
Toru Iwatani, 1986 Pac-Man Designer - danso
https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pacman-designer/
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acomjean
IWATANI: The algorithm for the four ghosts who are the enemies of the Pac
Man–getting all the movements lined up correctly. It was tricky because the
monster movements are quite complex. This is the heart of the game. I wanted
each ghostly enemy to have a specific character and its own particular
movements, so they weren’t all just chasing after Pac Man in single file,
which would have been tiresome and flat. One of them, the red one called
Blinky, did chase directly after Pac Man. The second ghost is positioned at a
point a few dots in front of Pac Man’s mouth. That is his position. If Pac Man
is in the center then Monster A and Monster B are equidistant from him, but
each moves independently, almost “sandwiching” him. The other ghosts move more
at random. That way they get closer to Pac Man in a natural way.

When a human being is constantly under attack like this, he becomes
discouraged. So we developed the wave-patterned attack–attack then disperse;
as time goes by the ghosts regroup and attack again. Gradually the peaks and
valleys in the curve of the wave become less pronounced so that the ghosts
attack more frequently.

I always found the ghosts algorithms fascinating: the pac man dossier has
interesting graphical representations of them

[https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132330/the_pacman_dos...](https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132330/the_pacman_dossier.php?page=7)

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Deimorz
I wrote a post specifically about the ghost behavior almost 9 years ago:
[https://gameinternals.com/understanding-pac-man-ghost-
behavi...](https://gameinternals.com/understanding-pac-man-ghost-behavior)

There's not really anything in it that the Pac-Man Dossier doesn't cover, but
it's more focused and (hopefully) easier to follow for people just interested
in that aspect.

The "Retro Game Mechanics Explained" channel did a good video explanation a
few months ago too:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ataGotQ7ir8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ataGotQ7ir8)

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joshschreuder
Game Maker's Toolkit did a great video this week on Pac-Man

[https://youtu.be/S4RHbnBkyh0](https://youtu.be/S4RHbnBkyh0)

There's a lot we take for granted these days which were relatively innovative
and unique in Pac-Man, such as the clever AI, and also it's one of the first
instances of a video game mascot. Well worth a watch.

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muterad_murilax
The title is misleading. The interview took place in 1986, but the game was
released in 1980. [0]

Also, it's Pac-Man, not PacMan.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-
Man)

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danso
The "1986" comes from the publication year of the book that the interview is
from, _Programmers at Work_. In any case, the title is still accurate enough
since Iwatani was producer and director, respectively, for Pac-Land (1984) and
Pac-Mania (1987):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toru_Iwatani](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toru_Iwatani)

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Dev_2019
TL;DR: "It’s important for you to understand that I’m not a programmer."

