Google and Pac-Man Thirtieth Anniversary

I often like the various artistic renderings of the Google logo on its primary search page in honor of various events, birthdays, and other significant days. Today's may be my favorite yet: the Google logo is presented as a working Pac-Man game in honor of the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. I remember when this game came out and the phenomenon that it was and still is today. This rendering of the Google logo as a working Pac-Man game is a fitting tribute to the significance of this game in video game history, is nicely nostalgic, and is both fun and technically interesting in its dynamic nature.

Here is a screen snapshot of the search page when it first comes up. Using the arrow keys allows one to actually play the game on the Google logo-based maze.



When you click on the button that normally says "I'm feeling lucky" (but says "Insert Coin" today), you get the opportunity to have two players play with the second player being Ms. Pacman if you had already started playing.



According to the Official Google Blog post Celebrating PAC-MAN's 30th Birthday, this Pac-man Google logo has earned the right to be present for two days. Even when Google's Pac-Man logo is gone, the effect of Pac-Man on pop culture even today is evident by searching for "free Pac-man" on the Google search engine.

The only problem with all of this is that I got caught up in playing Pac-Man again and forgot what it was that I had gone to the Google search engine to search for in the first place!