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Microscopic 'Pac-Man' Puts Retina Display to Shame

by Terrence O'Brien on October 13, 2010 at 08:10 AM

Microscopic Pac-Man
'Pac-Man' is easily one of the most fetishized pieces of video game nostalgia. The game has shown up nearly everywhere, from the Google home page to the fashion runway, and has inspired political attack ads and special edition Moleskines. But far more impressive, from a technical standpoint, is Microscopic 'Pac-Man.' Developed by Japanese design professor Kotoro "dotimpact" Tanaka in celebration of the iconic game's 30th anniversary, Microscopic Pac-Man uses the original arcade hardware, but replaces the screen with a tiny projector and a microscope. The image is bounced off a mirror to produce a one-centimeter image with a staggering 1,439-pixels per inch. (That's more than four-times as dense as the iPhone 4 screen.) Tanaka also encourages players to twist the zoom and focus knobs to create different visual effects, and increase the difficulty.

Sadly, we couldn't get to the 30th Anniversary exhibit in Tokyo. But hopefully, now that the celebration is over, Tanaka will take the game on tour, and maybe stop by the Switched offices for a little micro-scale gaming tournament.

Tags: art, design, gaming, microscope, pac-man, pacman, top, videogames, videogamesasart

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