Pac-Pix
| Pac-Pix | |
|---|---|
|
North American cover art | |
| Developer(s) | Namco |
| Publisher(s) | Namco |
| Director(s) | Tetsuya Shinoda |
| Producer(s) | Hideo Yoshizawa |
| Designer(s) |
Yoshinori Naoi Yoshiya Tanaka |
| Platform(s) | Nintendo DS |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Genre(s) | Action |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Pac-Pix (パックピクス) is a video game developed and published by Namco for the Nintendo DS. It stars Namco's popular video game mascot Pac-Man. The game makes extensive use of the system's touch screen, making the user draw Pac-Man and guide him through each level by drawing walls and devouring ghosts. Obstacles such as walls and shields must also be overcome by drawing bombs and arrows accordingly. Players also have control of the speed of the Pac-Man that they create, by changing the size of the drawing when it is created.
Story
A mischievous wizard one day came up with an invention called Ghost Ink that held great power. Whatever was drawn with the use of this ghost ink instantly turned into a ghost. These trickster ghosts then began to jump into different pictures and books, pulling pranks and causing general havoc and mayhem across the world.
Hearing of the crisis, Pac-Man rushed to defeat all the ghosts using the only thing that was powerful enough—the mighty magic pen. After a while, Pac-Man succeeded in trapping all the ghosts into one book, which was then promptly locked. But, before he could succeed in turning all the ghosts back into harmless ghost ink, he himself was also captured in a piece of paper!
With help from Pac-Man himself, the player must take control of the magic pen, turn all the ghosts back into ghost ink and free Pac-Man. Only then will peace and harmony return to the world.
Development
Pac-Pix was developed and published by Namco. The game was debuted at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2004 as a technology demonstration for the newly unveiled Nintendo DS hardware. According to producer Hideo Yoshizawa, Pac-Pix was conceived as an arcade game by director Tetsuya Shinoda four years prior. Using Apple personal digital assistants (PDAs), Shinoda noticed how corrected text would disappear with a tiny puff of smoke when crossed out by the user; he found this type of control intuitive and wanted to implement it into a game.[4] Two years later, the creators pitched the idea as a tablet computer and PDA game, but found the game and the target audience for such hardware did not match. When the DS was announced, Yoshizawa stated that "the time was right".[4] The E3 demo Pac-Pix was met with praise from people within the video game industry, many of which requested it be made into a full game. Namco obliged by putting together a development team, which implemented more effective use of the hardware's two screens.[4] According to Yoshizawa, the most difficult aspect of production on Pac-Pix was allowing the player to determine size, shape, and place of their own sketches within the gameplay environment.[4]
See also
- Pac 'n Roll - Another Pac-Man game developed by Namco for the Nintendo DS that was released on the same year.
References
- ↑ IGN staff (March 15, 2005). "Now Playing in Japan". IGN. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
- ↑ Adams, David (April 26, 2013). "Pac-Pix Chomps Off to Stores". IGN. Retrieved July 1, 2013.
- ↑ Orry, Tom (May 3, 2005). "Pac-Pix due May 20th". VideoGamer.com. Pro-G Media Ltd. Retrieved January 1, 2014.
- 1 2 3 4 Nintendo Power staff (May 2005). "Pac-Pix Interview: Hideo Yoshizawa, Producer". Nintendo Power (Redmond Washington: Nintendo of America). p. 48. ISSN 1041-9551.
