(CNN Philippines) — Google has transformed your neighborhood streets into Pac-Man video game. No, this is not an April Fool’s joke.
The Internet giant added today (April 1) the option to use its Google Maps interface as the chomping grounds of the 34 year-old gaming icon.
The game can be accessed by clicking on the Pac-Man icon on the lower left side of the Google Maps interface. Google has made it accessible to desktop computers and mobile devices with the latest app update.
Users play a full-fledged reproduction of the game: Pac-Man eats dots (and the occasional fruit) while being chased by four ghosts — Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. You are given five “lives” to reach the highest possible score. The only difference? Real-world thoroughfares become Pac-Man’s maze.
The game is simple enough on areas with grid like patterns. It gets more challenging when you play in districts with circular roads and wide avenues, like Mandaluyong’s Maysilo Circle or Marikina’s Liwasang Kalayaan.
Pac-Man originally came out as an arcade game in Japan on May 22, 1980. The game was released in the U.S. in October of that same year.
It was not the first popular game to hit western shores —Space Invaders and Asteroids had already been established on the arcade scene. But Pac-Man was different: Its gameplay was entirely different from the previous two, which were both “shooters.”
Legend has it that the video game’s original name was “Puck Man” — but the game’s U.S. distributors changed it to Pac-Man over fear that people would vandalize the game’s arcade casing and change the P to an F.
