Who eats white dots and runs from ghosts?

C'mon, you know the answer.

The one and only Pacman.  While we're on the subject, here's a great internet joke that's gone around:

Clever clever.  But seriously, Pacman was one of the originals - and how much simpler could it get?  (I guess Pong was simpler but work with me here...)

Tonight we had an elective class from one of the New York Film Academy's great teachers, Adam Moore, about writing for video games.  Adam talked about the evolution of games from Pong up until the practically-real games of the Xbox 360, and while the whole lecture was great (we even played games throughout which rocked) there was one particular part that blew my mind a little and it all had to do with that little hungry circle, Pacman.

Pacman was one of those games that you learned how to play almost instantly.  You use very simple controls to move this guy around to collect the white dots.  Hey, what's that ghost thing?  Oh, it killed me.  Note to self: stay away from ghosts.  BOOM.  You just learned the essentials of surviving Pacman.

Adam made us think about this a little deeper, though.  What's the story behind Pacman?  It's not like the game starts with a cinematic opening sequence like the games of today, but there's still a story there, right?  You need to collect those white dots and stay away from the ghosts or you die.  And don't tell me that when you were playing and you got cornered by ghosts you didn't start freaking out a little bit - your heart starts beating and you yell something out loud like "Where do I go?!" but it's too late.  Game over.  Who knew the death of small circle thing would invoke such emotion?

Another classic example: Tetris.  It starts easy with a kickass soundtrack but then it starts getting faster... and the music picks up... and your layers are building up... and the wrong pieces are getting dumped into your once neat and organized game space... and before you know it your screen's filled up and it's all over.  Is there a story there?  Absolutely!  It's a survival story, just like Pacman, but with different rules.

These and other classics (Space Invaders, Centipede, Asteroid, Missile Command, Dig Dug, etc.) had very basic gameplay, so basic that it left a lot of room for the player to flex his/her imagination and inspire a story behind the game.  Gameplay inspired story.

But time has passed and we went from these...

...to these, almost 40 years later:

Big changes.  Let's go back to the topic of story in these new games.  Does gameplay still inspire story?  In a lot of cases you could argue it still does.  But for people to drop $300 on a new system and then $60 on a new game, it's become clear that story matters.  So much so, in fact, that it has started to change the way people play these games and the paradigm's shifted.  Story has started to influence gameplay.

This may not feel applicable to you, and I'd understand that.  I just find it fascinating that technology has changed how we play.

Back in the day, the baby boomers went out to the ballfield and played pick up games to pass the time.  The rules were simple but the story was exciting: Who would win?  Who would have bragging rights?  Would there be a rematch tomorrow?  Playing the games inspired the stories that they'd be talking about all around the neighborhood.  

Today?  Kids don't need to go far to find a story to invest themselves in.  All they have to do is fire up the new system and play whatever the new hot game is.  It's quick, fun and accomplishes the goal of finding entertainment.

Are we better off for it?  Time will tell.  And I think we'll get an answer quicker than we all think.

Great picture of me and my 3-year-old nephew - in it he's schooling me in Angry Birds, a popular game for the iPad.  It didn't hit me at that moment, but I later realized how my nephews will never know a world without iPads and computers and the internet.  The idea of a typewriter will make them feel like I do when I think of a Model T: ancient, extinct, belongs in a museum.  Of course I hope the best for them and the rest of their generation, but thinking of their future makes me glad I experienced a world before computers and the internet, when I relied heavily on my imagination to fill simple scenarios with exciting stories.

Technology is a great thing, and the advancements that have been made in storytelling allow us to fully immerse ourselves in new and exciting worlds where all we have to do is sit back and enjoy.  I just hope that in the future we still take the time to exercise our imagination.

I'm sure you've heard this before: we've ran out of ideas.  With regard to films, we keep remaking classic stories from the past (and doing a terrible job at remaking them, but that's another blog post).  We recycle and reuse stories over and over again, tweaking them here and there to make them "different" from previous interpretations.

I think we could use a lesson from Pacman.  Let's play by simpler rules and be creative.  Let's use our imagination and allow it to inspire new stories.  It's either that or we'll be in our 80s watching our grandkids play the latest virtual reality version of Pacman... and if that day comes, I just hope I still have enough hand-eye coordination to try that out because it sounds cool as hell.