Testing of Pac-Man Arcade Game

Date: May 22, 1980 • Location: Shibuya-ku, Japan

Location testing for Pac-Man, a Japanese arcade game that became an icon of 1980s popular culture, began in Shibuya, Tokyo.

Pac-Man, originally titled Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It was released in Japan on May 22, 1980 and by Midway Manufacturing in North America in October 1980. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue and vulnerable, allowing Pac-Man to eat the ghosts for bonus points.