很多人都知道《吃豆人》这款游戏，一个黄色的圆形小人在一个幽灵游曳的空间内吃豆。但很少有人注意到，这款游戏的每个细节都是围绕着一个共同的目标：吸引女性青睐。

1979年的日本游戏中心甚为黯淡，只有最勇敢的女孩才会沾染这片领域。空气中散发着廉价香烟的恶臭，所有嘈杂的游戏有个共同的主题，那就是暴力。有些游戏打击外星人和坦克，还有些低成本游戏呈现出的根本就是团辨认不清的颜色而已。

Pac-Man(from 1up.com)

设计师Toru Iwatani对视频游戏制作并不是那么感兴趣，他关心的是如何设计出让人们高兴的东西，但当时他想要打破街机市场的沉闷气氛。他想把以男性为主导的游戏中心变成个不仅有人愿意把自己的女友带到这个地方，而且那些女性甚至愿意自行前往的地方。

Iwatani受雇于Namco，这是个相对较小的娱乐公司。1977年，公司安排他领导新成立的视频游戏部分的设计工作。Iwatani是Atari那些简单有趣游戏的粉丝，他在Namco的首款游戏便取材于自己最钟爱的《Breakout》，这款简单的小球游戏并不含暴力成分。他制作的游戏表现很不错，吸引人的图像（游戏邦注：尤其是第三款游戏《Cutie Q》中的小幽灵）确实让玩家一展笑颜。然而，这些游戏并未有足够的力量改变当时的街机市场。

1979年，Iwatani为以女性观点为切入点探索极有诱惑力的游戏概念，他花了很多时间同女性交谈，以找出她们感兴趣的内容。有时他直接询问她们的看法，有时他从她们交谈的内容中找寻信息，想看看周围没有男孩时那些女孩会谈论些什么。他感觉，多数情况下她们谈论的是浪漫的事情和时尚，这二者都不是极具吸引力的游戏概念。但是，当他听到两位女孩在讨论吃甜点时，灵光一闪。他想，女孩们都很喜欢吃东西。

Iwatani曾经说过，游戏设计早期非常简单，甚至只有一个词的内容。他将注意力集中在“吃”这个字上，在笔记本上开始构想游戏想法，制作钟爱甜品的女性情不自禁想去玩的游戏。这便是《吃豆人》游戏的来历，尽管最终的产品男性和女性都很喜欢，但最初的许多设计元素确是以女性为目标。

1、食物

food(from 1up.com)

“吃”是《吃豆人》的核心机制。这是玩家的主要目标，事实上，除了“死亡”外，这也是玩家在游戏中唯一能做的事情。吃豆人可以吃掉屏幕上的豆子，界面角落里的“强力豆”（游戏邦注：即那些吃完会变大吃豆人的豆子）、幽灵、钥匙、铃铛、Namco游戏中的角色都是些水果造型。

Iwatani在2011年游戏开发者大会上说道：“女孩们很喜欢吃甜点，我的妻子经常吃糖果，因而有时候她看起来像这样。”说着，你鼓起自己的腮帮子并拉伸自己的手臂，装成个胖子的摸样。

游戏的名称最早是吃东西的声音。《吃豆人》最早的名字是《pakupaku》（游戏邦注：日语中大声咀嚼的意思）。这个名字在日语中很形象，但Iwatani觉得对英语用户来说似乎效果并不那么明显。

Iwatani说道：“你们说的是‘munch munch’，而我们说的是‘puck puck’。所以，我不觉得那个是适合美国人的名字，这是个完全日本化的名字！”

甚至连吃豆人本身的形象也来源于食物。在设计角色时，Iwatani注意到有片披萨缺了一块，看起来很像一张嘴巴。Iwatani将这个形象花到笔记本中而且从未对其变更过，吃豆人就这样诞生了。

2、主角

the hero(from 1up.com)

《吃豆人》可以算是Iwatani当时最大的项目（游戏邦注：最终这款游戏的研发耗时1年半，前三款游戏总计开发时间才两年），在开发期间，他用上所有的技巧来取悦女性。

他感觉，简单且功能化的角色对女性产生吸引力比男性要难得多。为使游戏能够有生命力，他必须在游戏中设计真正让人印象深刻的角色，有明显的个性和独特的外观。

看着简单的灵感来源于披萨的角色，Iwatani想象着本质上极为简单的机制。最终的设计结果是，吃豆人受食物引诱，吃掉他面前的所有东西。

Iwatani告诉我们道：“他简直是个无法控制的吃货，他会吃掉遇见的所有东西。”

尽管这种想法听起来很怪异，但对Iwatani来说，角色也是个很酷且充满神秘感的家伙。角色的简单保持其特有的神秘性，让玩家自行想象所有的细节。无论外界如何评述，吃豆人在屏幕上的简单形象并非由于技术上的限制，而是有意如此设计。

他说道：“老板曾要求给这个形象添加眼睛、睫毛和鼻子，但如果这么做就会让其显得特别古怪，因此我拒绝了。”

3、幽灵怪物

The Ghost Monsters(from 1up.com)

《吃豆人》中耗费时间最多且Iwatani感觉最为重要的东西，可能在提及之前多数休闲玩家都不会想到。这就是吃豆人的对手，那四只色彩鲜艳的幽灵怪物，每只都有着独特的个性。

每只幽灵都与众不同，而且Iwatani耗费大量的时间来设计和修改他们独特的个性特征。多数未曾研究过游戏错综复杂关系的人都未曾意识到那四个幽灵并没有一直在追逐吃豆人，他们都有着自己的移动风格。如若不然，他们最终只会集结成一条线追逐吃豆人，这会让游戏显得很无聊。

红色幽灵Blinky是唯一一个真正自始自终追逐吃豆人的幽灵。他总是依据最短路径来追逐玩家。即便他在受你追逐之时也不会停下追逐你的脚步，而且他也是所有幽灵中跑得最快的。

粉色幽灵Pinky的追逐更具战术性。他不会将精力浪费在追逐上，而是找机会从前端堵住吃豆人，他通常会利用Blinky对吃豆人的追逐。如果你曾在游戏中因两个幽灵的前后堵截而死亡，那么罪魁祸首正是Pinky。

青色幽灵Inky的移动反复无常。他犹豫不决地游荡在界面中，并不一定以追逐吃豆人为目标。但一旦他发现吃豆人的踪迹，就会随机变成Blinky或Pinky类的行动，这使得他的行动难以预测。

接下来是Clyde。Clyde很傻，他完全是漫无目的地在场景中游荡。如果你死于Clyde之手，那只能怪你自己技术不佳。

他们可以算是吃豆人旅程中的对手，而且并不友好，但他们对那些只有些许街机游戏经历的人来说也极具吸引力。Iwatani的目标用户——女性正属于此类玩家，即便这些怪物可能没有非常讨人喜欢，至少他们的可接入性很强。相对来说，当时其他传统街机游戏中的飞船和坦克就达不到这种效果。

幽灵的设计灵感来源于《Q-taro》，该系列卡通漫画书伴随Iwatani成长，其中有个顽皮但惹人爱的幽灵喜欢捉弄别人和偷取食物。该系列动画在日本很流行，玩家可能自觉或不自觉地由《吃豆人》中的幽灵联想到他们熟悉的卡通角色，这使得游戏能为那些游戏新手所接受。

4、坚持不懈

the note(from 1up.com)

游戏中几乎所有的视觉元素都是按照Iwatani认为女性喜欢看到的风格来设计。游戏中的迷宫有着类似霓虹灯般的色彩，吃豆人吃的也是东西也是糖果。甚至连将幽灵区分为不同颜色的想法考虑到女性的感受，尽管这个决定曾几乎被Iwatani的女老板否决，这极具讽刺意味。

据Iwatani所述，当时他的上级主管是个年老的女性，她因幽灵设计成不同颜色而大感困惑，认为设计成同种颜色可以显示出敌人属于同一阵营。她命令Iwatani将所有幽灵都设计成红色，很显然最终这些都将出动追逐玩家。

Iwatani是个顽固的人，而且对取悦他人格外不兴趣，因此他用问卷调查了Namco所有的雇员，询问他们喜欢幽灵全部为红色还是有各种颜色。他说道，整个公司50个人都希望幽灵是多种颜色的。尽管这种说法或许有些夸张，但计划确实奏效，从此他再未困扰于幽灵颜色的问题。

而且，游戏还借鉴了许多好莱坞的技巧。确实，有多少款游戏是从介绍角色开始推广？

当然，游戏中还有动画场景，这也是行业内的首创之举。吃豆人和幽灵怪物会在关卡间上演互相追逐的小动画，这种喜剧元素的灵感来源于卡通片《猫和老鼠》。这使得角色不仅吸引那些玩游戏的人，可能还会吸引那些看别人玩游戏的女性。

5、角色转换

Pacman_Creator_Toru_Iwatani(from miketee.net)

最后要说的是《吃豆人》设计的真正优秀之处，这个成分或许也是促使游戏成功的最大功臣，那就是玩家与怪物的角色转换。

在《吃豆人》面世之前，视频游戏规则如出一辙，通常都是怪物攻击玩家。在《太空侵略者》中，你的飞船只能极为缓慢地发射子弹，并且躲避以同样速度向你飞来的子弹。《Breakout》中的平板大小从未发生改变。Namco自己制作的游戏《小蜜蜂》中的飞船的威力也从未变大。

《吃豆人》之前的游戏都遵从着相同的样式：制定规则然后不断用越来越难的关卡挑战玩家，直至游戏结束。

Iwatani知道这类游戏无法满足目标受众的需求，因而他想让玩家有更好的感觉，于是发明了之后几乎每款视频游戏都会用到的游戏想法——升级。

场景四角的豆子比其他豆子要大。吃下这些豆子后，吃豆人便可以吃掉幽灵，幽灵和吃豆人二者的地位立时发生转变。这不仅是个有趣的概念，而且还能够缓冲紧张的情绪，使玩家休闲并重获镇定情绪。

当然，之前的其他游戏也提供了这种让玩家喘息的时间，即关卡间的转换时间。但是，Iwatani的超能豆的设计让玩家可以自行控制此类时间的到来。时间过后或许幽灵会回头追逐你，但这种片刻的间歇却是个很容易获得的东西。

游戏还设置了其他让玩家休闲的方法。迷宫各条边上的通道不仅为玩家提供快速逃跑的机会，还会使幽灵的速度降低，让玩家暂时有喘息的机会。Iwatani还在敌人的攻击方式中设计偶尔的停顿，有时他们即便已经很接近吃豆人，但会忽然集体退缩到迷宫四角。

这不仅让玩家有机会喘息并重新思考战略，而且还创造出某些虎口逃生的感觉，吃豆人有可能在被消灭的最后一刻看到他的敌人转向其他的方向。多数玩家都觉得这是碰巧，是游戏的技术限制使得敌人很“愚蠢”，然而这些却是Iwatani煞费苦心为让玩家展开笑颜而设计出来的。

他说道：“我的动机就是让玩家感到快乐，正是我对玩家感受的关注才有了这些设计。”（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

A Real Ladies Pac-Man: How Namco’s Yellow Dot Won Over Female Gamers

It’s easy to look back at Pac-Man — a game in which a yellow circle eats dots in a maze and chases ghosts around — as some kind of strange fever dream, coming from the same weird mindset in Japanese game development that created a world where a fat plumber eats mushrooms and jumps on turtles. The truth, though, is that every minuscule detail that went into the making of the original Pac-Man was laser focused on just one thing: attracting women.

Japanese game centers in 1979 were dank, smelly dens of vice just for adolescent boys, a place only the bravest girls dared enter. The air reeked of cheap cigarette smoke, and all of the loud, flashy games catered to one specific theme: violence, be it against aliens, tanks, or — on some of the stranger, lower budget games — unidentifiable blobs of color.

Designer Toru Iwatani, a man not interested in video games so much as designing things that make people smile, wanted to brighten up the atmosphere inside the arcades. He wanted to turn the man caves into a place where not only might a guy bring his girlfriend on a date but, Heaven forbid, said girlfriend might even come back to on her own.

Iwatani was hired at Namco, a relatively small amusement company, to lead the design efforts of its new video game division in 1977. A fan of the simple, fun games that Atari was creating in the U.S., Iwatani’s first games at Namco were variations on one of his favorites, Breakout, a simple ball-and-paddle game that was anything but violent (unless you happened to be a colorful tile apologist). The games did well, and their charming graphics — particularly the little ghosts in his third game, Cutie Q — were certainly inspiring smiles, but none of them were particularly inspired or captivating enough to change the arcades in any meaningful way.

In 1979, trying to tap into the female mind and come up with an irresistible concept for his next game, Iwatani spent a lot of time listening to women to find out what they were interested in. Sometimes he’d ask them directly, other times he’d secretly listen in on their conversations with each other, trying to see what they discussed when no boys were around. Mostly they talked about romance and fashion, he says — neither of which were particularly compelling gameplay concepts — but a eureka moment came when he heard two ladies talking about eating desserts. Girls, he thought, love eating.

Game design, as Iwatani once said, often begins with something as simple as a word. He focused on the kanji word “taberu” — “to eat,” roughly — and started sketching ideas in his notebook, coming up with a game that dessert-loving ladies couldn’t help but play. This was the genesis of Pac-Man, and the final product, though loved almost equally between the two sexes, was custom tailored to women in just about every way, as this list will show.

1. Food

Taberu. To eat. Eating is at the very core of Pac-Man. It is the player’s main function and, indeed, the only thing the player can ever do in the game, other than die. Pac-Man can eat the dots on the screens, the special “power cookies” in the corners, ghosts, keys, bells, characters from other Namco games, and occasionally, some actual fruit.

“Girls love to eat desserts. Munch, munch, munch. My wife often eats sweets, and so she sometimes looks like this,” Iwatani said at the 2011 Game Developers Conference, puffing out his cheeks and extending his arms to mime a fat person.

The game’s named after the sound of eating. Pac-Man — or Puck-Man, as it was originally named — is derived from “pakupaku,” which would roughly mean something like “munch munch” in English. The name worked well in Japan, but Iwatani didn’t think it made much sense to English speakers.

“You say ‘munch munch,’ we say ‘puck puck,’” Iwatani said.”I didn’t think that was an American name at all, it was a Japanese name!”

Even Pac-Man himself is modeled after food. As the story goes, the character design for Pac-Man came when Iwatani noticed that a whole pizza, missing one slice, resembled a mouth. Iwatani sketched the shape in his notebook and, with hardly any tweaking at all, Pac-Man was born.

2. The Hero

Pac-Man would be Iwatani’s biggest project to date (the game ultimately took over a year and a half to develop, whereas his prior three games all shipped in a two-year span), and he used that time to employ every trick he could to captivate females.

Women, he felt, were not as compelled by a simple, functional on-screen avatar as men might be. In order for his game to have any staying power, he had to have a true star at the center of it, a memorable character with well-defined traits and a unique appearance.

Looking at his simple pizza-inspired mouth shape, Iwatani envisioned a character simple in nature. Though he has a heart of gold and wants to do the right thing, he — like a puppy — is motivated by food, and will eat just about anything that is put in front of him.

“He’s an uncontrollable eater,” Iwatani tells us. “He would eat pretty much everything his path.”

Strange, maybe, but to Iwatani the character was also a cool, mysterious guy, and he kept that mystique by keeping the character simple, letting the player’s imagination fill in the details. Despite some reports to the contrary, Pac-Man’s simple appearance on screen is not due to technical limitations, it’s intentional.

“There were requests [from Iwatani's boss] to add eyes and eyebrows and a nose to him, but putting those on the character makes him odd and uncool, so I rejected them,” he says.

Of course, no Pac-Man is an island, so Iwatani gave him a fun supporting cast.

3. The Ghost Monsters

The aspect of Pac-Man that took the most planning and a lot of tireless work, the piece of the puzzle that Iwatani feels was the most important, is something that most casual players will never notice until it’s pointed out to them. Pac-Man’s adversaries, the four brightly-colored ghost monsters, all have unique personalities.

Each ghost carried himself differently in the maze. Each one had a distinct, programmed personality that Iwatani pored tireless hours into designing and tweaking. Most who haven’t studied the game’s intricacies don’t realize that the four ghosts are not constantly chasing Pac-Man: they all have their own patterns, based on their personality types. If they didn’t, they would just end up following Pac-Man around in a group, making the game a bore.

Blinky, the red ghost, is laser-focused, and is the only ghost that actually chases Pac-Man around at all times. He always takes the shortest route available between himself and the player, will not stop chasing you once he’s on your trail, and is so determined that he will, later in the game, actually run faster than the other three ghosts.

Pinky, the pink ghost, is more of a tactical guy. Rather than waste energy in a footrace, he will try to ambush Pac-Man from the front, often using Blinky’s chasing to his advantage. If you’ve ever died in Pac-Man because two ghosts sandwiched you together on either side — and you have — you were the victim of Pinky’s scheme.

Inky, the cyan ghost, is unpredictable, the wildcard of the group. He wanders around the board, indecisive, not necessarily pursuing Pac-Man. But when he catches the hero’s scent, he will often chase him, randomly taking on the behavior of either Blinky or Pinky, making him hard to read.

And then there’s Clyde. Clyde is an idiot, and runs around carelessly in what is more or less a random pattern. If Clyde kills you, you only have yourself to blame.

Ask anyone who has played the game more than once if they know the names of the enemies, and chances are they’ll remember most of them (though most will probably fumble and throw one or two of Snow White’s dwarven friends in the mix).

They may be the antagonists of Pac-Man’s journey, and friendly they are not, but they’re also cute enough for someone with little arcade experience — like the women Iwatani was after — to find approachable, if not downright endearing. Much more so than the spaceships and tanks of the traditional arcade games of the time, anyway.

The design of the ghosts was modeled after Q-taro, a comic book and cartoon series that Iwatani grew up with, about a mischievous but friendly ghost who liked to scare people and steal their food. The series was popular in Japan, and players would likely make the connection (either directly or subconsciously) between the ghosts in Pac-Man and the cartoon character they were comfortable with, making the game approachable even to the most skittish newbie.

4. Glitz and Glamour

Just about all of the visual elements of the game are tailored to what Iwatani thought women would like to see. The maze the game takes place in is meant to resemble neon lights. The food (the real food) Pac-Man eats are sweet fruits. Even the decision to make the ghosts different colors was a decision made with ladies in mind, though ironically this decision was nearly overruled by Iwatani’s female boss.

According to Iwatani, his supervisor at the time — an elderly woman, whom he otherwise describes as a good manager — was confused by the different colors of the ghosts, wondering if perhaps one color might have indicated an ally as opposed to an enemy. She ordered Iwatani to color all the ghosts red, so it was obvious they were all out to get you.

Iwatani — a stubborn guy, for someone so interested in making others happy — sent out a questionnaire to all of the employees at Namco asking if they preferred the ghosts to be all red or multi-colored. He says the results were fifty to zero in favor of multiple colors. An exaggeration perhaps, but the scheme worked, and he was never bothered about their colors again.

The game also took some tricks from Hollywood to help further Iwatani’s cause. What other game started by introducing its cast of characters? Indeed, what other game had a cast of characters?

Then, of course, there are the cinematic scenes — also an industry first. In-between levels Pac-Man and the ghost monsters would put on a little show and chase each other around in practically Vaudevillian comedy routines inspired by classic Tom & Jerry cartoons, making the characters that much more endearing not only to those playing, but perhaps to their girlfriends watching over their shoulders as well.

5. Empowerment

Finally, the true art of Pac-Man — the real genius of its design, and the component that was most instrumental in its success — was its ability to make the player feel empowered.

Before Pac-Man, a video game’s rules were pretty much set in stone, and they were always stacked against you. In Space Invaders, your ship always fired at the same agonizingly slow rate, and dodged bullets at a constant speed. The paddle in Breakout was always the same size. The ship in Namco’s own Galaxian never got more powerful.

Games before Pac-Man pretty much followed the same pattern: establish the rules, and then relentlessly challenge the player with harder and harder stages until it’s game over.

Iwatani knew this kind of game would not give him the audience he desired, so he thought about what would make his players feel good, and invented an idea that would be used in just about every video game made afterward: the power-up.

In each of the four corners of each stage was a dot larger than all of the others. When eaten, Pac-Man would gain the ability to turn around and eat the ghosts, turning what used to be his predators into just another snack. Not only was this a fun concept, it also caused a break in the constant tension of being hounded, and allowed the player to relax and regain her composure.

Certainly games before it had downtime — the transitions in-between levels provided much-needed breaks — but the genius of Iwatani’s power pellets was putting the player in control of these moments. The ghosts may be out to get you, but an escape — albeit a temporary one — is easily obtainable.

There were other ways he helped the player relax too. Tunnels on either side of the maze not only provided a quick escape, they also slowed down the ghosts, allowing a temporary reprieve. He also designed breaks in the enemy’s attack patterns: occasionally, even if they were so close to Pac-Man they could taste him, the enemies would unanimously decide to at once break away and retreat to the four corners of the maze.

This not only gave the player some time to breathe and rethink her strategies, it also created some exciting near-fatal escapes, when Pac-Man would be facing certain doom only to find that his predator had been compelled at the very last second to turn the other way. Most players will die thinking that this was unintentional, that the game’s technology limitations made the enemies “stupid,” but this behavior was painstakingly planned by Iwatani to make the player smile.

“My motive was to make the player happy,” he said. “I created this design with all the love I had for the player.” (Source: 1UP)