Google celebrates PAC-MAN’s 30th Anniversary with playable front page
Paying tribute to the 30th anniversary of the arcade game classic PAC-MAN, Google have put up their first-ever playable Google doodle on the search homepage.
To play the game, go to google.com/google.co.uk during the next 48 hours (a day longer than usual because – as Google explains – “it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds.
Enjoy!
Here’s the press release from the Google blog:
When I was growing up, my dad had the best job I could possibly imagine: he was an arcade game and pinball technician. For me, that meant summer trips through Poland’s coastal cities with their seasonal arcade parlors; peeking inside cabinets to learn programming and engineering secrets; and—of course—free games!
One of my favorites was PAC-MAN, whose popularity transcended the geopolitical barriers of that time. During the heyday of space shooters, Tōru Iwatani’s creation stood out as one of the first video games aimed at a broader audience, with a cute story of pizza-shaped character gobbling dots in a maze, colorful (literally!) characters, friendly design, very little violence and everlasting fun.
Today, on PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories—or meet PAC-MAN for the first time—through our first-ever playable Google doodle. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds.
Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include PAC-MAN’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).
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how do I turn the fucking thing off!!!!
If you press the insert coin button twice it unlocks the two-player mode and Ms. Pac-Man! (which you can control using the WASD keys)
olá adorei,saber que pac-man,ainda é lembrado,tenho 30anos e sou fascinada por esse jogo….como faço para te ele em meu computador…
idk
Bl00dy stupid!
I want my search page to search, not play an annoying tune all the time!!!
It’s enough to drive me to Bing!
well frankly!how dare google allow that awful pacman noise without giving me the option to listen or not.I agree with Joanna’s comment and will be wary of using Google again.
That’s not nice. If you don’t like it, just start typing in the search box.
Those programmers put in a lot of effort to create something really great.
Nice work, folks.
loved it, nt played since it since i was a kid, an im nt givin away my age. could play on it all day. GREAT
I was amazed when I saw the new logo at google and was enticed to play it again after so many years. I somewhat spent an hour playing it again. Just loved it.
This is not fear. all devil speed is very fast but my angel is very slow.. whyyyyyyyyyyy????????
Loved it!!!!
Very good, Excellent!
@claudette
disable your cool preview add on and the pacman noise will go away
@Jess – disabling preview add-on will not necessarily shut of the annoying siren sound.
Many people booted up and got the siren right-away .Any connection to Google from your computer would start it up.Any Google app would do it.
You don’t have to have a browser page open or go to Google home/search page.
Totally ignorant – What the hell were they thinking?
Some people at Google proved themselves to be total inconsiderate idiots.
I don’t care how much effort went into it -a little more effort would have provided the user with a sound ON/Off button for that page.Not every one appreciates this kind of disrupting crap when you can’t use your computer as you like and play some music.
I knew how to turn the stupid siren off – many people don’t and were very upset.