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Posted on November 19 2005 by Jag @ 11:28 am
Inspired by a pizza at a dinner party, and originally designed to appeal to girls, it’s been played over 10 billion times and generated over $100m in revenues, and been voted the greatest game of all time in the UK. Based on such a simple concept but with profoundly complex gameplay – so simple that its code footprint is small enough to render the game perfectly in Shockwave Fash and Java applets for mobile phones. This very simplicity makes this game (like so many retro favourites) so playable on mobile: perfect for those intermittent bits of dead-time when travelling the tubes, trains and buses. Made even more playable given the fact that this game only requires you to use the directional keypad. Celebrating it’s 25th birthday this year, and destined to be around for another 25 I’m sure – this game is, of course, Pac Man. Since I am a die-hard fan of Pac Man, and not least because I am currently holding the number 2 spot in the UK high-score leaderboard for the official mobile phone version of the game (I bet you never thought I was that way inclined did you?) , I was invited along by Namco to the finals of the European Pac Man tournament held at Namco Station in Central London yesterday. It was an extremely interesting spectacle of an event – and attracted a lot of attention from the media who were present in some force – including the BBC who covered the event here (video). The UK champion took second place to the champ from Netherlands, who (lucky bloke) took away an original version of the arcade machine.
Pac Man – the original arcade classic still going strong
(Machine used at the finals of the European Pac Man tournament in London) I got to play on this machine too – and you just can’t even begin to appreciate how much of adrenaline rush you get when immersed in the game. And the sounds; the sounds, what can I say – there’s nothing else that can evoke such memories of a misspent youth playing this game in city centre arcades and students union bars. Interesting snippet: the game was originally called “Puck Man” by its Japanese inventor – but the name was changed by an American distribution-company executive who figured that that original name could be very straightforwardly “vandalised” by players in games rooms to say something a little, erm – uncouth.
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Route 79 Reflections on a bus journey home |
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| From London: By a British, European, 2nd-Generation Indian. Probably confused - but proud to be them all! Half of my journey to and from work is a 20-30 minute bus ride: London Bus Route 79 - between Alperton in West London and Kingsbury in North West London. I very frequently get pissed-off and frustrated waiting around in the DARK, WET and COLD - waiting for the 79 to turn up. But I have to be eternally grateful for the quality thinking time I get to myself. | ||
What’s the difference between Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man…really?
Comment kindly left by Rage — November 20, 2005 @ 9:03 pm
Wow… you are taking me back to late 80s & early 90s, when I used to play this game whenever i had a chance to get near a comp. Haven’t played this for more than 10 yrs now, I guess… wd luv to download it in my mobile.. must be a good time pass.
btw, Congrats on the num 2 spot. Go for Numero Uno.
Comment kindly left by Chakra — November 21, 2005 @ 9:26 am
I love Pac Man but am pretty r ubbish at it.Am much better at Space Invaders though;-)
Comment kindly left by Happybutterfly — November 21, 2005 @ 11:05 am
Boy, do I feel old. I was in high school when Pac Man first came out. I think I still have the book “mastering Pac Man”(that has all the different maze patterns), around here somewhere.
Comment kindly left by Jackal GB — November 21, 2005 @ 7:42 pm
Of course the greatest achievement was to get to Level 256, whereupon the game would crash as it couldn’t handle more than 8-bits.
There’s a t-shirt. You really can buy everything on the internet.
Comment kindly left by quin — November 22, 2005 @ 9:26 pm
Jag,
Its interesting to know that the idea of
Pac Man originated from a broken Pizza…
Pizza sells in any form…!!!!!
Comment kindly left by Rajesh — November 23, 2005 @ 1:42 pm
WOW the first computer game I played the second one is Frog, This inspired me to take up a career in computers
Comment kindly left by cvraman — November 23, 2005 @ 4:36 pm
hi,
came accross ur blogsite today .. and i liked it a lot .. I esp liked the recipie section . Ur really a pro at making tasty dishes and taking pics too !!
I am from India, mumbai . and just now joined a s/w company over here ..
I have passed on this recipie section to my fiancee who is in sydney currently .. so tht he can survive by eating good things …
thanks a lot !!
Comment kindly left by rupa — November 24, 2005 @ 5:51 am
Reminds me of the early eighties when video arcades were the sole province of “gamers”. I suppose there are many that recoil in horror todaywhen they think of pacman and the money they
burned on those machines. LOL.
Comment kindly left by Fritz — November 24, 2005 @ 6:25 pm
Rage: I’m not sure what the difference is to be honest with you! I only know the original Pac Man.
Chakra: Thanks! If you are on O2 (which I think you are) you should be able to download this Java app from the “O2 Games Arcade”.
HappyButterfly: I used to be good at Space Invaders as well – but haven’t played it for years!
JackalGB: Cool – I didn’t realise there was a book about it!
Quin: I have to say that’s amazing! I so want one!
Rajesh: Yes – indeed it does!
Venkat: You mean “frogger”? I loved that game also! What an inspiration eh?
Rupa: Thanks for such a nice comment! Hope your fiance tried some of the cooking out too!
Fritz: Well – I’ not sure of exactly how much I spent on this game – but I agree with you that there was a certain “something” about the arcade rooms in this era that was “exclusive” – which is just not apparent any more …
Comment kindly left by Jag — November 24, 2005 @ 10:58 pm
Jag,
Have you tried MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator)?
With Mame you can play almost 4000 arcade games at home.
My 3 Favorite games are, Ms Pac Man, Tempest & Qix
This is a picture of my Large Arcade controller that I bought at SlikStik.com but I have made a portable one just for my three favorite games
http://38.161.195.8/Sals-Arcade.jpg
If you have any intrest in this just email me, I’ll post some stuff on my ftp site.
Sal
Comment kindly left by Sal Cameli — November 25, 2005 @ 3:31 pm
Sal: yes – I have been a MAME user for a long time. I have always wished to do a MAME-box myself – and your console has given me ideas. Nice one! It looks great. I just need to find the time now …
Comment kindly left by Jag — November 25, 2005 @ 8:40 pm
Hey Jag,
I just bought a nice circulon non-stick glass top 8 QT stock pot to try out some of your recipes.
The only thing is I don’t know what to buy from the Indian produce store. Can you post a list of all of the ingredients that someone cooking Indian food will need?
Then I can take that list to the store and buy a good supply of it.
Thanks,
Sal Cameli
Comment kindly left by Sal Cameli — December 2, 2005 @ 12:05 am
Hi Sal – apologies if your comment didn’t appear for a while – it’s because I have a sophisticated spam-protection system that quarantines comments that look like they could be suspicious – and the ebay link was what triggered it.
Anyway – the pot looks great! I think I have answered this question before – I will dig out my response to someone who asked pretty much the same thing.
OK – found something here: http://www.route79.com/journal/archives/000161.html
Read the comments for some cluse.
Basically – you need the basic set of ground (powdered) spices: salt (which is not powdered of course!), turmeric (deep yellow/orange fine powder), garam masala (powdered mix of various elementary spices) and ground coriander seed (course soft powder) – these form the foundation to most dishes.
Then it is also handy to have some other dried spices in smaller quantities: whole cumin seeds, ground cumin powder, dried bay leaves.
Also – you need to have a stock of canned plum tomatoes in your can cupboard – may “pot” cooking Indian dishes will use tinned tomato to form the base of the dish after browning onions and adding spices. If you want the ultimate in convenience then get ready-chopped tinned tomato – but make your there are no other added falvourings 0r like garlic or herb etc.
All of the above are the sorts of things that can sit in cupboard for a long time and are very long-term perishable.
What you should also do is keep a stock of pulped ginger, garlic and chillie in your freezer. This is hard work at first – but well worth it in the long run. Just get a whole load of garlic, ginger and green chillies from the grocer one weekend and spend the morning peeling it all, (top and tail the chillies), washing it all – and then zapping it all up (separately of course) in a food processor until pulped. Then just spread the pulps out into freezer bags and lay flat in freezer for a few hours until they are rock solid. Then smash them all up into fragments and store in your freezer again in airtight bags for later use. When you are cooking and need to use ginger, chillie and garlic (which is a lot of the time) then just retrieve the frozen chunks from freezer – place on plate – and then zap for 15 seconds on full power in microwave to thaw then to pulp again – then they can be thrown into the pot as if you had created it from fresh.
And finally – in terms of fresh produce – the things to always have in your veg rack are potatoes and onions – but definitely lots of onions – as these are used in almost every dish.
And finally – well – meats and other veg used in the main dishes are usually bought soon before you want to cook them really.
Comment kindly left by Jag — December 3, 2005 @ 11:01 am
Hey Jag,
I went to the Local Cash and Carry store last night.
Check out the link, I think I’m laready ready to try some indian dishes at home
Sal
Comment kindly left by Sal Cameli — December 9, 2005 @ 4:03 pm
Excellent! You seem to have all the constituent spices there. Good luck!
Comment kindly left by Jag — December 10, 2005 @ 11:52 am
Hey Jag,
I did not see your previous post untill, Thanks for the through explanation of the pre-puled garlic, chillies and ginger.
I looked like crazy at the cash and carry and could not find anything called pre-pulped so I just bought fresh cillies, (3) 7.5oz jars of ginger paste, garlic paste & Mint Chutney
That night it was runnign late and my girlfriend was complaining about being hungry so we bought some frozen Saag Paneer, Cholee and some frozen Samosas which we made in the microwave and toaster oven and they were not so bad.
But right now for a snack I am goign to attempt for the first time some Paneer Pakoras, I bought (4) 400 gram blocks of paneer.
One question, tonight I will attempt to make some Mutter Paneer, Do the cubes of Paneer need to be frozen when put into the recipe or thawed?
Thanks Again,
Sal
Comment kindly left by Sal Cameli — December 10, 2005 @ 9:33 pm
With mutter paneer – the paneer cubes should be thawed. Sometimes we fry a whole load of paneer cubes – and store them frozen in the freezer for future cooking sessions. But you should take them out a few hours before using them.
When you become a connosuir (sp?) of Indian cooking – you will appreciate that fresh garlic and ginger is no match for the paste jars!
Pakoras eh? That’s a very ambitious start! The key is to get the besan (gram flour) consistency right – should not be too thick – but not too thin either.
Comment kindly left by Jag — December 11, 2005 @ 11:16 am
Hi Jag,
I must say i’m impressed with your records, i cant get more than 100k!
I’m 34 and played pacman when it first showed up in arcades and i can remember there being a ‘route’ for getting through most of the levels without being eaten. It didn’t work on all levels (especially one when the power pills don’t change the ghosts – i think its something like the 5th key level). I’ve tried searching the web for the route but can’t find it, would you have knowledge of this?
Regards,
Paul
Comment kindly left by Paul Farrell — January 5, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
Hi Paul, thx for the comment! I can’t remember what my highscore was now – but I’m certain it was over 100k. I certainly developed my own “route”, but found that it had to be adapted as the game progressed. I don’t think I ever came across knowledge of any reliable route as such, but I will sure look out for it now you mention it!
Comment kindly left by Jag — January 5, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
I played the game when i was a kid and there was one route that would work from level 1 upwards. I can’t remember the top limit but I remember the route changed after at least 50 levels maybe more. Unfortunately I can’t remember the route. If i come across it i will post.
Comment kindly left by brtt — April 10, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
Thanks brtt!
Comment kindly left by Jag — April 11, 2007 @ 8:24 am
I love super-pacman it’s cool me and my dad play it all the time!!
email me
Comment kindly left by Anthony — February 5, 2008 @ 3:12 am