Why does Pac-Man not like to eat eyes?

Question

I know Pac-Man has no real story, but I always found it weird how he doesn't eat the ghosts' eyes.

Is there some technical reason why he doesn't, or is this just an oversight?

Answer

The further the eyes are from the ghost pen, the longer it takes for them to reach it and regenerate. This means the time it takes for a ghost to respawn after being eaten is variable.

Because it is variable, the eyes give the player a measurable way to determine when the ghosts are going to respawn (when the eyes reach the ghost pen). If Pac-Man ate the ghosts' eyes, the player would have no visual idea when the ghosts would regenerate, which might be hazardous to Pac-Man's health.

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Names of the ghosts or monsters in Pac-Man

Question

Not sure if they're ghosts or monsters, but what are the names of those chasing our beloved and fearless hero, Pac-Man, around the maze?

Do they even have names? Do they also have distinct personalities?

Answer

The Character (Personality), nicknames and behavior for the enemies are:

• Red: Shadow "Blinky" (Chases Pac-Man all the time, Also speeds up after you've eaten a certain amount of dots, which gets less for each level.)

• Pink: Speedy "Pinky" (Fast but random movement.)

• Cyan: Bashful "Inky" (Shy and tries to stay away from pac-man, unless approached too much, after which it will chase Pac-Man too.)

• Orange: Pokey "Clyde" (Slow and Random Movement)

Now, on the ghost vs. monster topic, The arcade cabinet refered to the enemies as "monsters", but the when the Atari 2600 home version was released with pale, flickering enemies, the manual dubbed them "ghosts", to add to the confusion, the TV series refers to them as "ghost monsters" (I personally prefer ghosts.)

Source for the behaviours:
Mateas, Michael (2003). "Expressive AI: Games and Artificial Intelligence" (PDF). Proceedings of Level Up: Digital Games Research Conference, Utrecht, Netherlands.

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Why does Pacman not like to eat eyes?

Question

I know Pacman has no real story, but is there any explanation why he does't want to eat the eyes of the ghosts?

Answer

The further the eyes are from the ghost pen, the longer it takes for them to reach it and regenerate. This means the time it takes for a ghost to respawn after being eating is variable.

Because it is variable, the eyes give the player a measurable way to determine when the ghosts are going to respawn (when the eyes reach the ghost pen). If pacman ate the ghosts' eyes, the player would have no visual idea when the ghosts would regenerate, which might be hazardous to Pacman's health.

Check more discussion of this question.