Let's be honest here. I know it and you will know it soon: Pac Man simply tells the greatest story there has ever been.
You're a pizza shaped dude to start with, in fact your whole design concept was because some guys were eating pizza. You're trapped in this maze like enclosure with no escape, and a weird warped reality so that when you leave the maze, you simply re-appear on the other side. The whole time you're grappling with the futility of your situation. All you can do is eat.At the same time, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR ghosts are haunting you. The only place in the maze you can't go is where the ghosts live. And anytime a ghost gets injured, it simply returns home and is fully healed. You on the other hand have no such refuge and are eternally running from the spirits that haunt you and try to disrupt the one and only thing that gives your life meaning, eating.The more you eat and the longer you survive, the faster and more cunning the ghosts become. At first, you have some hope. You can eat a special food and be for a time you can actually eat the ghosts. But his only serves to momentarily get them out of your way, as they simply return to their sanctuary and resume chasing you. You can't kill something that is already dead, but something already dead can kill you!Eventually, at the 256th maze, the only reality you knew is suddenly torn apart and corrupted, leaving you helpless and defenseless against the ghosts. They will catch you for sure, and end you once and for all here. You realize that your entire struggle was futile, and you were doomed the moment you started. You face your own mortality as one by one any remaining lives you have are plucked away by the ghosts. Your entire ordeal was an exercise in futility; a Kobayashi Maru. It turns out, the only winning move was not to play.Few other games tackle such deep and powerful psychological dilemmas.
Let's be honest here. I know it and you will know it soon: Pac Man simply tells the greatest story there has ever been.
You're a pizza shaped dude to start with, in fact your whole design concept was because some guys were eating pizza. You're trapped in this maze like enclosure with no escape, and a weird warped reality so that when you leave the maze, you simply re-appear on the other side. The whole time you're grappling with the futility of your situation. All you can do is eat.At the same time, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR ghosts are haunting you. The only place in the maze you can't go is where the ghosts live. And anytime a ghost gets injured, it simply returns home and is fully healed. You on the other hand have no such refuge and are eternally running from the spirits that haunt you and try to disrupt the one and only thing that gives your life meaning, eating.The more you eat and the longer you survive, the faster and more cunning the ghosts become. At first, you have some hope. You can eat a special food and be for a time you can actually eat the ghosts. But his only serves to momentarily get them out of your way, as they simply return to their sanctuary and resume chasing you. You can't kill something that is already dead, but something already dead can kill you!Eventually, at the 256th maze, the only reality you knew is suddenly torn apart and corrupted, leaving you helpless and defenseless against the ghosts. They will catch you for sure, and end you once and for all here. You realize that your entire struggle was futile, and you were doomed the moment you started. You face your own mortality as one by one any remaining lives you have are plucked away by the ghosts. Your entire ordeal was an exercise in futility; a Kobayashi Maru. It turns out, the only winning move was not to play.Few other games tackle such deep and powerful psychological dilemmas.