Everything I ever needed to know...

… I learned by playing Pac Man.

Pac Man imparts three very basic principles by which absolutely every man, woman and child should live their life:

1. Ghosts are scary and should be avoided.
2. You should eat fruit.
3. You should bide your time and visit terrible bloody vengeance upon those who seek to do you harm.

Yep. So long as you understand those three simple rules, you are ready to begin your training as a “Pac Man.”

Let me begin by saying that I am in absolutely no way an authority on this game. That honor falls to Billy Mitchell. The fact that he made it through all 255 levels without losing a single life, while at the same time grabbing every piece of fruit/special item, makes my recently hard-earned score of 99,030 on level 13 seem infinitely insignificant.

But this little series is not about how to become the next Billy Mitchell. This is more about the journey than the destination. Frankly, knowing that the game maxes out at 3,333,360 points is a little disappointing. I take solace only in knowing that I’ll never get close to that.

This series will ask three questions:
1. Why should I play Pac Man?
2. How can I get the most out of my Pac Man experience?
3. What do the characters and objects in Pac Man represent?

So, why should I play Pac Man?

On the most basic level, it’s fun.

When a ghost makes a wrong turn and you find yourself dashing to freedom on the opposite side of the board and chomping pellets like Homer Simpson at The Frying Dutchman’s all-you-can eat buffet, it’s nothing short of exhilarating – like when a kick returner in football finds a lane and dashes 80 yards for a touchdown.

It’s satisfying.

Those ghosts want to touch you and make you implode so bad. They hound you. They try to trap you. They genuinely wish harm upon you. But on every level, you get four chances to turn the tables – a phenomenon that delighted Charles Montgomery Burns to no end.

It teaches valuable lessons to children and adults alike.

Beyond the simple idea that fruit is something to be desired and good for you (so long as those cherries aren’t sitting on top of a hot fudge sundae), it also teaches you that life sometimes isn’t fair.

You can be playing a level perfectly, but the tiniest slip can allow a pair of ghosts to trap you between them. If this happens, your current Pac Man is a goner, and I pray you have another. Sometimes this seems to happen by pure dumb luck. You didn’t deserve to be trapped by these ghosts, but somehow they’ve surrounded and screwed you over.

This is an outstanding lesson for children. Sometimes you think you’ve tried your absolute best and circumstances beyond your control have brought about your demise. Even if that were the case, it’s a sad fact of life that such things can happen. But as you mature as a Pac Man player and a human being in general, you will learn where these “ghost traps” are most likely to happen and, through wisdom and understanding, you can avoid them by being a better player.

So once again, I invite you to take a few minutes and give it a go. Enjoy your time in the haunted maze. Tomorrow, we’ll take a look at ways to make it a little less scary.