no matter how many dots he eats, pac-man never pukes

you all know the classic 1980’s videogame pac-man. the new york university teacher and games designer frank lantz has taken the game to the streets of manhattan – “pac-manhattan“. the idea was to explore what happens when digital games are placed in the larger analog world of city streets.

as in the virtual version of the game, pac-man has to try and clear the board by eating all the dots, while avoiding ghosts and grabbing power pellets. but the details of the rules obviously differ.

“the initial idea behind pac-manhattan was to take the nostalgic, apply some tech to it and see what happened” said player dennis crowley. “playing live in the real world opens the game up to outside factors that can’t be controlled, when you have people running around on nyc streets you can plan on unexpected occurrences,” said megan phalines “the real world is such a rich environment to play in”. “being in constant contact with a controller added a very nice social aspect to an otherwise solitary life as a ghost,” said player amos bloomberg.

this is even viral – thanks to “arte tracks“, who brought me to this.