The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he also rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi ( Japanese: 口). Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports. Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Eating large flashing dots called 'Power Pellets' causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts.

In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America.

Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. Single-player, multiplayer (alternating turns)

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