However, the left remained intact which led to the nickname for this level as 'The Split Screen Level' (see video below). In Pacman this meant that the right side of the screen became jarbled. Talk To Me Like I'm A 3 Year Old Version: The game can't handle numbers bigger than 255.Īnyways, if you get to level 256 the data can't handle it and funky things start to happen. Naturally, the biggest number formed with 2 digits in our decimal system is of course 99. Naturally the maximum hex that could be formed would be FF or 255 (remember in Zelda how you could only get 255 rupies?). Data was commonly stored as a byte which could hold two hexadecimal digits. 0-9 followed by A-F which adds up to 16 digits. This led to a hexadecimal system for video game data instead of decimal. The goal was always to use as little as possible. Nerd Version: See at the dawn of video games, everything was about memory. Atari came after this.ĭoesn't it just piss you off when you play Pacman for 17 straight hours and you get to level 256 and the screen is all messed up? Yeah I never got by level 10 myself but if you're in that 1% of 1% who actually made it this far or if you just want to know where this is going, then read on. Keep in mind that we're talking Arcades here not consoles. It caught everyone by surprise and even the so called experts overlooked Pac-Man while reviewing arcade games (don't the experts always do things like that?). Renamed to Pac-Man in the US, it became an instant hit. Nobody had ever seen a game like it before. Namco and Iwatani may have developed 'Puck Man' in Japan, but it was Midway who marketed to the United States and saw sales fly through the roof. Strangely enough, it was NOT a big success after launch.

After a short 18 months, the game was complete and launched as 'Puck Man'. This odd sounding name (odd only because it's not English of course) is symbolic of the noise made when one opens and closes their mouth rapidly. Iwatani drew inspiration for his game via a famous Japanese phrase known as 'Paku-Paku Taberu'. Toru Iwatani designed the game over the short time of 18 months (yeah back then one guy could write a game on his own, imagine that today?). The company Namco gets the credit for developing the most popular arcade game of all time.

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