Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon

by Arjan Terpstra, Tim Lapetino

This is a gorgeous, hardcover retrospective, the first-ever history of PAC-MAN.

Full of historical imagery, concept designs, marketing photos and more, the book examines the game’s design philosophy and origins through the artists, designers, developers, and other creative teams who brought PAC-MAN to life.

This new non-fiction book will journey from creator Toru Iwatani's "pizza slice" inspiration to the game’s incredible success in arcades and beyond. The book also dives into PAC-MAN’s unprecedented impact on pop culture, with more than 40 new interviews from key players around the world.

Genres: Video Games

340 pages, Hardcover

Published October 19, 2021

Reviews

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This oversized hardcover retrospective of Pac-Man is a fantastic read for any fan of the video game. The bulk of the book is dedicated to the development history of the original Japanese arcade game and its migration to America. Even if you are familiar with this story, you are sure to learn new facts and tidbits. There are loads of development documents, from graph paper diagrams of characters to actual lines of code. You even see how they used a Lite Brite to iterate on the design of the character sprites. Once you've read the book, it's still worthwhile to just flip through it and admire all the images, often taking up full pages.

Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon is a worthy celebration of one of the most important, most fun, and longest lived video games of all time.