To celebrate the 35th anniversary of Pac-Man last week, we asked Linux Foundation followers on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to nominate their favorite videos games of all time.
After seeing your picks in this informal poll, it’s clear why Pac-Man is still going strong among gamers worldwide. Named “the most successful coin game” by the Guinness World Records, it’s also the clear favorite within our gaming community!
Here are your top 10 favorite video games, with No. 1 receiving the most nominations across our social channels.
Top 10 Favorite Video Games
10. Half Life
9. World of Warcraft
8. Commander Keen
@linuxfoundation I used to like Commander Keen back in the DOS days, but I really got addicted to Quake.
— jjgravitas (@jjgravitas) May 22, 2015
7. Zelda
6. Nethack
5. Nexus
4. Space Invaders
@linuxfoundation Moon Patrol, Galaga, and Space Invaders were my faves at the old arcades from the early 1980s
— Mariecor Agravante (@WriterMariecor) May 22, 2015
3. Street Fighter
2. Super Mario
1. Pac-Man
Pac-Man Trivia
And to close out our anniversary celebrations for Pac-Man, here are a few pieces of trivia less commonly known about our beloved major sector-shaped video game character. Have we missed an interesting factoid? Tell us in the comments, below!
- The game’s creator, Toru Iwatani, did not receive any special rewards for the creation or success of Pac-Man.
- The ghosts have different personalities. If you pay close attention, you’ll see the ghosts – named Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde – each have their own behaviors and patterns to keep the game lively. After eating Blinky (red ghost), he takes you to the shortest route, but immediately follows you. Inky (blue ghost) is arguably the most dangerous and unpredictable. Pinky (can you guess? pink ghost) likes to take you to roundabout paths to surprise you. Clyde (orange ghost) is the least threatening, often following his own path, even if away from you.
- Pac-Man was created to introduce women and couples into Japan’s arcades. Iwatani felt arcades were filled with mostly men playing battle or alien games, and he wanted to create a game that catered to a broader fan base. At first, the game was going to be about fashion and shopping but Iwatani ultimately landed on a more neutral topic, food, after eating a slice of pizza at lunch.
- The game was originally named “Puck-Man” and later changed to “Pac-Man.” In Japanese, the name means “pakupaku” which translates to the sound of eating or munching.
- When Pac-Man dies, he dissolves from the screen in a sparkly manner. This effect was inspired by fireworks at night.
- The Arch Linux distribution’s package manager is called pacman. You can insert a Pac-Man graphic in pacman to track the progress of installing new packages.
- You can play a Pac-Man clone in the Linux terminal window with pacman4console (sudo apt-get install pacman4console on a Debian-based distribution.)