PAC-MAN creator Toru Iwatani thinks of a 17th-century haiku when asked about the importance of audiences identifying with a fictional character. TechIol
Even after 40 years, PAC-MAN is unforgettable. The reason is literally as simple as his design.
The images Iwatani and a team of seven created for the first"PAC-MAN" game in 1980 are forever embedded in pop culture, in part due to how instantly you can relate to the iconography. The first video games, like many of the most popular ones today, were violent and centered around conflict."PAC-MAN," instead, would tell a story, open to interpretation.
"I designed PAC-MAN to be simple to the point that he doesn't have eyes or any other adornments," Iwatani said."Likewise, I designed the ghosts to be simple and cute. This draws on Japan's age-old appreciation of"wabi-sabi," where people found transient beauty and depth in simplicity, and I think the world accepting this Japanese aesthetic has made people embrace PAC-MAN in various ways.
But he never had any doubt that gaming would be a permanent fixture of global entertainment. Not when he was playing so much Intellivision back in the 1980s. Anything that entertaining, he says, would become commonplace. He also saw great promise in Nintendo's early experiments with portable technology, notably the"Game & Watch" handhelds.
Iwatani has blanket advice for any game developer and storyteller today:"Put players first in anything you do, and carefully create games that cater to them as much as possible.
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