The Men Behind The Ghosts

As a boy, I was lucky enough to have an uncle who was lucky enough to own an actual Ms. Pac-Man game that was lucky enough to be played nonstop whenever I came to visit. And that time spent with her—the Pac-Man’s wife—changed me forever.

But this is nothing new. I’ve mentioned my devotion before, perhaps too freely, on this very site.

I write tonight for another reason. Call it luck. Call it destiny. Call it accidentally inserting twice the number of quarters necessary to play. Whatever you call it, please know that a few weeks back, for the first time ever, Chris Principe got further in Ms. Pac-Man than he ever had before, finally reaching…the pink board.

And that sounded slightly dirtier than he meant it to.

I'm not here to brag; reaching the pink board doesn’t even hint at beating the game. In theory, no real end exists. I write because while journeying within that new maze something strange and terrible and wonderful happened.

Since the pink board resembles all those preceding it, I approached it as I would any other: methodically clearing each quadrant pellet by pellet, relying on each of the four carefully-placed power pellets to distract my ghostly nemeses.

But know this: as you speed toward the pink board's corners, a slew of ghosts in tow, be careful. Because if you're like me, you know that if you can just reach that one sacred power pellet a few dots away you’ll have just enough time to escape Blinky and Inky and Pinky and Clyde who are getting closer and closer, moving in for the kill right as you thankfully round that final bend, chomp down on that sweet power pellet, and…

…nothing.

That is, the ghosts don’t turn blue. They don’t look sad and crazy and scared and they don’t run away. Because here, in the pink board, the power pellets don’t do a thing.

But that's not what's been keeping me up at night. It's this: rather than replacing those now-deactivated power pellets with normal size plain pellets, the Ms. Pac-Man programmers made a distinct decision to leave them looking like big ol' juicy power pellets.

Now perhaps it was just easier for the programmers to leave the graphics as they were before, only removing the "invincible-for-five-seconds" code or whatever. But I don’t think so.

I believe that the men behind the ghosts knew exactly what they were doing. They understood that the best way to catch an enemy off guard is to trick him into thinking he’s okay. Make him believe he’s safe and let him depend on that feeling more and more until he grows unaware of how essential it's become. And right then, right when he needs his safety the most, THAT’s when you take it away.

We’re talking manipulation, people. Conniving, brilliant, beautiful manipulation.

While walking home I tried to understand exactly what I was feeling. There was frustration and anger, yes, but my most genuine emotion was all tangled up in a mess of disbelief: god damn admiration.

The ghosts hadn't invaded my world. I’d invaded theirs, unwittingly playing by their rules the entire time. For the past twenty years I casually underestimated my opponents, dismissing them as "silly" and "stupid" and it's through that very dismissal that they defeated me. Not with distracting fruit or useless power pellets. But by creating a harmless façade and nurturing my belief in its reality.

I don't know who you really are, Mr. Blinky, but well played. Well played indeed.