Krayon Unveils PAC-MAN Series: A Playful Métiers d’Art Expression of Time

15 Unique Platinum Timepieces Powered by the “Anywhere” Movement, Blending Childhood Nostalgia with Haute Horlogerie Precision

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Photo Courtesy: Krayon

A playful concept, executed with uncompromising rigour, the PAC-MAN series reflects Krayon’s growing creative confidence. This Métiers d’Art creation by Fei Hou, developed alongside Rémi Maillat, blends personal histories from China and Switzerland into a shared cultural memory, capturing the universal joy and hypnotic rhythm of the iconic PAC-MAN experience.

Krayon celebrates childhood, joy and the magic of time

Since its founding and its first creation unveiled in 2017, Krayon has explored a central idea: our intimate relationship with time – with the sun, with light, and with the natural cycles and their mechanical poetry. With Everywhere, its first creation, Krayon transformed contemporary watchmaking by inventing the first mechanical movement capable of calculating sunrise and sunset times anywhere on Earth, according to date and geographical location. With Anywhere, the complication became more intimate: the wearer can define a personally meaningful location, allowing the luminous cycle that shapes their life to be displayed directly on the dial. With Anyday, Krayon reinvented the mechanical agenda, offering at a single glance a complete view of the month: days, dates and calendar structure presented with unprecedented clarity.
Faithful to this singular way of connecting time to lived experience, the Neuchâtel-based Maison now surprises with an unexpected creation yet one entirely coherent with its DNA: an encounter between the finest contemporary mechanics and one of the universal symbols of childhood and 1980s culture.

Why PAC-MAN × Krayon?

A universal memory

PAC-MAN celebrates its 45th anniversary, and its joyful, simple, luminous universe provides a natural playground for expressing, in a new way, what Krayon does best: telling time as a story. Born in China in 1986, Fei Hou marks a new chapter in her creative journey with this latest Métiers d’Art creation. Alongside Rémi Maillat – her partner in life and in leading Krayon – she belongs to the PAC-MAN generation, though each with a distinct story.
Rémi, born in Switzerland in 1984, discovered the game in arcades, surrounded by friends, in the electric atmosphere so characteristic of the 1980s. Fei, in Beijing – already in a world where computers entered homes early, played alone, in front of her first machine: a quieter, more analytical, almost meditative experience reflecting the mathematician and engineer she would later become, and her role as Krayon’s “second brain.” Two childhoods, different contexts, yet the same emotion: the mounting excitement, the sense of escape, the hypnotic pull of a small yellow character racing through a maze at full speed.
Together, they form a creative duo, as intimate as it is complementary, where their perspectives, cultures, and approaches feed a singular intellectual synergy. With this limited series of 15 unique platinum pieces, Krayon embraces a distinct artistic approach: childhood emotion rediscovered, a deliberate wink, an uninhibited gesture and a demonstration of creative maturity. Fei Hou comments: “With the PAC-MAN series, Krayon shows that it also knows how to smile.”

A natural parallel with time

PAC-MAN is a cycle. An endless loop. A character tracing a path, eating up points, triggering modes, traversing scenarios. On Anywhere, a disc turns, a cycle advances, a sun rises and sets, initiating day and night.
The connection was immediate: “What if the small sun in Anywhere became PAC-MAN? And what if it ate up points, fruits…and the great twilight cookie?”

An Anywhere complication… played as a level of PAC-MAN

The PAC-MAN series builds on the same movement as the Anywhere collection, a mechanical masterpiece capable of indicating sunrise and sunset anywhere on Earth. Here, the calibre’s micromechanics becomes the perfect framework for rendering an iconic game.

Gameplay translated onto the dial:

The concept remains the same as Anywhere, reimagined in the PAC-MAN universe. The yellow character becomes the day/night indicator, advancing around the dial like the sun in the original complication. Dots, fruit and ghosts appear according to the sunrise and sunset times of the selected location, animated by a system of superimposed discs.
The “great cookie” symbolises sunset: when PAC-MAN reaches it, night mode begins. At midnight, the ghost gang turns blue as in the game, they become “edible” – before regaining their original colours at dawn: red for Blinky, pink for Pinky, orange for Clyde, and light blue for Inky. The direction of their eyes subtly indicates the sunrise position a detail perfectly aligned with Krayon’s aesthetic logic. On equinox days, the configuration becomes perfectly symmetrical: twelve hours of day, twelve hours of night.

An aesthetic that remains true to the original 1980 video game

For this series, Krayon chose to return to PAC-MAN’s very origin, the first version of the game, rendered in exact scale, with all the rigour and finesse this demands. The iconic yellow character, the dots, the fruit and the ghosts retain their precise proportions, as if suspended in their 1980 state. On a polished onyx dial perfectly smooth, deep as night, the famous maze unfolds, delicately pad printed for a translucent effect. It becomes visible only when light strikes at a precise angle, a discreet nod, an almost conspiratorial gesture reserved for the wearer. Along the outer circumference, the fruit and ghosts, all hand-painted, appear to float within this mineral universe. The inscriptions MIDDAY, MIDNIGHT, MARCH, SEPTEMBER, adopt the original pixelated typography, while the Krayon logo becomes a cartouche distilled into its essential pixels.

Limited Artistry Meets Controlled Randomness

Each of the 15 pieces from Krayon tells a unique story. Inspired by the unpredictability of arcade gameplay, the placement of ghosts, fruits, and symbols varies across every dial introducing a controlled element of randomness within a highly precise mechanical framework. The result is a rare fusion of bespoke artistry and playful narrative.

Crafted in a 39 mm PT950 platinum case, the watch frames an onyx dial layered with hand-painted sapphire discs. Despite its lighthearted inspiration, the execution remains uncompromising finishing, mechanics, and design are all held to the highest standards of haute horlogerie.

Availability

The PAC-MAN watch series by Krayon is available exclusively through the official website and direct enquiries with the brand. For further information, visit: https://www.krayon.ch/