Pac-Man... Pac this!!

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May 5, 2000

Like I said before, making things over again is a style. Let's take this Pac-Man fellow. He's a thing, an object, a symbol, a blob, a ball, a man. The purpose of the game is not a development of any kind. There is no story, just consumption. Pac-Man's goal is simply to eat voraciously and to escape the ghosts which plague him. Occasionally with the help of a special 'meal' he can overcome him fear and defeat the ghosts that chase him down.

How can we re-make this game into something more modern and more exciting to the cynical minds of today's man? Let's re-examine the elements. Pac-Man. Here is our main character. He is a symbol of all of us. He is the general man or woman who goes through their daily maze consuming while escaping and moving only into more complex mazes the more he or she consumes. Let's re-invent this Pac-Man, let's call this new symbol of mankind the Pupa. This is taken from the stage in a butterfly's life that is the beginning. Because man has the potential to grow so should our new character. The Pupa though is only a symbol and may appear as anything in it's early stages. After a certain period of Growth the Pupa should grow into a Larval stage and from that a Butterfly or Moth or whatever. So that only the only stage that remains after the third stage is the approach of death in which case the purpose of a evolved man would be to . . . you guessed it . . . create a Pupa.

Now man is plagued by ghosts or inner demons. These chase him on a daily basis. They are everything from Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and whoever the fourth ghost was to Self-Doubt, Indecision, Hatred, and more. Consult the Seven deadly sins for the root of all evil. Without this threat of terminal disaster our Pac-Man would have only a complacent Pupa life with no drive to excel and surpass this inner turmoil. So our decision falls on whether these ghosts should be a external representation or something more personal. In this case let's make them external to enhance the immediate visualization of the game. Our enemies for a complete and full life. Greed, Lust, Envy, and more. They take the form of their most obvious symbolic counterparts. Greed is the lure of money, Lust is the lure of sex, Envy is the lure of another's power, Gluttony is the lure of food. You get the picture. Perhaps these items randomly appear in the game and although they have an immediate effect in the long run they inhibit the chance of furthering the life of the character.

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