I've been meaning to blog "Pac Manhattan" for some time now. Since i grew up in the 80's, Pacman was one of my favorite video games. No other video game (in my opinion) has matched the hype and has had the cultural impact that Pacman had. (Yes, that includes Legend of Zelda)
This game was played by kids and parents alike. Heck, I even saw a 70-year old grandma playing this game in a Kmart store once. I don't think you'd see her playing the latest encarnation of Doom 3! Pacman even had its own TV cartoon show.
I remember I had a "cheat" book that actually mapped out the paths to move your Pacman to beat the game. Most didn't know, but the ghosts actually move in predetermined paths if you move in a set path and in the exact same manner (if you stop or make a single mistake in the memorized path, then you can't use the memorized path any more. The reason is the game didn't have a computer "randomizing" function (Ms. Pacman a later incarnation did have a randomized to make it impossible to memorize predetermined paths). I had the paths (up to level 9 I believe) memorized, so needless to say I was pretty good at this game.
Well, some guys in Manhattan decided to invent a human-version of the popular Pacman game. One guy is assigned to be the Pacman (in full Pacman costume get up) and 4 friends are assigned to be the ghosts, namely Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde.
They all then use cell phones to call a command center to report their positions. The ghosts then attempt to close in on their prey by running through the streets of Manhattan. Too bad GPS can't be implemented due to the tall buildings. It would be cool to look down at your PocketPC or Palm or hybrid phone PDA and actually see a game board with all the players positions on it.
Of course, this game sounds like an advanced version of hide-and-seek or "chase" to me. As cool as this game sounds, I'm wondering what would possess adults to want to play hide-and-seek and secondly, I wonder how they dodge taxi cabs and other cars? Sounds like this could be some sort of twisted Darwinian logic to me.
Check out the full details (including videos) of this human Pacman via this link:
Pac Manhattan
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If you want to play Pacman online (Flash/shockwave), just go here:
http://www.miniclip.com/pacman.htm
Those Pac Manhattan Pac-Man costumes aren't realistic enough! If anyone wants to know how I made a truly cool Pac-Man costume, check out my page about the Pac-Man costume I made for Halloween 2003!
you can't overly design those costumes because you have to run. Remember that it's a game and you need to move around. It would be funny if the pac-man guy had one of those bubble things around him.
That Pac-Man game isn't even close to the real version. A better version is: http://freewebarcade.com/games/pacman/pacman.php