
Here's one for all you vintage gamers (like me). Chris Marks has released v1.0 of his
Pac Man widget. It looks, behaves and sounds just like the machine I so fondly remember in the supermarket my mother shopped at when I was a kid. It's got a rather compact size, too, so it doesn't take up too much screen real estate. Use your keyboard's arrow keys to move Pac Man around the maze. My only complaint is about the volume. This widget is
loud! Seriously, turn your volume down first. But it's a lot of fun.
Update: Widget author Chris informs us that he has received a cease and desist from Namco, creators of Pac Man. Pity, it was a sweet widget. Drat!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
justin Williams said 12:08AM on 7-12-2005
Widget = dead.
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arkowi said 9:27AM on 7-08-2005
oh, then i guess namco is going to put out dashboard widgets...yeah...right. how stupid. guess what namco, there are 2 million copies of the mame rom floating around the internet. someone can write a mame widget and we will play all your games your party poopers.
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Scott said 9:46AM on 7-08-2005
Because, as we all know, a 20+ year old video game is very valuable intellectual property.
/sarcasm
Sounds like the author was giving it away for free, so it's not even like money was being made on it. If Namco had any forward thinking ability, they would have just bought the rights to the widget from the author and slapped their name on it to generate interest for their new stuff in the Mac comminuty.
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Dave Taylor said 10:16AM on 7-08-2005
Of course, you could reintroduce it as "Macman" or something, where the basic gameplay is the same, but there are enough differences that you can say you were clearly inspired by pacman. Gosh, I have a bunch of pacman and tetris clones and a quick search on any gaming site reveals games visibly inspired by all the classic arcade games. Bah! I really wanted to grab a copy of this one before it vanished! Pacman is one of the few arcade games I actually like... :-(
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LD said 10:44AM on 7-08-2005
Well, someone has a copy of this widget somewhere. All we need is to find a link.
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Chris said 11:35AM on 7-08-2005
Justin I had no idea you were the one behind the pac-man widget. I managed to grab it yesterday on pure chance while browsing for widget games. I have to say it is my favorite widget game. You did an excellent job. Shame that Namco (who knew they even made games still) are such tools.
Thanks for trying.
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S? Kuklau said 11:50AM on 7-08-2005
The least Namco could have done is republish the widget on their own.
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bertram said 12:05PM on 7-08-2005
will someone explain to the mentally challenged (me) what the difference is between playing it for free online and having it on your dashboard? i've played mr. neave's wonderful games online and had them on my desktop. why does namco all of a sudden have their panties in a wad because you can now have it in widget form?
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froopyloot said 12:23PM on 7-08-2005
Anyone got a torrent? ;)
~m
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boss sauce said 1:00PM on 7-08-2005
what about a MAME widget, and let folks bring whatever ROM's they own to the table...? if people are still playing namco's 25 year old game, it must have staying power, and they're right to protect their property.
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Stephen Rice said 1:19PM on 7-08-2005
Here is a link to an installer that still works as of 1:15 on Friday, July 8th.
http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/18116
That deserves some stars, doesn't it?
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Scott Gardner said 2:19PM on 7-08-2005
Better go grab the Asteroids widget before that goes bye-bye, too!
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LD said 5:13PM on 7-08-2005
I just made the "guts" of a widget for Pac-man. And by guts I mean a basic HTML page with proper files and whatnot.
The neat thing is, it has the capability to play a handful of different ROMs, though right now it's limited to Pac-man because I have no idea how to make a fully functional widget. I also have no graphics ability.
If anyone is interested in helping get it polished let me know. It uses MAME ROMs so could be distributed without the necessary ROM files, thus avoiding pissing off NAMCO.
Email me at larry dot davis at gmail dot com
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Mike said 8:11PM on 7-08-2005
It's DEFINETLY not at dashboardwidgets.com for download
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