Comments on: Looking Pac-ward

Looking Pac-ward

ShawnStruck — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:33:36 -0800

Pac-Man's creator, Toru Iwatani shares some of the original concept art and Pac-Man Design Sketches from 1979.

By: jeremy b

jeremy b — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:51:26 -0800

Does the black magic marker ink seem a little too rich in its darkness given the document's purported antiquity? Maybe it's the weed, but I'm suspicious of the authenticity of this. But if it is real, and I hope it is, I fucking love it.

By: Enki

Enki — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:04:13 -0800

Thank you. That's really quite cool :)

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:45:10 -0800

So according to the original idea, when you reach the hi score of 99990, a scary red symbol appears, and the ghosts go invisible - presumably on a suicide mission to prevent you from reaching 100,000?

By: rory

rory — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:23:09 -0800

Maybe it's the weed, but I'm suspicious of the authenticity of this. Must be the weed. That's Toru Iwatani, all right, so why would he fake his own design sketches? If they've been stuck in a folder for thirty years the marker pen won't have faded.

By: These Premises Are Alarmed

These Premises Are Alarmed — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:10:31 -0800

Those made me feel all weepy.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:45:06 -0800

What does the red stamp mean?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:46:00 -0800

Oh and the other thing, anyone else find it odd that the pictures were taken on, what I assume is, a train?

By: DU

DU — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:56:21 -0800

Graph paper! Those sketches remind me of the revolutionary new video game *I* was going to make when I was like 10. It was going to be like Pac-Man...BUT WITH A DIFFERENT MAZE!!! I was going to be the most famous person in the world.

By: obiwanwasabi

obiwanwasabi — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 04:58:28 -0800

Ah, the good old days when anybody could be a game designer with some graph paper. 'Go make it look like this, winged programming monkeys! Use your bizarre jibber jabber to make machines do my awesome bidding in exchange for shiny quarters!' Good memories of planning sprites on my C=64. Previously featured on Metafilter - an elaborate reverse engineering of the game.

By: stringbean

stringbean — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:05:08 -0800

What does the red stamp mean? 秘 = Secret.

By: RobotVoodooPower

RobotVoodooPower — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:11:25 -0800

Those dead-end nooks in the lower corners are nasty.

By: Stan Carey

Stan Carey — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:12:58 -0800

Lovely. But what else is in that sketch pad?

By: Atom Eyes

Atom Eyes — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:19:34 -0800

Meanwhile, on a bus somewhere in the middle of Bum Fuck Egypt, the disheveled duo Buckner & Garcia continues to harangue fellow passengers with long-winded, meandering tales about the grueling, weeks-long process of writing and recording their 1982 hit song "Pac Man Fever", occasionally illustrating a point with the help of a visual aid produced from a tattered, weather-beaten satchel. Among the items displayed are newspaper clippings, a faded press release, complete with posed black-and-white band photo, original guitar tablatures, and an early rough draft of the lyrics scribbled on a mustard-stained Hardee's napkin. Sadly, no one has a camera.

By: mintcake!

mintcake! — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:51:35 -0800

That "Pac-Man Dossier" link is amazing. Thanks, obiwan.

By: joedan

joedan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:03:44 -0800

Awesome! Thanks ShawnStruck. In other Pac-Man news, this new Pac-Man game with four player co-op looks like a lot of fun.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:49:11 -0800

"Does the black magic marker ink seem a little too rich in its darkness given the document's purported antiquity?" Bet he used a technical pen instead of a felt marker. Depending on what kind of ink he was using the lines would be somewhat to completely archival.

By: Liquidwolf

Liquidwolf — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:31:50 -0800

Bet he used a technical pen instead of a felt marker. Depending on what kind of ink he was using the lines would be somewhat to completely archival. Someone should start a new blog about the pen he used.

By: nicepersonality

nicepersonality — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:14:43 -0800

Oh man, joedan, the best multiplayer Pac-Man came as a bonus disc with some unremarkable 3D Pac-Something game for the GameCube. You plugged a GameBoy Advance into one of the controller slots; 3 people played as ghosts, and each could see only a limited portion of the board nearest them on the television; the fourth played as Pac-Man, and could see the entire board on the GBA screen. If a ghost caught Pac-Man, the two players swapped controls. Incredibly fun.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 21:46:55 -0800

Roland Barthes Reviews Pac-Man.

By: wallstreet1929

wallstreet1929 — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:03:00 -0800

I was more of the Galaga era, but this post stuck with me in that "early computing" way. Thanks. Others who were of that era got distant look in eye.