A video game that has endured since its 1980 debut is Pacman 30th Anniversary. It's a timeless classic that hasn't lost any of its appeal. For this reason, we will be looking at the history of a classic video game that has been around for over 30 years as a way to celebrate its existence.

How Pac-Man Came to Be

Google's homepage featured a doodle of the Pac-Man logo to honor the pacman 30th anniversary, which occurred on May 21, 2010.

Toru Iwantani, a programmer for the Japanese firm Namco, is credited with creating the original Pac-Man. The 25-year-old wanted to make a new video game that would really stand out at the time.

He claims that many old video games featured bloody plots involving the slaughter of aliens. Iwatani created a game for both sexes despite knowing they were traditionally more popular with men.

He was munching on a pizza when the idea for Pac-protagonist Man's came to him. After cutting the first slice from the pizza, he saw that the remaining pie resembled a head with an open mouth. Seeing that form, he was motivated to base Pacman's yellow ghost character on it.

Originally known as PuckMan, the name was inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of food being chewed and swallowed (paku paku). After a judge deemed the original name inappropriate in the United States, it was changed to Pac-Man.

The inspiration for the game's graphics and character design came from Japanese anime and manga, and after countless hours of testing and tweaking, Pac-Man was released to the public on May 22, 1980. Thanks to Namco's brilliant marketing, the game was an instant success, and it spawned a slew of spinoffs.

Gameplay of Pac-Man

Pacman is an arcade-only action game classified as a maze game. Players take control of Pac-Man and must guide him through a maze in order to progress to the next level.

While the premise is similar to the original Snake game, Pac-Man improves upon it by adding four AI-powered colored ghosts with unique attack patterns and the same objective across all three game modes (Chase, Scatter, and Frightened).

Ghosts Blinky (red) and Pinky (pink) chase Pacman directly, while Ghost Inky (cyan) and Ghost Inky (cyan) set up shop in front of Pacman in an attempt to trap him. While Clyde (orange) alternates between pursuing Pacman and escaping from him, Pacman never stops moving.

Each of the four corners of Pac-maze Man's contains a Power Pellet, a large flashing dot that, when consumed, causes the ghosts to become temporarily dizzy and blue, making them easier to chase and eat for bonus points.

It turns out that when a blue ghost is swallowed whole, it immediately regains consciousness in the central maze box.

Pacman's charm comes in part from his mild and friendly gameplay, but the real fun comes from navigating a straightforward maze in search of dots, fruits, and other score boosters while dodging a quartet of ghosts.

The Ultimate Pac-Man Guide for the Game's Silver Anniversary

Since I grew up in the '90s, I've had plenty of opportunities to enjoy Pacman on a wide range of electronic gadgets. I've played the game on everything from a coin-op arcade machine to my computer, PSP, Xbox, DS, and more, but never did I think I'd be able to do it within Google's logo.

In celebration of Pacman's 30th birthday, Google created a special Doodle that challenges players to see if they have what it takes to make it to the game's final level, 256.

This Doodle, in contrast to modern ones, was fully interactive, requiring players to either wait 10 seconds or click a "Insert Coin" button in order to play.