Pac-Man 30th Anniversary! on Google

Who has been on Google’s homepage today? Well, if you haven’t you should open up a new window and cruise on over to Google.com.

Google, which has a long history of alerting its home page doodle to mark significant anniversaries and events, has transformed the homepage’s Google logo into a playable version of the 1980s popular video game. The small yellow Pac-Man must travel around a maze, eating up dots while trying to avoid being attacked by the ghosts.

Web users can still perform a search through Google but if your tempted by the game, click the “Insert coin” button (wait a few seconds for the game to load) and begin playing. Notice that the islands spell out G-O-O-G-L-E.

Why is Pac-Man on Google today? In honor of Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary of the old-school game.

The original name of Pac-Man was “Pakku-Man” in Japan. In America, the original title was to be “Puck-Man” but game makers decided against this game for the possible vandalism that could occur.

The sound effect as Pac-Man moves around eating the dots is “paku-paku,” which is the onomatopoeic sound effect of opening an closing the mouth.

This game took over a year to develop by a team of 10 and was release in Japan on May 22nd, 1980.

Google equipped the doodle on their homepage with the game’s unique characteristics from the original game such as the distinct personalities of the ghosts Inky, Blinking, Pinky, and Clyde and re-creating programming bugs from the original game, like a “kill screen’ on level 256.

Now, make sure you don’t get caught playing at work!

Pac-Man Videos:

Billy Mitchell – World Champion Youtube Video
This is the greatest Pac-Man player of all time. He is the only person to have set the perfect Pac-Men score of 3,333,360.

Remi Gaillard – French Prankster Youtube Video
Gaillard terrorizes French shoppers in a real-life version of the arcade game

Optical Illusion – Pac-Man Style Youtube Video
Gotta see this!

Pac-Man – Pitch Invasion Youtube Video
Pac-Man and his ghost enemies invade the field.

* Image by popculturegeek.com