Pac-Man Turns 45 And Google Celebrates With A Playable Spooky Doodle Halloween Surprise

Forty-five years ago, Pac-Man made his U.S. debut in October—and today for Halloween, Google is collaborating with Namco Bandai to present a playable Pac-Man Doodle with eight levels and four brand-new haunted house-themed maze layouts. It's a timely twist to an all-time classic game.

When one considers the core gameplay loop of Pac-Man, it really is the precursor to modern horror games despite the primitive graphics and Pac-Man's cartoony can-do attitude, so this is actually very thematically-fitting. Each of the four new maze designs reflects one of the four Pac-Man ghosts (Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde) and their personalities, and since Namco Bandai collaborated on these designs, this is basically a free, soft-canon Pac-Man expansion. It will remain playable for the duration of October 31st and November 1st on the Google Homepage, and from the Google Doodles afterward.

Whether you're a hardcore Pac-Man enjoyer or just want a quick diversion on your break between classes or during your shift today, the Pac-Man Halloween Google Doodle should prove a fun diversion. There's some fun characterization details in there, like Blinky being a sneakerhead—a trait he shares with another Namco-owned character, Tekken's Kazuya Mishima. Plus, the ending screen tributes a certain infamous glitch from the original Pac-Man release. If you do end up playing it, feel free to share your scores with us in the comments or on socials—you're entitled to one fake digital cookie if you beat my score of 62,770. I even made a playlist for the occasion, since the Doodle otherwise only plays sound effects. EDIT: The score is now 73,270. Catch me if you can!

Overall, it's hard not to find this Pac-Man tribute fairly charming, though it's not the only 45th Anniversary celebration we've seen for Pac-Man this year. Closer to the Japanese release date of May, we saw the Atari 2600+ Pac-Man Edition console release back in July this year.

For fans of more modern gameplay sensibilities, there's also the 3D platformer Pac-Man World 2 RePAC multi-platform release that dropped last month, serving as an expanded, enhanced re-release of 2002's Pac-Man World 2 that originally released for PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft Xbox. The PC versions of RePAC 1 and 2 also perform quite well, even on entry-level hardware.

I'm personally a huge fan of the original Pac-Man World and its sequel, as they're some of the most well-made 3D platformers of their time, so the RePACs are some of the easiest modern Pac-Man experiences to recommend besides Championship Edition 2 and Pac-Man 99. Sadly, the latter was a limited-time Switch Online release.

Image Credit: Google, Namco Bandai