Mazes

Of couse, Pac-Man cannot thread his way through the environment to find an exit -- except for the tunnel that links the left and right side of the screen together. Nevertheless, the playing field was called a maze from the beginning. ''The New York Times'' called Pac-Man "a circle with a big mouth that eats up dots in a maze while other big mouths try to eat it up" (Latham 1981), while ''Newsweek'' mentioned the "maddening Pac-Man maze" (Langway 1981). The puzzle that is posed to the voracious Pac-Man, or to the player controlling him, is not to get out of the maze but to run through more or less all of it, avoiding the pursing monsters. The player can certainly identify with the abstract figure who is controlled via joystick, but this figure has a life of his own, portrayed in some of the earliest cut-scenes and seen in attract mode, which features Pac-Man running around on his own.

Of couse, Pac-Man cannot thread his way through the environment to find an exit -- except for the tunnel that links the left and right side of the screen together. Nevertheless, the playing field was called a maze from the beginning. ''The New York Times'' called Pac-Man "a circle with a big mouth that eats up dots in a maze while other big mouths try to eat it up" (Latham 1981), while ''Newsweek'' mentioned the "maddening Pac-Man maze" (Langway 1981). The puzzle that is posed to the voracious Pac-Man, or to the player controlling him, is not to get out of the maze but to run through more or less all of it, avoiding the pursing monsters. The player can certainly identify with the abstract figure who is controlled via joystick, but this figure has a life of his own, portrayed in some of the earliest cut-scenes and seen in attract mode, which features Pac-Man running around on his own.

=== Context of Expectations: Computer Graphics and Games ===

=== Context of Expectations: Computer Graphics and Games ===