Pac-Man on Google

[DaBigE]

Anyone else noticed the new layer on Google Maps?

[NE2]

I noticed that it automatically took me to the new interface just to show me this dumb feature.

[1995hoo]

Anyone else noticed the new layer on Google Maps?

I was about to come mention it when I saw your post. Interesting gimmick. The controls seem less precise than I'd like. Hitting the arrow key at the last second doesn't always result in Pac-Man changing direction.

[Big John]

A day too early for this?

[DaBigE]

A day too early for this?

It's already Wednesday in some parts of the world. I'm not sure when this went live, though.

[Alex]

Already wasted 30 minutes playing it! 

It mostly converts streets, though I did get part of Kirkwood Hwy in DE to turn into part of the maze for Pac Man.

[SSOWorld]

Got killed right on my downtown street!

[1995hoo]

I tried using an area of downtown DC near the White House and an area of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Both wound up being seriously confounding at times due to some tight circles and other odd features. The one in Bay Ridge included two stretches of dots I simply could not seem to reach no matter what I did.


Edited to add: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon proved to be brutally difficult. Couldn't clear the level.

[DaBigE]

Edited to add: The Magic Roundabout in Swindon proved to be brutally difficult. Couldn't clear the level.

I was just about to say Pac-Man roundabouts are rather tricky.

[hotdogPi]

I still have the old Google Maps, and I cannot play it.


Question: Do the ghosts move like they should (like in the arcade version and the original Pacman Google Doodle)? An easy way to test it is if the ghosts reverse direction after 7 seconds. If they do, they probably move correctly.

Ghosts alternate between scatter and chase modes during gameplay at predetermined intervals. These mode changes are easy to spot as the ghosts reverse direction when they occur. Scatter modes happen four times per level before the ghosts stay in chase mode indefinitely. Good players will take full advantage of the scatter periods by using the brief moment when the ghosts are not chasing Pac-Man to clear dots from the more dangerous areas of the maze. The scatter/chase timer gets reset whenever a life is lost or a level is completed. At the start of a level or after losing a life, ghosts emerge from the ghost pen already in the first of the four scatter modes.

For the first four levels, the first two scatter periods last for seven seconds each. They change to five seconds each for level five and beyond. The third scatter mode is always set to five seconds. The fourth scatter period lasts for five seconds on level one, but then is only 1/60th of a second for the rest of play. When this occurs, it appears as a simple reversal of direction by the ghosts. The first and second chase periods last for 20 seconds each. The third chase period is 20 seconds on level one but then balloons to 1,033 seconds for levels two through four, and 1,037 seconds for all levels beyond–lasting over 17 minutes! If the ghosts enter frightened mode, the scatter/chase timer is paused. When time runs out, they return to the mode they were in before being frightened and the scatter/chase timer resumes. This information is summarized in the following table (all values are in seconds):

Mode	Level 1	Levels 2—4	Levels 5+
Scatter	7	7	5
Chase	20	20	20
Scatter	7	7	5
Chase	20	20	20
Scatter	5	5	5
Chase	20	1033	1037
Scatter	5	1/60	1/60
Chase	indefinite	indefinite	indefinite

...

Each ghost has a fixed target tile it tries to reach while in scatter mode.

...

In chase mode, Pinky behaves as he does because he does not target Pac-Man's tile directly. Instead, he selects an offset four tiles away from Pac-Man in the direction Pac-Man is currently moving.

...

Inky uses the most complex targeting scheme of the four ghosts in chase mode. He needs Pac-Man's current tile/orientation and Blinky's current tile to calculate his final target. To determine Inky's target, we must first establish an intermediate offset two tiles in front of Pac-Man in the direction he is moving. Now imagine drawing a vector from the center of the red ghost's current tile to the center of the offset tile, then double the vector length by extending it out just as far again beyond the offset tile. The tile this new, extendend vector points to is Inky's actual target as shown above.

(All information in the quote applies to the arcade version. The original Google Doodle kept this information true, but most flash versions of Pacman do not.)

[Alps]

I found downtown Savannah to be my favorite so far. It converts all the back alleys so you end up with a gigantic grid of dots that takes forever to get through. Hard to die, but hard to succeed.

[Zeffy]

I just did it in the some project-y area in Manhattan's East Side. (Stuyvesant Town I guess it's called?) All the mini streets and whatnot turn into a crazy level.

[formulanone]

Monte Carlo worked, Rome and Vatican have a few spots that a tricky to navigate.

Picking out a shopping center in Hollywood, Florida really makes for a toughie.

[Big John]

Randomly sent to the Taj Mahal area.  Very hard with the patterns there.

[Duke87]

I actually managed to clear a level at the 7-way intersection in Murietta, PA. Although the ghost pen appears in the one spoke that does not have an opposing spoke, so it takes some really nimble timing to nab the dots up there behind it!

[roadman65]

Sucks for me as it will not let me make turns.  Each time I am a sitting duck for those ghosts to eat me and when I am energized I cannot turn to reach them for me to gain points.

Bad response for turns and the fact you cannot use your mouse to make turns either sucks more.

[vtk]

Sucks for me as it will not let me make turns.  Each time I am a sitting duck for those ghosts to eat me and when I am energized I cannot turn to reach them for me to gain points.

Bad response for turns and the fact you cannot use your mouse to make turns either sucks more.

Yeah for me, the arrow keys had a terrible response time (about a full second) if they worked at all.

[empirestate]

Sucks for me as it will not let me make turns.  Each time I am a sitting duck for those ghosts to eat me and when I am energized I cannot turn to reach them for me to gain points.

Bad response for turns and the fact you cannot use your mouse to make turns either sucks more.

Yeah for me, the arrow keys had a terrible response time (about a full second) if they worked at all.

It would be extra fun if you had to obey real-world one ways and turn restrictions.

[roadman65]

One moment I hit the right arrow and it went left.

[1995hoo]

I tried playing it again in a place with no roundabouts. Streets that don't run straight up-down or side-side on the computer screen can be problematic because it's not always clear which arrow key you need to hit to make it turn. I can only surmise it has something to do with the diagonal angle.

This thing was all over the local news last night. Jim Vance on the local NBC affiliate said, "Have you ever wanted to play Pac-Man through the streets of DC? (pause) Yeah, me either."

[jeffandnicole]

One moment I hit the right arrow and it went left.

Your keyboard is upside down.

[roadman65]

Or it like to think so.  Maybe I should hit left and see if it goes right or up to go down.  Then we will know.

[ET21]

Did the Chicago loop, was able to get to level 8 twice

[triplemultiplex]

It seems to need a very high road density and I was disappointed when I tried to get it to turn a system interchange into a Pacman map.  Seems to only like city streets.

[tchafe1978]

I tried playing it in downtown Madison and Milwaukee, and both places it said the streets weren't dense enough. I kept getting redirected to some city in Germany with all sorts of odd-angled streets that didn't run north-south or east-west. Made it very challenging to say the least.