Toru Iwatani designed Pac-Man in 1980 because arcades were full of shooting games aimed at teenage boys and he wanted something a woman might want to play. He landed on eating. A yellow circle with a slice missing, a maze, and four ghosts.
It became the highest-grossing arcade game ever made and stayed there for decades. The design is close to flawless: no instructions needed, one input, infinite escalation, and a difficulty curve that exists purely to take your next coin.
The ghosts are the part that quietly makes it a great game rather than a simple one. Each has its own pursuit logic - Blinky chases directly, Pinky aims ahead of you, Inky is erratic, Clyde loses interest. Players who never read the code still learned the personalities by feel.
Everything about it entered the culture. The wakka-wakka. The power pellet. The kill screen at level 256, caused by a byte overflow, which the game's designers never intended anyone to see.
This collection covers Pac-Man, the ghosts and the maze furniture. Retro, instantly recognisable, and about as classic as a cursor gets.
