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Google celebrates Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary with first-ever interactive doodle

By Alvin Soon - on 21 May 2010, 11:46am

Google celebrates Pac-Man's 30th Anniversary with first-ever interactive doodle

At the stroke of 12 midnight, 22nd of May, Google launches its first ever interactive doodle, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of one of the most recognized gaming icons in history, Pac-Man. With this doodle, users will be able to re-live the nostalgia and play the beloved game straight from the doodle which will be broadcasted on Google homepages across the world, including Singapore.

Yes, we're talking about play Pac-Man straight from the Google logo.

The interactive doodle will allow users to play the all-time favorite game by clicking on the "insert coin" button or when the game automatically starts after 10 seconds of waiting. To pay the homage that Pac-Man deserves as a ground-breaking innovation in the gaming world, Google equipped the doodle with many unique characteristics from the original Pac-Man game. From preserving the distinct personalities of the ghosts Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde (yes they have unique traits) to re-creating programming bugs from the original game, Sr. User Experience designer at Google, Marcin Wichary, along with Google doodler, Ryan Germick, remained as faithful to the spirit of Pac-Man as possible.

Users have 48 hours to challenge themselves to reach the 255th level until the doodle goes down at 12 midnight, Monday (24 May).

Just how accurate is Google's version to the original Pac-Man?

· All 255 levels of the original Pac-Man is available, include the garbled level 256 also known as the "kill screen"

· All original sounds, visuals and colors are used within the doodle

· There is a bug in the original Pac-Man game that results in Pac-Man sometimes going through a ghost unharmed. This is recreated in our game too

· Ms. Pac-Man even gets her own sounds and death sequence

Get some gaming nostalgia for yourself now at Google.com and turn on your speakers!

Update: Due to immense popularity, Google is now housing Pac-Man for good at http://www.google.com/pacman/ Yay!

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