Just in case you might have missed it. Google did something cool to honor the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man making its revolutionary debut in Japan. To honor this May 22nd date, Google has done the logo on their homepage up in Pac-Man style. "Oh, we've seen them do that before on special holidays and such." No, you don't understand. This is a PLAYABLE logo of Pac-Man! It's Pac-Man dodging Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde in a special maze spelling out the word 'Google'!
Follow the dots for the fruitful information.........
Usually below the homepage typebox are the buttons 'Google Search' and the random-searching 'I'm Feeling Lucky'. Replacing 'Lucky' in this inspiring Pac-Man rendition is 'Insert Coin' bringing back memories of the arcade gallerias, laundromats, pizza palaces, and bars. Tapping 'Insert Coin' begins your play adventure where you use your keyboard's arrow buttons to navigate the maze madness complete with the authentic sound effects, fruit, and enemy logic. But tap 'Insert Coin' twice and a friend can take control of Ms. Pac-Man using the keyboard's 'W', 'A', 'S', and 'D' buttons as you both travel the maze together. A very nice touch has Ms. Pac-Man sound effects when she eats the dots! (If Mr. Pac-Man dies though, Ms. Pac-Man loses her turn as well)
Yes, the intermissions are intact as well as the kill screen for ol' school authenticity. All those old little arcade touches known by the pro players were faithfully recreated here like the ghosts hinting what direction they were going to turn by where their eyes looked. Google teamed up with Pac-Man developer Namco of Namco Bandai Games, Inc. to make sure the original experience was intact.
Design was led by Marcin Wichary, a Google senior user experience designer, who built this logo game using the coding languages of Javascript, HTML, and CSS. The Polish-born (and raised) Wichary who grew up around videogame arcades under the wing of his game technician father had a lifetime devotion to videogaming which inspired his attention to detail on faithfully recreating the Pac-Man arcade experience. The project was said to take about a couple of months but Wichary decided not to use Namco's original code preferring instead to do it the Google way building everything from the ground up.
Today is the 3rd and last day that Google's Pac-Man game will grace the Google homepage so go on over and check it out before it ends (check Google's homepage archives to see it in the future)! And in a show of good sportsmanship, Google made this available to play on Apple's iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Very generous considering that Google competes with Apple's iPhone with its own Android-compatible smartphones. Defy those employer killjoys and make the ghosts go BRLRLRLRLOOOP!
Quarters and tokens go to CNET, Beatweek, and naturally, Google.blog comments powered by Disqus