Google hails Pac-Man with retro gaming homepage

Google, which famously changes the logo on its homepage to suit special occasions, has gone a step further to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Out goes the standard Google logo - in comes a playable version of the game. Pac-Man Google Google dot dot dot dot dot dot com This 'Googlised' Pac-Man features a …

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Great!

Fantastic stuff! Many a penny wasted in my youth...

[Anonymous Coward]

Saving for later playing?

Ah, c'mon - there *has* to be a way to save this - perhaps the big G wouldn't mind issuing a more permanent link to something later on?

Great way to pass the time and a trip down memory lane. Thanks Google

[Rebecca 1]

There is

Google.com/Pacman

[jim 45]

am I missing something

Huh? All I get is a static graphic, which links to a Google search on "PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary".

[David Grierson]

yes

You need to click the "Insert Coin" button ... duh!

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

Fair play Google...

It doesn't allay any of the evil stuff you've been up to recently. But it's a nice touch.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh @#$%

There goes my afternoon/evening....

[Doshu]

SWEET!

I don't often give points to Google, but this ROCKS!

2 coins = 2 players (with the addition of Mrs PacMan).

Awesome!

[Tak]

Works on the iPhone

It even works on the iPhone. You use your finger to point the direction. No sound, though.

[mordac]

Awesome

Anyone else noticed that you get 2 player mode if you insert two coins?

Makes me wonder what the Google logos are going to do for birthdays of other video games...

[cyborg]

Awesome

No - I'm not playing pacman - I'm doing research.

[Danington the Third]

This

Is actually the most awesome thing I have seen all year. Google, I don't care if you invade our homes with wifi snooping, invade our screen real estate with advertising, or even our privacy with savied search results. You have officially won this round of internets. Well done sirs.

[CharlieT]

Causing a damned sound bug

A quick warning to anyone, like me, who found this damn game running every time you start Firefox despite not actually having a Google page open - you might want to disable CoolPreviews or other previewing add-ons, which seem to be the cause.

[slack]

Check coolpreviews

The add-on devs have already admitted that the issue was because of a problem with their code, not Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder...

... why would they do it on a friday?

Someone should still do a study how many workhours were lost globally.

[John H. Maw]

Pac Mad

And damned irritating it is too for those who just want to find something on the net.

[MikeReed]

it also works on the iPhone / iPad

The doodle also works on the iPhone and iPad..... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6IO_pjoljQ

[OrsonX]

G-Pac Man

Really fantastic!

I find it really bizzare that this is possible! It's realy freaky that it's playable, games should take 10 min to load...

[chris lively]

switch to bing today

I switched my home page to bing today because of this; or rather, because of the sound that starts playing 10 seconds after you get to the home page.

The first time it came on, it scared the crap out of one of my kids. The sound volume was turned all the way up..

However at Google thought that the noise was a "good thing" should be fired.

[MarkM]

Noisy PoS!

This PacMan thing is a PEST. Firefox users have it turned on autmatically, and the ****ing music it plays is incredibly annoying and hard to stop. I used ADBlock Plus, I guess there are other ways.

Google, what were you thinking??!

M

[Franklin]

And I can't help but notice...

They did it all without Flash.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true

The audio is in a swf file and is triggered by an external interface.

[heyrick]

Nice bit of Javascript there...

...so it might even work on the new Jobsian baby. :-)

At any rate, just wasted an hour with some retro feeling. Sweet!

[Jason Togneri]

You forgot: 2P mode!

If you press the "Insert Coin" button (formerly known as the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button), you get a second player as Ms PacMan, controlled with WASD.

Ah, two players on the same keyboard? Takes me back a while. I seem to recall the most I ever had was four; one on ZXCFG*, one on <>/'Enter, one on arrows and RCtrl, and one on the keypad. This was in the heady days of early '90s RISC OS multiplayer, of course. The fun we had...

*to young kids: before WASD (and indeed, mouse control for games) became popular, the default controls, on a UK keyboard, were always Z X / ' and Return, sometimes with Spacebar too.

[Clive Galway]

Speccy controls

Nah mate, your standard speccy config was QA, OP and SPACE IIRC.

ZX, /' and ENTER was the Elite (As in Braben and Bell) layout.

[Quirkafleeg]

Elite layout

A, S, X, <, >, ?, Space.

[bluesxman]

eh?

I have strong memories of QAOP being the default controls in most games (for single player, of course)

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool

Way to go google, that was just very coooool :)

Oh to reminisce about older times....

[Anonymous Coward]

More JavaScript

Check out:

http://chiptune.com (Workbench → Demos → SOTB)

http://www.windoof.org

[TkH11]

long time..

Haven't played this game in 25 years and even then didn't play it much because other people were always playing it in the arcade on the seafront!

48 hours isn't way long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Galaga - FTW!

n/t

[david 12]

How does this work?

Some one technical please explain the technology?

By the way, those odd xz key control combinations etc are because IBM moved the function keys from the left of the keyboard (IBM PC) to where they "belong" on an IBM keyboard - over the keys. On the original IBM keyboard for controlling games you had the function keys on the left, and the numeric keypad on the right, leaving the letter keys for menu commands.

[Parax]

Available after the headline time period...

It is likely that this will still be available after the headline 48hrs via the google doodles site:

http://www.google.com/logos/

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone else not see this coming?...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10153286.stm

Google Pac-Man eats up work time

The Pac-Man game Google put on its home page gobbled up almost five million hours of work time, suggests a study. (...)

The statistics on how many people played and for how long were gathered by software firm Rescue Time. It makes time-tracking software that keeps an eye on what workers do and where they go online. (...)