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Namco’s 1980 release of Pac-Man propelled the already burgeoning arcade game industry to massive new heights. Creator Toru Iwatani’s choice to feature a cute and lovable mascot as its main character proved popular with both men and women, encouraging other developers to think outside of the tried-and-true space shooter and Pong-style genres. It’s Pac-Man‘s visual style that draws players in, and it’s the frantically addictive gameplay that keeps them coming back. However, once one begins to master the game’s techniques, it’s possible to predict enemy movements and therefore play for long periods of time on a single credit to the dismay of arcade owners.
A worthy follow-up
One problem of having a game as good as Pac-Man is the struggle of producing a suitable sequel – one that adds fresh elements while capturing the magic of its predecessor. Enter Ms. Pac-Man! While retaining the original’s core gameplay mechanics, it offers a number of new additions that fans found both challenging and refreshing. So with all its renown, it may come as a surprise to find out that it was not developed under the control of Namco. Rather, it was created by a group of college dropouts with a passion for games and a knack for computers.
[Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man in the first intermission (cutscene) of the game]
Humble beginnings
In the late 1970s, MIT students Doug Macrae and Kevin Curran made names for themselves around campus by setting up an in-dorm pinball arcade. With growing tech knowledge and their newfound experience in servicing mechanical games, the pair began to devise modification kits for existing arcade cabinets. This led to the formation of a company known as General Computer Corp., and they decided to drop out of MIT to give it their all.
GCC managed to make waves in 1980 when it reverse engineered Atari’s hit game Missile Command to develop an enhancement add-on dubbed Super Missile Attack. This alteration provided players with additional weapon variety, a challenging new enemy (the UFO), and shrinking clouds. Audiences and arcade owners alike were thrilled with the kit! Atari was not.
One crazy turn of events…
Keep in mind that at the time, there wasn’t a whole lot of legal precedent for cases like this. Technology in video games was outpacing legislation, and the industry still had a bit of that Wild West mentality to it. But Atari ranked among the highest profile tech firms in the industry, having become the first commercially successful video game company. With all its legal fury, the company came crashing down on GCC with a $15 million dollar lawsuit alleging copyright infringement.
…Leads to another
Rather than cave, the young men decided to stand strong and fight it out in court. The drawn out, high profile case ended with a surprise turn of events. Atari agreed to drop the suit if the men agreed to come make games for Atari along with a reasonable list of stipulations. Among those stipulations is they could not release altered versions of existing games without the publisher’s consent. But there was another arcade mod kit they had devised in the GCC days that had not been released. The game was called Crazy Otto.
Improving on excellence
Crazy Otto was an enhancement kit for Pac-Man, and just like the team’s previous work, it offered improvements over the original that make it a more challenging and engaging experience. Included in the new features were more maze designs, new animations, and new cutscenes including a female love interest. The character looked different than Pac-Man with blue eyes and two large feet, but the most important changes were in the enemy AI. Rather than having set patterns and behaviors for the monsters, it included a degree of randomization that added a level of unpredictability not seen in its predecessor. And for an added challenge, they also made the fruit bonus move around the screen rather than sit stationary.
Crazy Otto becomes Ms. Pac-Man
Per the agreement with their new employers Atari, arcade enhancements could only be released if the publisher of its source game signed off on it. This meant they had to seek out approval from Midway, who served as Pac-Man‘s North American distributor. A simple phone call from Curran to Midway president David Marofske opened the line of communication, and since the publisher had been searching for something to follow up Pac-Man‘s success, things moved very quickly.
Midway suggested buying the game, making visual changes, and changing the name to Super Pac-Man. Instead, they opted to focus on the female character seen in the game’s cutscenes instead. Namco president Masaya Nakamura was sent a demo, asked the team to remove the character’s hair, but otherwise, it was a go – Ms. Pac-Man was born!
It’s sad to think of arcades with no Ms. Pac-Man machines, and that’s almost the fate we experienced. Thankfully, the ingenuity of a few college dropouts and their subsequent alliance with Atari led to one of the most memorable and enjoyable arcade sequels.
