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Ghosts (Pac-Man)

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Ghosts
Pac-Man characters
The original 1980 Pac-Man title screen featuring the four primary ghosts alongside their respective names. Below is how they all appear when they become edible within the game.
First gamePac-Man (1980)
Created byToru Iwatani
Voiced by
Blinky
Inky
Pinky
Clyde
In-universe information
SpeciesGhost

Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, collectively known as the Ghost Gang, are a quartet of colorful ghost characters from the Pac-Man video game franchise. Created by Toru Iwatani, they first appear in the 1980 arcade game Pac-Man as the sole antagonists. The ghosts have appeared in every Pac-Man game since, sometimes becoming minor antagonists or allies to Pac-Man, such as in Pac-Man World and the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures animated series.

Some entries in the series went on to add other ghosts to the group, such as Sue in Ms. Pac-Man, Tim in Jr. Pac-Man, and Funky and Spunky in Pac-Mania; however, these did not appear in later games. The group has since gained a positive reception and is cited as one of the most recognizable video game villains of all time.

Concept and creation

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The ghosts were created by Toru Iwatani, who was the head designer for the original Pac-Man arcade game. The idea for the ghosts was made from Iwatani's desire to create a video game that could attract women and younger players, particularly couples, at a time where most video games were "war"-type games or Space Invaders clones. In turn, he made the in-game characters cute and colorful, a trait borrowed from Iwatani's previous game Cutie Q (1979), which featured similar "kawaii" characters.[5][6] Iwatani cited Casper the Friendly Ghost or Little Ghost Q-Taro as inspiration for the ghosts.[7] Their simplistic design was also attributed to the limitations of the hardware at the time, only being able to display a certain amount of colors for a sprite.[5] To prevent the game from becoming impossibly difficult or too boring to play, each of the ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct traits[8] — the red ghost would directly chase Pac-Man, the pink and blue ghosts would position themselves in front of him, and the orange ghost would be random.[8]

Originally, all four of the ghosts were meant to be red instead of multicolored, as ordered by Namco president Masaya Nakamura — Iwatani was against the idea, as he wanted the ghosts to be distinguishable from one another.[9] Although he was admittedly afraid of Nakamura, he conducted a survey with his colleagues that asked if they wanted single-colored enemies or multicolored enemies. After being present with a 40-to-0 result in favor of multicolored ghosts, Nakamura agreed to the decision.[9] The original Japanese version of the game had the ghosts named "Oikake", "Machibuse", "Kimagure" and "Otoboke", translating respectively to "chaser", "ambusher", "fickle" and "stupid".[10] When the game was exported to the United States, Midway Games changed their names to "Shadow", "Speedy", "Bashful" and "Pokey", their nicknames being changed to "Blinky", "Pinky", "Inky" and "Clyde" respectively.[10] Early promotional material would sometimes refer to the ghosts as "monsters" or "goblins".[11][12][13]

Uproxx argues that the ghost are really just people in costumes, based on what is revealed between rounds in the game. A cutscene that appears after the 5th round of the game, shows the ghost Blinky chasing after Pac-Man, and their ghost costume snags on a nail and rips, revealing a leg underneath. In a later cutscene, they have a rip in their ghost costume, then after going off screen, they are seen back on the screen dragging the red costume behind them.[14]

Cartoons

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In the 1982 Pac-Man cartoon, the hero faced five Ghosts — four males wearing various styles of hats, and a female ghost named Sue, who wore earrings. The Ghost Monsters work for Mezmaron, who assigns them the job of finding the Power Pellet Forest.

The battle of Pac-Man vs. Ghost Monsters would have to address the issue of the original arcade game's 'cannibalism' somewhere along the line; after all, the basic appeal of Pac-Man was the indiscriminate ingestion of his foes. This was handled with such nonviolent dexterity that Hanna-Barbera could have written a textbook for Action for Children's Television on the subject. Pac-Man only chomped the Ghost Monsters when defending his loved ones or the Power Forest (as opposed to the videogame, where the lead character was on the offensive), and once chomped, the Ghost Monsters merely disappeared temporarily, re-emerging unscathed after picking up new shrouds from Mezmaron's wardrobe closet.

— Hal Erickson[15]

In the 2013 TV series Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures featured Pac-Man as a high-school student, confronted by four ghosts commanded by Lord Betrayus.[16]

Reception

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The ghosts have received a positive reception from critics and have been cited as one of the most recognizable video game villains of all time. IGN commented on each of the ghosts having their own personality and "adorable" design.[17] Boy's Life praised their simplicity and determination, labeling them as one of the most recognizable villains in video game history.[18] In their list of the 50 "coolest" video game villains, Complex ranked the ghosts in as the fourth, noting of their iconic design and recognition and for being "pretty tough customers"[19] Metro UK listed them at second place in their list of the ten greatest video game villains of all time, praising their easy recognition and cute designs.[20]

Kotaku stated that the ghosts' artificial intelligence was still impressive by modern standards, being "smarter than you think".[21] GamesRadar+ liked each of the ghosts having their own unique AI and traits,[22] while GameSpy said that the ghosts' intelligence is one of the game's "most endearing" aspects for adding a new layer of strategy to the game.[23]

Inky alone was ranked the seventh greatest game villain of all time by Guinness World Records in 2013, based on reader votes.[24]

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Blinky Voices (Pac-Man)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved March 7, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  2. ^ a b c "Inky Voices (Pac-Man)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved March 7, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  3. ^ a b c "Pinky Voices (Pac-Man)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved March 7, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  4. ^ a b c d "Clyde Voices (Pac-Man)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved March 7, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  5. ^ a b Purchese, Robert (20 May 2010). "Iwatani: Pac-Man was made for women". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on 4 March 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  6. ^ Kohler, Chris (2005). Power-Up: How Japanese Video Games Gave the World an Extra Life. BradyGames. p. 51-52. ISBN 0-7440-0424-1. Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  7. ^ Kohler, Chris. "Q&A: Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating | Game|Life". Wired. Wired.com. Retrieved 2012-07-23.
  8. ^ a b Mateas, Michael (2003). "Expressive AI: Games and Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). Proceedings of Level up: Digital Games Research Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-14. Retrieved 2012-11-28.
  9. ^ a b England, Lucy (11 June 2015). "When Pac-Man was invented there was a huge internal fight with the CEO over what colour the ghosts should be". Business Insider. Archived from the original on 7 August 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  10. ^ a b DeMaria, Rusel; Wilson, Johnny L. (December 18, 2003). High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Osborne Media. ISBN 0-07-222428-2.
  11. ^ Pac-Man, The Arcade Flyer Archive, 1980, archived from the original on August 10, 2007, retrieved May 23, 2012
  12. ^ "What is Pacman?". Pacman.com. Namco. Archived from the original on 2010-11-28. Retrieved July 14, 2010.
  13. ^ Martijn Müller (June 3, 2010). "Pac-Man wereldrecord beklonken en het hele verhaal" (in Dutch). NG-Gamer. Archived from the original on 2012-02-27.
  14. ^ Birch, Nathan (2015-05-22). "The Ghosts Are Just Guys Under Sheets? 12 Delectable Facts About Arcade Classic 'Pac-Man'". UPROXX. Retrieved 2024-05-14.
  15. ^ Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. p. 601. ISBN 978-1476665993.
  16. ^ Perlmutter, David (4 May 2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 443. ISBN 978-1-5381-0374-6.
  17. ^ "Pac-Man Ghosts (Pinky, Blinky, etc.) is number 7". IGN. Archived from the original on 19 July 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  18. ^ "The 5 Greatest Video Game Baddies of All-Time". Boy's Life. 9 September 2015. Archived from the original on 9 April 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  19. ^ Kamer, Foster; Vincent, Brittany (1 November 2012). "The 50 Coolest Video Game Villains of All Time". Complex. Archived from the original on 8 May 2018. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  20. ^ GameCentral (17 September 2017). "10 best bad guys in video games". Metro UK. Archived from the original on 11 August 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  21. ^ Grayson, Nathan (4 February 2015). "Pac-Man Ghosts Are Smarter Than You Think". Kotaku. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  22. ^ Kelly, Stephen (5 February 2013). "Top 10 Videogame Bad Guys". GamesRadar+. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  23. ^ GameSpy Staff (25 February 2011). "GameSpy's Top 50 Arcade Games of All-Time - Pac-Man". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  24. ^ Nichols, Scott (24 January 2013). "Guinness World Records counts down top 50 video game villains". Digital Spy. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
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