A Playable PAC-MAN On Google Doodle 286
Kilrah_il and several other readers made sure we noted Google's tribute to PAC-MAN on its 30th anniversary — a playable game implemented in JavaScript. "'To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it's too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the "Insert Coin" button or just wait for a few seconds.' There is also an Easter egg for those who want to recall one of the first multi-player games, but you'll have to RTFA to find it." This doodle may overshadow the Official PAC-MAN 30th Anniversary Destination.
Multiplayer Google Doodle (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a friend on hand (or some serious ambidextrous skills....) click "Inser Coin" twice and use the WASD keys to control MsPacman!
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Re:Multiplayer Google Doodle (Score:5, Funny)
Don't cross the stre^H^H^H^H pacmen!
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I don't think it's an issue of ambidextrous skills -- it's trivially easy to control both of them -- it's dividing attention between the two long enough to play both effectively that is the issue.
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Aaah, I was wondering why the "," "a", ";", and "h" keys were causing her to move!
Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, in 7 years we'll be playing Crysis in the google doodle.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
And in 7 years, you still won't be able to get more than 24 FPS out of the cinematics.
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I get 35fps out of the cinematics you insensitive clod!
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The opening one, in the Jet, you can get lots of frames per second - but watch their lips closesly, either it was put together terribly or what, but their lips jump around like its choppy and laggy, like its not running at anything higher than 20 fps.
...And yet it's still cooler (Score:5, Insightful)
...And yet it's still very likely cooler than anything you've ever accomplished.
Seriously, I'm sure that the engineers at Google had about 2,741,288 more productive things they could have been doing than this, but they did it anyway because it was fun. It was probably some guy that that churned it out in his spare time. It sure is easy to cast stones at other people's endeavors from your comfortable armchair, isn't it? Tell you what, get off your butt and do something you think is neat in your spare time, let us pick it apart for being "meh" compared to professionally developed products, and then we'll see if you are so quick to criticize again.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
The ghosts don't stay blue forever. They work just fine.
Sure, they had to compromise on the map to make it spell "Google". Oh well.
The ghost logic is supposedly the same as in the original game. It's possible that it doesn't work as well on this map, though.
Excuse me? Are you too much of a not-hardcore classic gamer to have the mental capacity understand the GP's very simple statement? If it's not clock-cycle-perfectly-identical to the original arcade box, it's COMPLETELY AND WHOLLY WORTHLESS and a waste of our precious, precious time.
Time which could be better spent tweaking MAME so that it renders Pac-Man down to the nearest billionth of a second in timing accuracy. Or time which could be better spent scouring the internet for more replacement parts for our pristine arcade Pac-Man games. Geez. Don't you understand ANYTHING about how pedantic classic gamers work?
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Productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Productivity (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, how can you NOT play once you see it?
Friday (Score:2)
I'm sure that's why they saved it for Friday.
Productivity (Score:5, Informative)
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Now let's calculate how much potential productivity is lost to Facebook. So, let's see: from Facebook's own statistics [facebook.com] it's users spend over 500 billion minutes per month. Assuming a very conservative 5% of that time could/should be spent being productive (the other 95% we'll assume is a reasonable quantity of recreation), that's 25 billion minutes a month. Divide by 60 for hours, divide my 40 for work week, divide by 51 for year, divide by 45 for a lifetime of work and...
Over 4,500 entire lifetimes of pote
I wonder what theodp thinks? (Score:2)
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The control scheme is pretty complicated and you do also have to keep track of 4 ghosts at the same time you are moving around. Those damn Namcoers are too smart for their own good.
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Quite another challenge to play both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man at once, though.
FYI iPhone (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it works on iPhone. Not very well, mind you, but it is controllable with swipes.
Have a Nice Day, Adobe!
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Have a nice day indeed, since it still uses a Flash object for sounds.
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Hah! Good catch.
I am in such a habit of silencing such things that I hadn't even noticed. But you're right, it was silent without me doing anything about it. (Of course, for me that's a feature, but YMMV.)
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I was going to ask you how you got to it on the iPhone since by default you're sent to the Mobile Google page, but I found the "Classic" link on the bottom. And what do you know, it does in fact work on iPhone. Cool.
...Until the browser decided I double-tapped while trying to move around a couple of corners to avoid a ghost, and zoomed in to the bottom of the screen.
Oops. Deerooreeroo whoop-whoop!
(Well, without the sound on the iPhone. Since it doesn't do Flash.)
NSFW (Score:3, Informative)
Noticed it at work this morning.
Told a few people.
Poster should note that there is SOUND!
Sporadically every now and then I hear Pac-Man going on a few cubes away. lol.
Mute your sound before going to Google if your in an Office setting... Unless they are cool enough to let you play video games at work. My bosses are a bit sticky about that.
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If "sound" is NSFW, you need a new job.
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On one of my previous jobs my contract was terminated because I was watching FOX News while eating my lunchtime sandwich.
Yeah I know - FOX. But I don't think watching MS-NBC would have made any difference - they were cutting contractors and costs. They also told me "You are eating too much food at the lunch buffet." I only weigh 140 pounds - I don't eat much. :-| - Anyway.... DON'T give your a-hole boss an excuse to do the same to you! Turn down the Pac-Man sound
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"Sound" isn't NSFW, but video games are.
I am pretty sure sound from video games are a dead giveaway to your boss that your playing video games.
Since most people are not allowed to play video games at work...
In which case you might need to start looking for a new job.
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My work doesn't let us have speakers, you insensative clod!
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Why would you have speakers on in an office environment anyway?
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cisco unity voicemail to email?
Thats the reason my users all want speakers, or so they claim...
Users (Score:2)
From the point of view of a serious organization, I don't think it was such a good choice - a large part of Google's audience are people who just use the computer to work, can barely use it, and any deviation from standard behavior prompts panic and a call to help desk (us!) to ask why the hell did the computer start making noises and playing games by itself, and how we should run there to run an antivirus check and preferably take the computer outside and burn it with a flame thrower lest the nasty virus s
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Wow, they let you use flamethrowers?! That's a lot more fun than pulling the drives and tossing the rest in the dumpster.
Very cool. (Score:3, Informative)
It's not entirely done in JavaScript - they have an off-screen Flash applet that handles the sound.
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In that case, it is a shame they did not do the sounds using HTML5. It would be nice to a reworked version using HTML Audio.
HTML5 audio deficiencies (Score:4, Interesting)
In that case, it is a shame they did not do the sounds using HTML5. It would be nice to a reworked version using HTML Audio.
I've been told HTML5's <audio> has five deficiencies:
I could be wrong; feel free to post links to web sites demonstrating how to overcome these deficiencies.
Productive Friday? Not! (Score:2)
Ah, well!
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You can hear your staff playing video games while you post on Slashdot? But I thought 3DRealms folded?
This triggers too many "Alarm sound" helpdesks (Score:3, Funny)
Having an "alarm sound" in google home page is not that wise decision, I got reports about people calling helpdesk tech support in order to report an "alarm sound", "its a virus?", "hijacked google home page, please run anti-spyware", etc, etc
Is PacMan that important to the general public? I agree is /. material, but for non-tech people I dont think it matters...
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no one gives a fuck about people who are that stupid.
Seriously, watch them abandon google
oh wait, they won't.
Google should do this more often.
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I've never worked helpdesk so I guess I'm not familiar with the magnitude of stupidity that is possible, but REALLY? People don't know what pacman is? Pacman is a cultural icon, everyone knows what it is in a similar way to tetris. I'm finding it hard to believe that non-techs would both be uninterested in pacman, and not even know what it is.
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Check out the Wikipedia page for links to the sources..:
In 1982 the song reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart..
There is a Pac-Man machine in the Smithsonian
94% of American consumers recognize Pac-Man
and of course, Pac-Man has been published for essentially every single platform that could possibly play it.
On a personal note:
My parents and my children recognize Pacman and recognized the sounds right away.
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Be careful here, MrJones...
I just found out that if you say anything negative about this that you'll get modded down pretty quickly.
Evidently, most readers here on /. don't think about the potential problems that something like this can cause because this is fun (and will mod anyone down who disagrees with them).
I personally have no problem with playing, but my rule is "first work, then play". You can then play harder with no guilt of having to stop playing to do the stuff you put off so you could play.
Jus
Javascript is evil (Score:5, Funny)
And I want to run a game programmed in Javascript on my computer WHY? I helped write a simulator for a PDP-10 that ran on a PDP-11 (36 bit machine on a 16 bit machine) 30+ years ago. And there was a concrete corporate need for it (we were modifying the Bliss-11 compiler which was written in Bliss-10). And even though I like PacMan (lord knows how many quarters I plugged into it at the local video game parlors in the 80's) I would still pause before I open my machine(s) up to running Javascript games.
If only from the simple perspective that an interpreted, garbage collected language (such as Javascript) is inherently less efficient than a compiled language (C, Pascal, whatever) -- and it therefore is going to burn more CPU cycles than are required to perform the functionality the game provides. AND IT IS THEREFORE NOT GREEN!
The goal of programmers (world-wide) should not be on "how do I implement something clever and cool". It should instead be on how do I reduce the CO2 footprint of my program? It is a sad state when one is promoting programs which may increase wasteful expenditure of energy (via Javascript). If /. is a "good" forum, should they not be promoting good directions?
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Go away, Conserva-Troll
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I think that C is not green either, since it's really more efficient to code the game in assembly code that can be inlined in the web page.
But assembly still consumes those excess cycles. You know what's really green? Not playing Pac-Man.
Certainly, playing Pac-Man as it was originally---as an arcade game with a dedicated CRT monitor---is out of the question.
Actually, I'm a little concerned with your comment up there, because it seems like there may have been some CPU cycles that were wasted in your comment.
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Guess we'd better outlaw Flash and any video codecs that aren't built into the hardware, too, huh? And ban everything but assembly languages! Compilers, linkers, interpreters? Those are for pansies! Go green, code on the bare metal!
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Newsflash: your laptop probably pulls about 20W no matter what you're doing on it (and most of that is lost to conversion costs) and even running at 100% CPU would probably only have a handful of watts more. However you lose about 30W constantly every time the battery needs to charge. So technically, if you were *THAT* worried about being green, you'd be unplugging your battery whenever you use your laptop and the battery is already fully charged. Desktop systems are more power-hungry too. Hell, your di
Question for the lawyers.... (Score:2, Interesting)
One lingering questions about this: Did Google have to get permission from copyright holders to make this game? I'm assuming that it would be a no-brainer to let google create this game, because anyone with a financial interest in the game would certainly welcome a free ad of this magnitude, but what are the rights of Namco, et. al. regarding this now 30 year old game? Do they still "own" the game-proper? What about the soundtrack?
This is awesome! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is awesome! (Score:4, Informative)
The Google PacMan kill screen [twitpic.com] for you
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time for a new monitor (Score:3, Funny)
high score (Score:2)
even cooler would be if they would save the top 10 highest scores.
Thanks for crushing my self-esteem, Google (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been struggling with forms and trees and autocompletes and getting the css to look the same across all browsers and then I see that.
I'm amazed at what they were able to do in Javascript...if I had 1/10th of that skill I'd be done with my project by now.
Clearly it's time for me to put in an application at McDonald's...
How long before somebody bundles it in a download? (Score:3, Insightful)
Save Complete Page in Firefox doesn't get even close to all the pieces. This must be preserved, to be played every year on May 21st. Is there a save Addon that can get it all automatically or do I have to spelunk in my cache?
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
Insert coin twice to enable multiplayer.
One player is controlled via arrow keys, the other by wasd.
Re:So... (Score:5, Informative)
They have a bug in the Pacman game.
If you try to do a Google search in the search bar after you're done playing the game, the WASD keys don't work. Even after you do the search from the first page, and the first page of results shows up, you still can't use those keys.
I'm betting that "pcmn" is going to be one of today's hottest Google trends.
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
I bet that most people will say this is the most awesome thing Google has done all year.
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
This is the most awesome thing Google has done all year!
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shoot.. modded that down.
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It is advertising Pac-Man.
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It is advertising Pac-Man.
Really? Where on that page do I click to buy the game?
Oh. I can't?
Ok...where do I click to go to the game's homepage so I can buy it?
What? That's not there either?
What a useless advertisement.
Oh....I guess it's not an advertisement after all....
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't know what it's advertising. I don't know what the punch-the-monkey ads were advertising either!
It's part of Google's core values not to poinlessly annoy people on the web. The strength of their business was that they never did this. Google text ads were revolutionary - no flashing lights, no noise, no games. This goes against everything I like about Google. But, yay PacMan?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is the 30th anniversary of a game that was huge during the most formative years of the average google employee (and most likely the average /. users). I think we can all let it slide for 2 days.
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I don't know what it's advertising. I don't know what the punch-the-monkey ads were advertising either!
But the punch-the-monkey ads were, in fact, ads. This is not.
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They weren't annoying becuase they were ads! They were annoying because someone wassticking distracting nonsense in the way of what I was trying to do.
I have fucking PacMan on MAME on my PC at home. I played it last week, even. It doesn't belong on my search engine.
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Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I thought that at first - I had a frantic co-worker at my desk asking "why is my computer making pac-man noises!" this morning (it had loaded up and started playing in the background).
Then I went over to her desk, looked around for a little bit, figured out it was the Google banner, ate a couple of ghosts, and it was fine.
Seriously, we all need to learn to laugh a bit more. You can't be all srs bizness all the time, a silly little temporary Google banner will not kill you.
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True, and good point. I love Pac Man. Like almost everyone of my generation, I probably put enough quarters in Pac Man to have purchased a full stand up version of the game.
However, I don't want it jumping up in my face when I least expect it...most of all while I'm trying to concentrate at work.
They should have put the artsy logo on there, then taken you to the game when you click on the logo...not had it just start playing the music and such when you go to their main page.
Some work environment are sensi
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
"Help my computer is making alarm sounds I think something broke! Here listen to this! *holds phone to computer speaker*"
*facepalm*
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If you've ever types "srs bizness", you probably need a little more serious business.
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
If you can't be silly while posting to Slashdot from work, when can you be silly?
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
+1 Anal Retentive.
In all seriousness, you have the sound enabled on your PC in a professional environment?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I simply can't believe we've come this far and we STILL don't have a mute button as a standard item on web browsers. By Lucifer's beard!
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It's hard to believe because it's not true; nearly every company includes some sort of media bar on the keyboard, at least for sound.
Beyond that, it's not the point. Web browsers should at least have a mute button for the whole browser, built in, if not on a per-tab basis.
Headphones++ (Score:3, Funny)
No kidding. I have headphones plugged in always, even when I'm not using them. That way when I click on a troll link, I'm the only one that will hear, "Hey, everybody! I'm looking at gay porno!"
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Let's not forget the golden rule of business: NO FUN ON FRIDAY!
Or any other day, for that matter. Why would someone on an office setting have the volume turned on? The normal Windows noise is enough to drive you to distraction...
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I usually keep my work computer muted unless I need audio. I picked up that habit after being rickrolled about a billion times.
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People in your office should grow up and have a little fun....
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I have always used Google because it's quiet. Google had the fastest-loading, least-busy homepage. It was a place to go for a web search, not some damn "portal" thing. And the ads served with the serch results are low-key and non-intrusive. That's what makes Google good - but not today.
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Works just fine for me using Firefox 3.6.3 on Win7.
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Easily the coolest Google Doodle of all time.
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Works here on Firefox 3.6.3 (Mac). Maybe you're blocking the javascript?
Re:How is this impressive in any way? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is the celebration of a load bearing pillar in gaming history, not the fact that JavaScript was used to do it.
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Exactly. How many people knew Pacman was 30 years old today? Probably not a lot. How many people know about Pacman? Quite a few. It's a fun gesture to educate people how much things have changed, bringing back the nostalgic feeling of playing the game while showing how far we've come, with web searches and the internet in general. I think it spurs some reflection on the subject matter, but thats just my experience.
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It's also the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back today.
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I'm a serious collector of Pac-Man memorabilia (I once paid over $100 for a box of Pac-Man cereal and my wedding next month will be Pac-Man themed.) and I had no idea it was Pac-Man's 30th anniversery today!
Thanks google!
BTW, if anyone has book 3 or 5 of the Pac-Man cross stitch patterns then I'd love to have them! (I have books 1, 2, 4, and 6.).
Very. (Score:2)
Despite what you may have been told when you were a kid, your level of approval holds approximately zero value for anybody.
But do go on fortifying your stick in the mud. We'll leave it right where it is. Promise.
Anyway, the point here was "Fun," I believe. As much as Google's monolithic structure worries me, they do know how to let their employees out to stretch their Happy! That improves the world.
So Thumbs Up. I just spent fifteen minutes eating dots and loving it!
-FL