9 Facts About Pac-Man For Its 35th Birthday

On May 22, 1980, a video game icon made his debut in Japanese arcades. 

Who would have thought back then that a yellow circle eating dots while being chased by ghosts would have such a huge impact on the gaming world?

In honor of Pac-Man's birthday, here are nine facts about the video game icon:

1. Pac-Man hit the U.S. shores in October of 1980 and quickly became a huge hit, selling over 100,000 units its first year.

2. Pac-Man was inspired by pizza. In an interview with Time magazine, creator Toru Iwatani recalls taking a slice of pizza while thinking about the word “eat” and noticed how the remaining pie looked like a character. 

3. There are 240 dots in each level of Pac-Man

4. There are 255 levels of Pac-Man that are beatable, the 256th level is unbeatable.

5. 3,333,360 points is the maximum possible score. First achieved by Billy Mitchell after 6 hours of play.

6. There are four ghosts, Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde and they all have very different strategies to hunting Pac-Man.

7. The name Pac-Man comes from the Japanese term Paku-Paku (the sound of munching). The large power pellets are like big cookies.

8. Pac-Man was originally called Puck-Man but was changed for the U.S. release to prevent vandals from making his name vulgar.

9. Pac-Man was awarded by Guinness World Records as “The most successful coin operated game."

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