Ghosts (Pac-Man) in the context of Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for bonus points.

Game development began in early 1979, led by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes that appealed to traditionally masculine interests, such as war or sports. Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). The in-game characters were made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, which refers to gobbling something up; the title was changed to Pac-Man for the North American release due to fears of vandals defacing cabinets by converting the P into an F, as in fuck.

Pac-Man is a fictional character and the titular protagonist of Bandai Namco Entertainment's multi-media franchise Pac-Man. Created by Toru Iwatani, he first appeared in the arcade game Pac-Man (1980), and has since appeared in more than 30 licensed sequels and spin-offs for multiple platforms, and spawning mass amounts of merchandise in his image, including two television series and a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. He is the official mascot of Bandai Namco Entertainment. Pac-Man's most common antagonists are the Ghost Gang — Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde that are determined to defeat him to accomplish their goals, which change throughout the series. Pac-Man also has a voracious appetite, being able to consume vast amounts of food in a short timespan, and can eat his enemies by consuming large "Power Pellets".

The idea of Pac-Man was taken from both the image of a pizza with a slice removed and from rounding out the Japanese symbol 口 (kuchi, lit. "mouth"). The character was made to be cute and colorful to appeal to younger players, particularly women. The title was derived from the Japanese phrase paku paku taberu, which refers to gobbling something up. The title was changed in international releases to avoid it sounding too similar to an expletive (the Japanese pronunciation of paku being similar to 'pucku') and due to fear of arcade cabinets being vandalized by altering the P in 'Puck-Man' to an F.