Facts have proven that when a person is completely focused on something, they often lose all sense of time.
At nine o'clock in the morning, the studio officially started work. Then, all of a sudden, Ethan felt hungry.
Turning around, he realized it was already noon. He quickly called the pizza shop near his house and ordered two pizzas. After a simple lunch, he threw himself back into work and kept going until it was dark outside.
Only then did he realize. He had drawn fifteen map sketches and converted them all into 0101 computer code!
If this had been Ethan's previous life, such work ethic would have been unimaginable.
After all, in an era with no room for career advancement, no matter how hard an employee worked, all they really accomplished was helping their boss buy a bigger house or upgrade their car. When tomorrow's life looks exactly like today's, learning to "fish" in the workplace was practically considered a survival skill.
But now…Everything he did was for himself.
Under such circumstances, if he couldn't find the motivation to work harder, then maybe he really didn't deserve to make money at all.
However, this state of total focus — deaf to everything else — while it greatly boosted his efficiency, also made him overlook many things. For instance, it wasn't until November 30, when Thomas and Linda appeared in front of him with a cake, that Ethan belatedly realized it was his birthday.
"Happy birthday, Ethan—"
Thomas gave him a big hug and handed him a gift.
"Happy birthday, Ethan—"
Linda echoed cheerfully. Holding the cake, she smiled and said, "Oh, Ethan, I know you don't like cream, so I made you a chiffon-based fruit cake. It's topped with kiwi, strawberry, and mango — I hope you like it."
"Oh—thank you! Thank you!" Ethan was pleasantly surprised by their appearance.
The ones who were even more surprised than him were Evelyn and Woz.
"Today's your birthday?"
Woz, widened his eyes.
"Oh my god! Brother! Why didn't you tell me earlier? I didn't even prepare a gift!"
Evelyn looked a bit embarrassed, spread her hands and said, "Ethan, I'm sorry… I completely forgot."
Ethan just smiled and waved his hand. "Oh, don't be like that. Honestly, I forgot too."
And he meant it. He hadn't celebrated his birthday in years.
In his previous life, living far from home, all he ever received were telegraph greetings. And in this life… well, who would even remember the birthday of the original owner of this body?
Still, since the celebration had already begun, Ethan wasn't about to dampen everyone's mood. He invited Thomas and Linda to stay for dinner, then personally went out to buy ingredients.
To make things livelier, he asked Woz to invite his girlfriend, called Jobs over, and asked Evelyn to check if Barbara had time to join. Sure, it was short notice — but sometimes, surprises were what made moments like these special.
Because the 30th happened to fall on a weekend, everyone was free and willing. That night, a small group gathered at Ethan's house to celebrate his birthday.
The food wasn't anything extravagant — Thomas and Linda had cooked most of it themselves — and there weren't many party props either. Other than singing the birthday song and blowing out candles, there were no special arrangements.
But the warm, lively atmosphere made Ethan genuinely happy.
And with the end of November, the year 1975 quietly came to a close.
When December arrived, Ethan set out to do two things. The first was that Professor Barbara Babcock's case collection had finally hit the market.
Since Ethan had previously promised to buy copies and donate them to schools, as soon as he got the news, he asked two of his company's administrators to take care of it. He had Damio Dean purchase 5,000 copies at $29.99 each, bundled them together with some of the professor's previously written case reports, and asked Julis Noble to contact schools and libraries across the West Coast to donate fifty copies as a starting point.
When Ethan spent $300,000 to ensure that libraries across the West Coast could have Professor Barbara's books, the professor herself called him immediately upon hearing the news to thank him. At the same time, she brought Ethan some good news—
"Ethan, the discussions on revising the Copyright Protection Law have concluded. Next year, the federal government will officially amend the law to clearly distinguish copyright protections for companies and individuals. I've read the final draft. Registering copyright under a company's name will be most beneficial for you. So, after the provisional patent application for Snake Game expires, you can directly register the copyright under kismet name."
"Oh, thanks, Barbara. I like that news." Ethan smiled as he expressed his gratitude.
The second matter at hand was Christmas. Although Pac-Man was in a critical stage of development, Ethan wasn't about to ignore the holidays.
As an annual tradition in North America, it was something he couldn't simply brush aside. So, as the festival approached, he gave the company employees their usual holiday break. He personally drove Woz—who had a father, mother, and relatives waiting—to his home, and asked him to return to work after New Year's in January.
On Christmas Eve, Ethan decided not to work late into the night. Instead, he and Evelyn went back to Thomas and Linda's home, shared a big dinner with the two elders, and then the entire family gathered in front of the TV to watch It's a Wonderful Life, a film that had been re-released for many years.
It was an inspirational story about a man who, on the verge of suicide as Christmas approached, is saved when God sends angels to earth to intervene. After enduring a series of trials, the protagonist regains his courage and faces life's hardships with a smile.
Because of its religious and theological themes, the film had always been highly praised in North America.
Ethan wasn't particularly fond of stories about divine salvation, but he still watched with genuine interest. When the midnight bells rang, ushering in Christmas, Ethan took out the list he had prepared and began sending holiday greetings to his friends.
Why did he go to such trouble for something so simple?
The answer was obvious. Because people like Jobs, Woz, Barbara, and Chuck Peddle celebrated Christmas and could receive Christmas greetings—
But people like Spielberg and Ralph Baer celebrated Hanukkah instead.
With such differences, Ethan knew he had to be mindful and treat each situation with care.
Once he had finished maintaining all his social connections, Ethan realized for the first time just how great an invention email truly was.
With a single click, he could send greetings to dozens of people at once—far more efficient than making individual phone calls.
And just as he was sighing about how he would probably have to perform this annual ritual for many years to come, the closed door suddenly swung open from the outside.
Startled, Ethan turned around—and to his surprise, there was Evelyn, sneaking in like a thief!
"What are you doing?" Ethan asked, bewildered.
Evelyn hopped to his side and said, "Let's go back."
"What?" Ethan blinked, confused.
"Let's go back and write code!" Evelyn grinned. "Sitting at home is so boring! We might as well go back and code. Watching movies and TV feels like such a waste of time. It's nowhere near as fun as making games! And I've almost finished writing the code for the first ghost—I really want to see it run!"
Damn it! He had never imagined there were workaholics out there who would voluntarily work overtime—on Christmas, no less!
Think watching movies is a waste of time? Feel uneasy if you don't write code?
What kind of person was this?! But…Ethan was only shocked for a moment. Then he jumped up from the bed and said, "Okay, let's go!"
Because honestly—he felt restless too. Maybe it really was divine blessing.
The very next day, December 26, Evelyn successfully completed the red ghost's chase algorithm.
When the monitor connected to the APPLE I displayed the yellow Pac-Man sprinting through the maze with the red ghost in hot pursuit, Ethan and Evelyn were ecstatic.
Especially when they saw that no matter where Pac-Man ran, the red ghost would always choose the shortest path to chase him instead of blindly moving forward.
The two of them hugged each other and celebrated—because at that moment, an AI had truly been born.
"Oh, Evelyn—we did it, didn't we?" Ethan shouted.
"I think it is!"
Evelyn laughed. "If nothing else, at least my algorithm works perfectly on Map No. 1!"
Xiaohong's flawless performance on the first map made Ethan incredibly excited.
Since he had already completed all 255 maps, he now transformed into a game tester, driving the yellow Pac-Man through all 255 mazes to test on every possible layout.
Of course, in the process, he also found plenty of bugs. For example, in long corridors, if Pac-Man was too far ahead—already exiting the passage—while Xiaohong had just entered or was only a quarter of the way in, she might turn back midway because the algorithm prioritized the nearest path.
This gave players the strange sense that they had a "God's-eye view" of the game.
But these kinds of fixable bugs did nothing to dampen Ethan's excitement. After all, he was recreating one of the most legendary pixel games of his previous life!
If they could just replicate the look and feel, that was already a huge success. Fine-tuning the details was no big deal.
When Woz returned from his holiday and saw their progress, he was completely stunned.
"Oh! Sxxt! You guys actually finished 1st ghost?"
"Oh no—have you already tested it?"
"Dxxn! Don't you ever rest?"
"Time is money, my friend!" Ethan grinned, imitating the goblins from World of Warcraft.
"If we don't speed things up, how are we going to make money?"
Woz just stared at him, speechless.
Evelyn lightly punched Ethan's arm and smiled at Woz.
"Oh Stephen, it's just that Pac-Man's development is so much fun. It's not like those boring jobs—it actually makes us happy! So… we got addicted."
That explanation Woz could accept. After seeing Ethan and Evelyn's impressive progress, he became even more motivated. He rolled up his sleeves and swore to God that he would complete the wandering ghost's AI code within a week.
When the tech boss started working as though he'd rather die than fail, Pac-Man's development entered a phase of rapid acceleration.
January 15, 1976 – Woz completed the first version of the Orange Ghost's chase algorithm.
January 19, 1976 – Ethan spent four days controlling Pac-Man and testing Orange Ghost's code across all 255 maps.
January 24, 1976 – Evelyn completed the first version of the Little Pink Ghost's ambush algorithm.
January 25, 1976 – Everyone took a collective break. Since it was Evelyn's birthday, Ethan accompanied her to Anaheim for the day.
January 26, 1976 – Work resumed.
January 29, 1976 – Ethan spent four more days controlling Pac-Man and getting trapped repeatedly by Red and Pink ghost across all 255 maps.
February 11, 1976 – Woz finally finished the containment algorithm, bringing the most difficult ghost—Little Blue—into existence.
February 24, 1976 – Ethan once again controlled Pac-Man, only to get beaten into the ground by all four ghosts on every single map.
And in this final, comprehensive round of testing, they found an endless stream of bugs.
For example, because Pink and Blue ghost had similar behavior patterns—one ambushing the player's path, the other cooperating with Red ghost to trap them—on simple terrain their pathfinding feedback often overlapped.
This was fine on straight corridors, but at three-way intersections their overlapping logic sometimes turned "intelligent AI" into "artificial stupidity," practically handing players a free escape route.
So Evelyn decided to add a new condition to Pink's algorithm: prioritize routes where no other ghost was present.
But this meant that if a player deliberately toyed with him—stepping in and out of range repeatedly—he could be made to look completely foolish.
When Ethan started performing "peekaboo" maneuvers in the game—
"Here I come in."
"Here I go out."
"Here I come in again."
"Here I go out again."—
Yellow ghost response was a ridiculous loop of:
"Pursue!"
"Stop!"
"Pursue!"
"Stop!"
Watching Ethan turn his AI into a fool left Evelyn speechless with admiration—and Woz utterly unable to sit still.
He couldn't stand to see the AI he'd written behaving like a brainless idiot!
So he immediately decided to add a new condition:
If, within five seconds, yellow ghost detected the player's presence multiple times, he would enter a "frenzy state", chasing Pac-Man relentlessly until the player completely escaped his detection zone and stayed away for at least ten seconds.
One by one, these issues were identified, patched, and retested—leading to more rounds of endless debugging.
Finally, on March 20, 1976, Ethan cleared level 255 under normal difficulty. When a bright WIN suddenly flashed on the screen, they realized—
After five long months, Pac-Man's development was finally complete!
And after waiting five more days to assemble the circuit board with the game's CPU and install it inside the arcade cabinet—complete with its iconic yellow Pac-Man and four colorful ghosts—
The world's first Pac-Man arcade machine was born.
"It's done."
Ethan stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the multicolored flashing screen with deep emotion.
"Next…" He gently patted the cabinet. "…it's time to announce your existence to the world."