Pac-Mondrian
by Adrian Hanft, (6 comments)
I can't pass up stories about PacMan. I made a post a while back about Pac-Manhattan, and today I saw that a new game combines the art of Mondrian with the classic Atari game. Its called Pac-Mondrian. It's not the most playable game in the world, but it is a fun idea. If you are interested in reading the history of the best-selling coin-operated game in history, here is a link to some Pac-Man trivia. I think I will go home and dig out my Atari 2600...
Comments (6)
Adrian said:
Thanks to the New York Times for giving a link to this article. Now that I have somewhat of an audience, I thought I would share my most recent adventure in Atari geekery.
Have you ever heard of an Atari 2600 emulator? There is a free program called Stella, that will let you play classic Atari games on your computer. Once you download and install Stella, do a search for Atari 2600 ROM. Theoldcomputer.com has a ton of classic Atari games for you to download for free. The great thing about Stella is that you can even run it if you are on a Mac running OSX, like me. It was great fun to relive my childhood with my favorite games: Pac-man, Defender, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Millipede, Mood Patrol, Pole Position, Seaquest, Pitfall!, Asteroids, Astroblast, and Yars Revenge. I hope you have as much fun with it as I have!
Posted on December 28, 2004
Bennett said:
I showed this game to my wife, a fine artist, and she was fairly apalled at this. I’m still not sure what I think about Pac-Mondrian. I know it is better than a Scream Punching Balloon. The creators of Pac-Mondrian had a fun idea, but obviously they don’t have a reverential view of art history.
Posted on December 30, 2004
Adrian said:
That’s interesting. I never was a very big fan of Mondrian’s paintings, so I didn’t mind. The interesting thing about the New York Times article was that it took the slant that Pac-Mondrian is “attracting more art types than gaming types?” The article doesn’t mention Artists being offended, but it does note that Pac-Man purists seem to be ok with the game:
“Strangely, the keepers of the Pac-Man flame are unperturbed. The First Church of Pac-Man, a Web site where fans can worship the ‘golden pixellated circle’ that ‘did appear upon the darkened screen,’ has often warned about false idols: ‘The prophesized umpteenth coming is upon us.’ But the church has not yet issued any warning about Pac-Mondrian. Not even the Pac-Page, a Web site that keeps track of Pac-Man clones, has taken notice.”
The article praises the game with the implication that the game honors Mondrian’s work. Honestly, I don’t think the game improves on either masterpiece (Pac-Man or Mondrian, that is) but it is interesting to talk about. Did Suz read the NY Times article too? She might be more appalled by the New York Times praise of the game than of the game itself?
Posted on December 30, 2004
Bennett said:
I hardly felt that the NY Times article was praising the game. Here is the qoute that finished the article.
“As you feverishly hit the arrow keys to drive the munching mouth around ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie,’ you also imbibe the notion that Mondrian did not paint what he really wanted. If he had had his druthers, he would have demolished all those annoying flecks of color on the grid. Now that’s a nervy interpretation. Game over. “
Posted on January 3, 2005
Adrian said:
I guess I glazed over the last 3 paragraphs where the game does get criticized…
Posted on January 3, 2005
Cynthia said:
(glazed over last 2 grafs)
Me too. I saw that they referenced my Franz Kline blog and went nuts and then had to call everyone.
Adrian, you asked whether it was in the print version, and I don’t know.
Posted on January 6, 2005