This Pac-Man book makes a perfect Christmas present for gamers

A few decades ago there were at most a few boxes in the games section of bookstores Far side Puzzles and a tiny collection of neglected video game strategy guides. The 90s kids who couldn’t afford these prima guides (and copied cheat codes into their math class notebooks) have since grown up and have salaries. The book publishers have grown with them, eager to capitalize on the inflated purses of the audience. Today, the “video game book” section of the few bookstores left includes fiction and non-fiction, dense academic doorstops, and glossy illustrated books. The game book has a moment.

The newest entry in the category, Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon, Jam a little bit of everything together. It’s a wonderful look back at the exuberant travel guides of the 1990s; a thoroughly researched video game story; and a beautifully curated collection of Pac-Man art, photography, and scans of rare in-house design documents.

The price corresponds to its scope. The special edition, which includes a clever and sturdy Pac-Man-shaped slipcase, a vinyl single from “Pac-Man Fever” and a Pac-Man arcade token, costs US $ 99.95. The regular edition, which includes only the hardcover book, costs $ 55.95. Neither of these are cheap by video game book standards, though art book collectors are unlikely to shy away from publishers such as Taschen.

Photo: Cook and Becker

Unlike so many art books Birth of an icon is a pleasure to read. It is written in simple English and never falls into the trap of “important” writing. Even when authors Arjan Terpstra and Tim Lapetino delve deep into the details of the Pac-Man phenomenon, they defy industry jargon and textbook tone. The couple wisely focus on people rather than the essence of game design. On the first pages we get to know the creator of Pac-Man, Toru Iwatani, and learn more about his rural upbringing (with details such as catching lobster in the Meguro district of Tokyo) in the years before Japan’s economic boom in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Taking an almost expert approach, the authors present the breadth of Pac-Man in snacks, but still nutritious. They spend a surprisingly large amount of time building a solid foundation of the cultural, historical, and regional context before getting to the Pac-Man of it all. “The Rise of Pac-Man”, for example, is the sixth of nine chapters. Prior to that, Terpstra and Lapetino document the rise of video games in Japan, the life of Iwatani, and the arduous process of creating a video game in the 1970s, when virtually no one knew how. It’s a bold choice in terms of pace that puts Pac-Man at the center of the pop culture zeitgeist, if only briefly, and makes the series feel worthy of a tome.

Photo: Cook and Becker

Terpstra and Lapetino really get going when they write like archaeologists and dust off small details from forgotten interviews, game and culture study books and old marketing materials. Your access helps. An amazing story tells how Iwatani and Co. used the newly popular characters of Sanrio and Hello Kitty as inspiration for “kawaii” colors, softer pastels that did not match the popular action video games of the 1970s.

The book, produced in collaboration with Bandai Namco, contains a number of internal design documents and drawings. In the graphic you can see how Iwatani is pushing the limits of technology. One picture shows the ghostly antagonists squeezing through the doors of the narrow corridors, a character detail that could not be animated on the bulky machines of the time. I love these doodles, how they capture an atmosphere that the game couldn’t quite convey, but that would keep the series going in the long run.

Last year a brave soul devoted a three-hour video essay to the world’s most popular pellet gobbler. Tim Rogers’ loving and exhausting video collapses Pac-Man into smaller and smaller pieces until it breaks the game apart on an atomic level. At the beginning of the video, Rogers explains that the game can be split into two parts for its two audiences. The first batch of 20 levels welcomes new players and allows amateurs to feel like experts after a few rounds. But the dozen of levels that make up the second part of the game, which culminates with the kill screen, are meant for hardcore gamers. They punish and demand an understanding of the habits and quirks of the game.

The special thing about this book is that I’m not sure which of these target groups is the perfect addition: the person who loves Pac-Man because it’s easy and instantly fun, or the giga fan who knows every little detail got to? When the book goes weirdly deep into Pac-Man fever, or the timeline of any Pac-Man spin-off or Pac-Man fashion, like a Giles Deacon catwalk show with models wearing Pac-Man helmets, serves it both.

That is what makes it so appealing. No matter what you want in a video game book in 2021, you will find something charming in these pages.

Pac-Man: Birth of an Icon is now available. It was reviewed with a copy of Cook and Becker’s book. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect the editorial content, although Vox Media can earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. you find more information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.