When Pac-Man emerged in the early 1980s, nothing looked or sounded quite like it. Where most arcade games of the era involved shooting marauding aliens, Pac-Man looked like a miniature, interactive cartoon: a comical tug-of-war between a round, yellow character with an addiction to munching tiny white dots and a quartet of ghosts with big, anxious eyes

As we now know, Pac-Man was a massive hit, and its grip on pop culture is still strong today. But Pac-Man's success was far from certain; its designer initially had no interest in games, and the public reaction to it was initially mixed.

Here's a brief look at some of the fascinating facts behind Pac-Man's making, its impact, and its legacy.