Imagine rounding a corner along a busy street in downtown Portland and BAM! There he is: “Blinky,” AKA “Shadow,” AKA “Mackey,” running toward you. The most dreaded because he is the quickest, smartest and most tenacious of the four. But he’s not after you…he’s pursuing the guy in yellow. You know, the one collecting the dots.
This is no dream or LARP event…it’s a game. Straight from an arcade circa 1980 to the streets of major American cities. Pac-Man lives! ...Courtesy of the Pac-Manhattan Project.
This Portland-based Pac-Manhattan game is only the latest iteration, which originated from NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications graduate program a few years back. The idea is to utilize the downtown city grid as the playfield. There are 10 players total: a Pac-Man (or Ms. Pac-Man) and four ghosts, each with their own controller who communicates with them via mobile phones during the game. The dots are virtual, as are the power pills. The game’s progress is updated in real-time by the controllers with the help of some custom software—IMHO, these folks are the ones having all the fun. Still, running like heck through crowded city streets in costume sounds pretty…ehm, interesting as well. I'm just waiting to see the guy with the scuba mask and bicycle pump. I'd Dig THAT Dug!
Photo source: Selena Marie from www.pacmanhattan.com
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