Pac-Man Conquers Academia: Two Decades of Research Using a Classic Arcade Game

Pac-Man and its equally popular successor Ms.Pac-Man are often attributed to being the frontrunners of the golden age of arcade video games. Their impact goes well beyond the commercial world of video games and both games have featured in numerous academic research projects over the last two decades. In fact, scientific interest is on the rise and many avenues of research have been pursued, including studies in robotics, biology, sociology, and psychology. The most active field of research is computational intelligence, not least because of popular academic gaming competitions that feature Ms. Pac-Man. This paper summarizes the peer-reviewed research that focuses on either game (or close variants thereof) with particular emphasis on the field of computational intelligence. The potential usefulness of games like Pac-Man for higher education is also discussed and the paper concludes with a discussion of prospects for future work.