Pac-Man

April Fools’ Day is often one of the more eventual days of the year for Google and other tech companies. This year appears to be no different as a variety of pranks have already appeared around the web. We’ve been analyzing them all, right as they come in, and have listed some of our favorites below. We’ll keep this list updated as more April Fools’ Day gags continue to roll in. We have feeling there will be no shortage of them either…

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Google has started the April Fools Day fun a bit early with a new Pac-Man easter egg allowing users to play the classic arcade game on the streets of Google Maps. Here’s how to do it:
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Developer Robert Muth successfully ported MAME to run natively inside of Google Chrome’s Native Client, after it saw a similar port run on the iPad roughly a year ago. For those unfamiliar, MAME is an emulator application that can recreate vintage video games to make them playable on newer platforms. Finally, you will be able to get your PacMan to load within Chrome.

Muth was able to achieve the port in a matter of four days, but explained that it was rather challenging. Head to Google Developers and learn the technical details regarding how this was achieved. In addition, for those unfamiliar with Native Client, Google breaks down the basics for executing the code. (via Engadget)

The port of MAME was relatively challenging; combined with figuring out how to port SDL-based games and load resources in Native Client, the overall effort took us about 4 days to complete.