Pac-Man

In 1980, Namco designer Toru Iwatani set out to make an arcade game that wasn't about shooting — something colourful and friendly that would welcome players the space war games ignored, women especially. Legend says the hero's shape came to him over a pizza with a slice missing. Whatever the truth, Pac-Man became the most recognisable character video games have ever produced.

The genius hides in the ghosts. Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde look interchangeable, but each follows its own targeting logic — one chases you directly, one aims ahead of you, one ambushes, one wanders. Learning to read the four minds hunting you turns a simple maze into a game of prediction, and mastering it produced the patterns that players still memorise today.

With power pellets that flip the hunt for a few glorious seconds, fruit bonuses and the famous kill screen at level 256, Pac-Man earned more than any coin-operated game before it and dragged video games into mainstream culture: merchandise, a hit single, a Saturday-morning cartoon. Ms. Pac-Man and countless sequels followed, but the 1980 original is still the purest chase in gaming.

The browser version linked below is a third-party remake at freepacman.org, made for web browsers on desktop computers — the classic maze, the four ghosts, one click away. It needs a keyboard, so it cannot be played on phones or tablets.