Toru Iwatani, 1986 Pac-Man Designer

IWATANI: The algorithm for the four ghosts who are the enemies of the Pac Man–getting all the movements lined up correctly. It was tricky because the monster movements are quite complex. This is the heart of the game. I wanted each ghostly enemy to have a specific character and its own particular movements, so they weren’t all just chasing after Pac Man in single file, which would have been tiresome and flat. One of them, the red one called Blinky, did chase directly after Pac Man. The second ghost is positioned at a point a few dots in front of Pac Man’s mouth. That is his position. If Pac Man is in the center then Monster A and Monster B are equidistant from him, but each moves independently, almost “sandwiching” him. The other ghosts move more at random. That way they get closer to Pac Man in a natural way.

When a human being is constantly under attack like this, he becomes discouraged. So we developed the wave-patterned attack–attack then disperse; as time goes by the ghosts regroup and attack again. Gradually the peaks and valleys in the curve of the wave become less pronounced so that the ghosts attack more frequently.

I always found the ghosts algorithms fascinating: the pac man dossier has interesting graphical representations of them

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/132330/the_pacman_dos...

Game Maker's Toolkit did a great video this week on Pac-Man

https://youtu.be/S4RHbnBkyh0

There's a lot we take for granted these days which were relatively innovative and unique in Pac-Man, such as the clever AI, and also it's one of the first instances of a video game mascot. Well worth a watch.

The title is misleading. The interview took place in 1986, but the game was released in 1980. [0]

Also, it's Pac-Man, not PacMan.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man

TL;DR: "It’s important for you to understand that I’m not a programmer."