Pac-Man to Live on at Google

By Ryan Fleming May 24, 2010

It was 30 years ago last week when Pac-Man originally made its debut in Japan. To celebrate, Google issued a new doodle – the first ever playable doodle – that allowed users to play the game using the arrow keys to control Pac-Man. Like the original game, the doodle was simple, and it was incredibly addicting. So much so that Google has decided to make Pac-Man a permanent feature of Google.

Today Google has announced that the game will remain available at www.google.com/pacman. The game will offer the standard Pac-Man experience, al 256 levels of it, and there is even an Easter Egg that allows users to add Ms. Pac-Man when they hit the “insert coin” button a second time.

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Pac-Man was conceived by Namco developer Toru Iwatani when he saw a half eaten pizza. From that simple idea, the most successful coin-operated game of all-time was born. It took eight developers 15 months to finish the game, and the result was an immediate success that attracted scores of new players to video games while quickly becoming apop-culture phenomena.

Versions of Pac-Man have been available online for years, but combining it with the most visited website in the world, means that Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde will be running for their lives for years to come.

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