Pac-Man

Pac-Man is one of the most iconic and influential video games ever made, originally developed by Namco and released as an arcade game in 1980. Designed by Toru Iwatani, it casts the player as the round, yellow Pac-Man, who must navigate a walled maze, eating all the dots while evading four pursuing ghosts, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. Eating one of the four large 'power pellets' temporarily turns the tables, letting Pac-Man devour the now-vulnerable ghosts for bonus points, a simple but brilliant risk-reward loop. A worldwide sensation, Pac-Man broke away from the space-shooter dominance of early arcades, popularised the maze-chase genre, introduced one of gaming's first true mascots and cut-scenes, and became a pop-culture phenomenon spanning merchandise, a cartoon and a hit song. Its design remains a touchstone of accessible, instantly understood gameplay. Over the decades it has been ported, re-released, remade and reinvented across virtually every platform, and POCG noted one such re-release among the week's Nintendo download titles. Endlessly influential and still widely played, Pac-Man stands as a foundational classic of the medium, a symbol of the arcade golden age and one of the most recognisable characters in entertainment. Its cultural footprint, from a hit single to a Saturday-morning cartoon, made it one of the first true video-game icons.