Pac-Man Halloween Costumes

Pac-Man is an arcade game that was developed by Namco and released as Pakkuman in Japan on May 22nd, 1980. The game was released the same year in North America. It became an instant hit, for its simplicity and wide-range of appeal to all types of players.

The game was followed by a sequel, Ms. Pac-Man, in 1981. In all there have been more than 30 official spin-offs to Pac-Man, as well as unauthorized clones and bootlegs. The game's characters, Pac-Man and the ghosts, are easily recognized and have the highest brand awareness than any other video game characters among American consumers. The game has found a place in history, as well as in pop culture, and is one of only three video games that are on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

There are 256 levels in Pac-Man, the 256 resulting in a "split-screen", where the bottom and right half of the screen are corrupted with random symbols, rendering the screen "unwinnable". The first person to play a perfect game of Pac-Man, eating every dot, power pellet, fruit, and enemy, without losing a single life, was Billy Mitchell of Hollywood, FL, who performed the feat in about six hours on July 3rd, 1999.

In September 2009, David Race of Beavercreek, OH, completed a perfect game in 3 hours, 41 minutes, becoming the sixth person to achieve a perfect score as well as set a record for the fastest time.

On May 22nd, 2010, Pac-Man turned 30 years old. Google celebrated this milestone by changing its logo on the homepage to a fully playable version of Pac-Man. Companies across the world complained of a "loss of productivity" due to the game, some resorting to blocking Google's homepage during the release. Due to the popularity, Google made the special Pac-Man game playable anytime through a separate webpage.