May Issue 2010

In case you didn’t play it, or didn’t waste enough time playing it, or couldn’t get enough of it, or whatever other reason, Google’s playable Pac-Man doodle is now accessible anytime via this link.

Google had the Pac-Man game-doodle available for 48 hours on their homepage (a full 24 hours longer than usually allocated to doodles), but still couldn’t leave it there forever. So as a treat to those with addictive personalities and those who love the simple joy of 1980s video games, Google has created a special page for it.

On the Google blog, Marcin Wichary, senior designer and developer for the search giant, talked about creating this version of the classic video game.

Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include Pac-Man’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms Pac-Man joins the party and you can play together with someone else (Pac-Mac is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms Pac-Man using the WASD keys).

For those who want pure Pac-Man flexibility, the game can be downloaded to be played off-line as well. Mashable explains how to do that here.

So now you can feed your nostalgia, have fun and decrease your productivity whenever you want — and do it all with a friend.