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Charming Pac-Man Stop-Motion Trades Pixels for People

This article is over 14 years old and may contain outdated information

The latest in an artist’s series of videogame stop-motion videos features a popular yellow dot-eater played by a human pixel.

Stop-motion videos that recreate videogame scenes don’t normally grab me, but the latest in Guillaume Reymond’s Game Over project is too charming to resist. It features dozens of subjects in his version of Pac-Man that takes place in the seats of a theatre.

The French-Swiss artist replaces pixels with human beings, and when it comes to Pac-Man looks like something I’d actually want to play, if only I could exert psychic control over the “pixels” and have them do my bidding. Reymond has done animations for Pong, Space Invaders, Pole Position, and Tetris in the past.

To create this video, 111 people showed up at the Trafo cinema in Baden, Switzerland and played their pixel parts for over four hours. Some were only given the lousy duty of sitting still as a blue-shirted border. Four contestants got a red, green, orange, or white shirt and played a ghost, while one wore yellow and took on the role of Pac-Man himself.

Reymond even recreated some of the scrolling cutscenes just like you’d see if you fired up the arcade version of Pac-Man. As for what’s next, it could be anything, but I’m thinking Frogger.

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