Google brings back Pac-Man on Maps for April Fools’ Day
Like previous years, Google has decided to follow the tradition on this year’s April Fools’ Day too. The search giant has converted its Maps app and web service into a version of Pac-Man. It has added “Ms. Pac-Man” to Google Maps to celebrate April Fools’ Day that allows you to convert your neighbourhood and surrounding areas into a Ms. Pac Man level.
For those unfamiliar, Ms. Pac-Man is an arcade video game from the Golden Age. It was released in 1981 with a female protagonist, new mazes designs, and several other improved gameplay changes over the original Pac-Man. Ms. Pac-Man went on to become the most successful American-produced arcade game, selling 115,000 arcade cabinets.
Recreated in all its 8-bit glory, the game is complete with arcade theme music, ghosts, bonus fruit and colorful archnemeses Pinky, Blinky, Inky and Clyde. To find Ms. Pac-Man, open up your Google Maps app and click on the pink button on the right. While on Android, you will be taken to a random location, some iOS users claimed that they could select anywhere they wanted to play. On the web version, you can turn on Ms. Pac-Man by clicking a button in the bottom left; the arrow keys are then used to control your character.
Unlike previous years, there may not be as many features as last year’s, but it’s still fun to play nevertheless. However, this time though instead of navigating a maze, the players need to race through city streets to eat up the blinking dots. Users can enjoy this feature until April 4, the company said.
While players get five lives to survive, you can just start all over again if you run out of lives. You can also sign in to your Google account to save your top score on a leaderboard and share it with friends.
This isn’t the first time Google has introduced such a gameplay. It was in 2015, when Google had first introduced a Pac-Man game inside the Maps app on April Fools’ Day.
