Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and released 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 them for bonus points.
Snake is a genre of action video games where the player maneuvers the end of a growing line, often themed as a snake.
Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
Frogger is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and published by Sega. In North America, it was distributed by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct five frogs to their homes by dodging traffic on a busy road, then crossing a river by jumping on floating logs and alligators.
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade video game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is a spin-off sequel to Pac-Man (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wife, the player is tasked with eating all of the pellets in an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating the larger "power pellets" lets the player eat the ghosts, who turn blue and flee.
Dig Dug is a maze arcade video game released by Namco in 1982. It was distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player digs underground tunnels to attack enemies in each level, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them underneath rocks.
Pac-Man Plus is an arcade game that was released by Bally Midway in 1983. It is part of the Pac-Man series of games.
K.C. Munchkin!, released in Europe as Munchkin, is a maze game for the Magnavox Odyssey 2. Its North American title is an inside reference to then president of Philips Consumer Electronics, Kenneth C. Menkin.
Super Pac-Man is a 1982 maze chase arcade game developed and published by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Midway, and is Namco's take on a sequel to the original Pac-Man; Midway had previously released Ms. Pac-Man, which Namco had little involvement with. Toru Iwatani returns as designer.
1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600. Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.
1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
Crossfire is a multidirectional shooter created by Jay Sullivan for the Apple II and published by On-Line Systems in 1981. Using keyboard-based twin-stick shooter controls, the player maneuvers a ship in a grid-like maze. Versions with joystick-control use the stick for movement and switch to firing mode when the button is held down.
Lock 'n' Chase (ロック・ン・チェイス) is a maze chase video game developed by Data East and released in arcades in Japan in 1981. It was licensed to Taito for distribution in North America. It has similarities to Pac-Man, including a goal of collecting dots, with the addition of doors that periodically block pathways. Home versions for the Intellivision and Atari 2600 were published by Mattel in 1982, and an Apple II version was released in January 1983.
Pac-Man is a 1982 maze video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. under official license by Namco, and an adaptation of the 1980 arcade game Pac-Man. The player controls the title character, who attempts to consume all of the wafers in a maze while avoiding four ghosts that pursue him. Eating flashing wafers at the corners of the screen causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue and flee, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points. Once eaten, a ghost is reduced to a pair of eyes, which return to the center of the maze to be restored.
Jawbreaker is a Pac-Man clone programmed by John Harris for Atari 8-bit computers and published by On-Line Systems. Released in 1981 before an official version of Pac-Man was available, it was widely lauded by reviewers and became a major seller. The story of its creation and Harris's Atari 8-bit implementation of Frogger form a portion of Steven Levy's 1984 book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
Serpentine is a maze video game written by David Snider for the Apple II and published by Broderbund in 1982. Serpentine's gameplay and visuals are similar to the Konami arcade game, Jungler, released the previous year. It was ported to the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers. A VIC-20 version was licensed to Creative Software.
Atari, Inc. v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607, is one of the first legal cases applying copyright law to video games, barring sales of the game K.C. Munchkin! for its similarities to Pac-Man. Atari had licensed the commercially successful arcade game Pac-Man from Namco and Midway, to produce a version for their Atari 2600 console. Around the same time, Philips created Munchkin as a similar maze-chase game, leading Atari to sue them for copyright infringement.
