New Pac-Man title for Twitch

Namco’s legendary Pac-man game blows out its 40th birthday candles by renewing a work that will be released on Twitch and with the composition of a new song.

On May 22, 1980, Toru Iwatani and the Namco studio launched a title that they never thought, 40 years later, would continue to be one of the mythical in video game history. Pac-man is, for many, probably the main icon of the industry, which almost half a century later will launch a revamped title for the Twitch streaming platform.

Bandai Namco has decided to honor what was his masterpiece by renewing it and adapting it to new generations with Pac-Man Live Studio , made in collaboration with Amazon Games.

But they will not be the only birthday gifts for the 40th anniversary of the mythical Pac-Man, as he is known in Spanish-speaking countries. The creative company has reached an agreement with the Japanese artist Ken Ishii, specialized in electronic music, who, based on his charismatic melody, will create a new soundtrack for the game as well as a music video directed by the award-winning audiovisual creator Yuichi Kodama.

And without losing sight of the platform where it became famous, the arcades, Numskull will launch an exclusive range of original arcade miniatures of the game, a product of which only 256 units will be launched.

Pac-man, the first world title

For the most veterans, it is possibly one of the first titles they enjoyed and that made them fall in love with video games. For the youngest, a piece of the history of a sector that in the beginning was closer to technology than to culture.

Toru Iwatani rose to fame as the first developer whose work was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the most successful arcade game, selling almost 300,000 arcade games in the 1980s .

And its birth, although it was a conscientious process that sought to adapt to an audience that at that time was a minority, happened from something as banal and everyday as ordering pizza for dinner.

So, Iwatani came up with the character of his future video game, which quickly found a very broad market niche: that of those who did not want to enjoy violent games in their free time, which were the most common of the time.

Plus, its laid-back style and addictive music helped make it even more appealing: Pac-Man Fever has been played on millions of electronic devices since it was first heard in an arcade.

Beat ‘ em up and sports were the most common genres on arcade machines, so Pac-man came to refresh the sector, something that he undoubtedly achieved by far, leaving behind hits like Space Invaders or Pong .

It was initially released in Japan, and quickly crossed the pond to success in the United States, where it began to spread throughout Western culture and even to other consoles such as the Atari to become the icon that it is today.

The success of Pac-Man

The mechanics were also very simple: you had to eat all the points on each screen trying not to be captured by a group of ghosts. You could get extra points by eating the fruits that appeared spontaneously.

The ease with which to capture the gameplay allowed it to spread even to more reluctant audiences with the technological innovations of the moment. In those 80s, it coincided that Namco had already developed two color titles, so he was able to impregnate it with the famous color ranges that have transcended to this day: yellow for the protagonist, and pink, orange, cyan and red for the bad ghosts.

Initially, up to 255 levels were designed, although there was an extra one that, due to the underdeveloped hardware of the time, had many bugs .

Even so, it was generally quite common in its origins not to pass level 10, since it required time and money and the arcades were usually installed in bars or public spaces.

Over the last decades, Pac-Man has continued to appear on the new devices that have been created, adapting to new possibilities, but without losing that arcade essence that made it so popular.

The last one was Pac-man Champions Edition 2 , for PS4 and Xbox One: proof that the little yellow bug is almost immortal and his image will remain in the industry’s retina forever .

The famous Pac-Man has appeared on other audiovisual platforms, such as cinema or television. It appeared, for example, in movies like Ready player one or Pixels or in a homonymous classic series produced by Warner Bross.

Currently, Amazon is producing another new series, Pac-Man and the Ghostly Snack Attack, in which viewers can decide the course of the plot through various alternatives, proving once again that this iconic character is a true cross-platform .