Lemmings and Pac-Man Shown Off on MacBook Pro's Touch Bar

Monday December 12, 2016 10:52 AM PST by Juli Clover
Since the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar was released, developers have been finding increasingly clever, if impractical, things to do with the tiny LCD screen built into the MacBook Pro's keyboard.

It's been turned into a piano and used to run Doom, and now two new games have been shown off on the Touch Bar -- Pac-Man and Lemmings.

Pac-Bar, a version of Namco's popular Pac-Man game, was designed for the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar by 15-year-old developer Henry Franks. The game, written in Swift and available on Github, features Pac-Man gameplay on a horizontal line using the arrow keys for controls. Mashable's Raymond Wong has a video of Pac-Bar in action:


Over the weekend, Developer Erik Olsson wrote a Lemmings game for the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, which can be seen running in a video he posted on Twitter.

Lemmings for Touch Bar, based on 1991 puzzle-platform game Lemmings, features lemmings walking back and forth on the display and reacting to touch. Olsson shared the source code for Lemmings on Github.


Apple does not approve of games running on the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar, based on its strict Developer Guidelines. According to Apple, the Touch Bar should be used as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, delivering contextual controls for apps, instead of as a display.

54 comments


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555gallardo
32 months ago
I remember the days when a MacBook Pro was targeted at Pros.
Rating: 16 Votes
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doelcm82
32 months ago

I remember the days when a MacBook Pro was targeted at Pros.

Yep. And pros hate fun.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Sylvan
32 months ago
I feel like the touch bar would be better utilized if it displayed the dock. That would free up a lot of screen real estate.
Rating: 6 Votes
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dannyyankou
32 months ago
Looking forward to the sarcastic comments that take a fun little game by some random developer too seriously
Rating: 6 Votes
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mw360
32 months ago
It is extremely unfair to blame Apple for what 3rd party devs are doing with this thing, but on the other hand, I'm happy to let logic slide and just watch Apple burn.

The Touch Bar could be a cute and handy addition to the standard keyboard, if only they had marketed like that. Instead they embarrassed themselves and their professional fans by blowing years of anticipation on that awful never-ending dirge of a presentation, trying to con us into thinking this would somehow revolutionise professional workflows. That is the reason this thing is a bad joke, because it's the only thing Apple has given to professional users in over three years and they expected us to lap it up like drooling morons.

As a 'one more thing,' it probably would have gone down a treat, but as the showpiece of their professional strategy for the next few years? Yeah, it deserves coverage like this.
Rating: 6 Votes
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sahnjuro
32 months ago
Someone will figure out to display porn or pornographic images on the touch bar

So may be touch bar won't be completely bloody useless
Rating: 5 Votes
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Spectrum
32 months ago
I love the lemmings demo. Showing my age maybe...
Rating: 5 Votes
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mainstreetmark
32 months ago

I remember the days when a MacBook Pro was targeted at Pros.


Every thread someone has to say stuff like this?
Rating: 5 Votes
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Applebot1
32 months ago
Telling you the touch bar will soon have its own App Store :p
Rating: 4 Votes
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keysofanxiety
32 months ago

I remember the days when a MacBook Pro was targeted at Pros.


Yes, because Pac-Man running on the Touchbar was built, designed, and marketed by Apple as being one of the main features. It wasn't, say, just a little bit of fun created by a 15 year old developer.
Rating: 4 Votes
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