Mazes
From Maze
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Of course, 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. The playing field may be better described as being littered with obstacles rather than as being "a maze" in the sense that hedge mazes, experimental mazes, and the like are usually understood. 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 course, 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. The playing field may be better described as being littered with obstacles rather than as being "a maze" in the sense that hedge mazes, experimental mazes, and the like are usually understood. 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. | ||
| − | When ''Pac-Man'' was reimplemented for the Atari VCS in 1982, the vertical field was redesigned in horizontal format and for a lower-resolution graphics system. The essential topology of the game (partitions, looped corners, and warp gates connecting one side to the other) remained the same. One very standard feature of 'Pac-Man's'' maze both in the arcade game and on the VCS is that it is aligned to the axes of the display: The paths are either horizontal or vertical. Just as the tanks in '"Tank'' and the player's ship in ''Asteroids'' (1979) can turn and fire in many different directions, it was possible to represent a maze that was not "orthogonal" in this way: 10 PRINT provides a very simple alternative, a diagonal game. But third-person videogame mazes were almost always aligned as in ''Pac-Man,'' even before the dot eater made his first appearance. | + | When ''Pac-Man'' was reimplemented for the Atari VCS in 1982, the vertical field was redesigned in horizontal format and for a lower-resolution graphics system. The essential topology of the game (partitions, looped corners, and warp gates connecting one side to the other) remained the same. One very standard feature of ''Pac-Man's'' maze both in the arcade game and on the VCS is that it is aligned to the axes of the display: The paths are either horizontal or vertical. Just as the tanks in ''Tank'' and the player's ship in ''Asteroids'' (1979) can turn and fire in many different directions, it was possible to represent a maze that was not "orthogonal" in this way: 10 PRINT provides a very simple alternative, a diagonal game. But third-person videogame mazes were almost always aligned as in ''Pac-Man,'' even before the dot eater made his first appearance. |
Orthogonal maze-like playing fields were presented in third-person views in several early arcade games, including ''Gotcha'' (1973) and ''Tank'' (1974). In 1976, an arcade game from Midway called ''The Amazing Maze Game'' offered a more or less direct digital version of the standard maze challenge -- move an on-screen token to find a path that allows escape. Videogame mazes quickly made their way into the home, too. The game bundled with for the classic cartridge-based Atari VCS in 1977 was ''Combat,'' which brought the maze-like playing fields of ''Tank'' into the home. Soon after release, that console featured ''Maze Craze'' (1978), which allowed players to compete in several different challenges in mazy environments that were automatically generated. | Orthogonal maze-like playing fields were presented in third-person views in several early arcade games, including ''Gotcha'' (1973) and ''Tank'' (1974). In 1976, an arcade game from Midway called ''The Amazing Maze Game'' offered a more or less direct digital version of the standard maze challenge -- move an on-screen token to find a path that allows escape. Videogame mazes quickly made their way into the home, too. The game bundled with for the classic cartridge-based Atari VCS in 1977 was ''Combat,'' which brought the maze-like playing fields of ''Tank'' into the home. Soon after release, that console featured ''Maze Craze'' (1978), which allowed players to compete in several different challenges in mazy environments that were automatically generated. | ||
