Google Uses Flash for Game Sound on Home Page
I’m sure most everyone has already seen (and played) the new Pacman game that adorns the Google home page. This game is their first interactive doodle, which celebrates the 30th anniversary of Pacman. As usual, it’s a tightly coded, perfect little gem of an implementation. I can’t imagine the amount of testing and code review that went into this in order to get it to pass muster.
The game itself is coded in good old-fashioned Javascript and HTML4, also known as DHTML. The Javascript runs the game loop, and takes keyboard input to control the game. It moves GIF images around a playfield which is a simple HTML DIV containing the background playfield image and a bunch of GIFs for the ghosts and pellets.
Another amazing thing is that the game even works on an iPhone (sans sound). I imagine it uses click events to register direction movements by checking the click location relative to the player’s position.
One of the most interesting things, that most people won’t even notice, is that Google had to use Flash in order to give the game its sound. I believe then, this is the first time ever Flash has made it on the Google home page. I think that’s a milestone for Flash!
