Ghosts (Pac-Man)
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, collectively known as the Ghost Gang, are a quartet of colorful ghost characters from the Pac-Man video game franchise. Created by Toru Iwatani, they first appear in the 1980 arcade game Pac-Man as the sole antagonists. The ghosts have appeared in every Pac-Man game since, sometimes becoming minor antagonists or allies to Pac-Man, such as in Pac-Man World 3 and the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures animated series.
Some entries in the series went on to add other ghosts to the group, such as Sue in Ms. Pac-Man, Tim in Jr. Pac-Man, Funky and Spunky in Pac-Mania, and Kinky in Pac-Man Arrangement; however, these did not appear in most later games. Reimagined versions of them known as the G-HOSTs appear as antagonists in Shadow Labyrinth. The group has since gained a positive reception and are cited as some of the most recognizable video game villains of all time.
Concept and creation
The ghosts were created by Toru Iwatani, who was the head designer for the original Pac-Man arcade game. The idea for the ghosts was made from Iwatani's desire to create a video game that could attract women and younger players, particularly couples, at a time where most video games were "war"-type games or Space Invaders clones. In turn, he made the in-game characters cute and colorful, a trait borrowed from Iwatani's previous game Cutie Q, which featured similar "kawaii" characters. Iwatani cited Casper the Friendly Ghost or Little Ghost Q-Taro as inspiration for the ghosts. Their simplistic design was also attributed to the limitations of the hardware at the time, only being able to display a certain amount of colors for a sprite. To prevent the game from becoming impossibly difficult or too boring to play, each of the ghosts were programmed to have their own distinct traits — the red ghost would directly chase Pac-Man, the pink and blue ghosts would position themselves in front of him, and the orange ghost would be random.Originally, all four of the ghosts were meant to be red instead of multicolored, as ordered by Namco president Masaya Nakamura — Iwatani was against the idea, as he wanted the ghosts to be distinguishable from one another. Although he was admittedly afraid of Nakamura, he conducted a survey with his colleagues that asked if they wanted single-colored enemies or multicolored enemies. After being presented with a 40-to-0 result in favor of multicolored ghosts, Nakamura agreed to the decision. The original Japanese version of the game had the ghosts named "Oikake", "Machibuse", "Kimagure" and "Otoboke", translating respectively to "chaser", "ambusher", "fickle" and "stupid". When the game was exported to the United States, Midway Games changed their names to "Shadow", "Speedy", "Bashful" and "Pokey", their nicknames being changed to "Blinky", "Pinky", "Inky" and "Clyde" respectively. Early promotional material would sometimes refer to the ghosts as "monsters" or "goblins".
Uproxx argues that the ghosts are really just people in costumes, based on what is revealed between rounds in the game. A cutscene that appears after the 5th round of the game, shows the ghost Blinky chasing after Pac-Man, and his ghost costume snags on a nail and rips, revealing a leg underneath. In a later cutscene, Blinky has a rip in his ghost costume, then after going off screen, he is seen back on the screen dragging the red costume behind him.
Television series
In the 1982 Pac-Man series, the hero faced five Ghosts — four males wearing various styles of hats, and a female ghost named Sue, who wore earrings. The Ghost Monsters work for Mezmaron, who assigns them the job of finding the Power Pellet Forest.The 2013 TV series Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures and its tie-in video games introduce a new ghost antagonist, Lord Betrayus, the ruler of the Netherworld who seeks to take over Pac-World with his ghost army. Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde act as secret allies to Pac-Man, hoping to one day be restored to life in exchange.