze that you’ll read or hear really does it justice. Starting forty years ago today in Japan (originally known as Puck-Man), Pac-Man’s existence wasn’t just the start of a maze craze or a cementing of video games as more than a fad, but an enduring game style of game play still being used today and the hook of cute characters who never completely left the public consciousness. I saw this unfold when I was a kid and I’ve never seen anything like it since. Figurines (kinda tough to make a poseable Pac-Man with those skinny legs), the sticker/scratch card/bubble gum packs, a Saturday morning cartoon, lunchboxes, breakfast cereal (couldn’t be an eighties icon without your own cereal), Buckner and Garcia’s hit “Pac-Man Fever” album (and electro fans know about the original “Pak Man” version of Jonzun Crew’s joint “Pack Jam”), bath towels, mini-gumball machines, board games, vitamins and more merch than you can imagine. Even the news outlets who mocked the phenomenon as a fad eventually started using Pac-graphics to talk about serious news stories. The recent announcement of a new Twitch-based “Pac-Man Live Studio” game with customizable mazes is just another sign that the legend still has some lives left.
