Tomorrow will mark the 30th Anniversary of the arcade game Pac-Man. In celebration, Google have changed their logo but, instead of the usual way they change the Google logo, to mark the Pac Man anniversary the logo is an “interactive doodle”, aka a playable logo. Yup that’s right, head over to Google.com and you can play Pac-Man from within the logo. The word Google makes up some of the walls you’d find in the traditional game. Senior user experience designer Marcin Wichary worked with Google doodler Ryan Germick to create the finished Google doodle. The game marks the first interactive doodle from the company and features 255 levels, with a 256th kill screen.
Despite being 30 years old and not as advanced as other games such as Halo, Call of Duty etc, it’s still very popular. Over the years, various versions of the game have been released, including Mrs Pac Man and even a Pac Man platformer. Today the game is also available on Apple’s iPhone and iPad amoung other devices. Initially the game was released in Japan by Namco Bandai but, was rejected by the US as the original name was Puck Man and the US were worried that the P “would chip off the cabinet and look like an F”.
I still like pacman, after all these years its still top drawer gaming fun!