Strap in for the in depth backstory on Google’s latest playable Halloween Doodle, which has a historical past stretching all the way in which again to the long-ago before-time 12 months of 2016.
You’re a cat. You’re additionally a wizard. There are ghosts, and also you combat them with magic.
Okay, that didn’t really take very lengthy.
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Picture: Google by way of Polygon
This 12 months’s Doodle is a direct sequel to 2016’s playable Magic Cat Academy Doodle, which sees a small black cat named Momo defending her college and her classmates towards a sequence of ghosts taking up the school rooms and kitchen. In that recreation, you combat ghosts in by drawing the symbols above their heads, which interprets to Momo waving her wand within the applicable gesture and firing off an anti-ghost spell. Momo is silent (is sensible, since cats don’t speak), however she’s nonetheless a charismatic character who faces her spirit adversaries with a grim little frown of dedication, and celebrates each accomplished stage with a cocky little wand-twirl and wink.
The brand new 2020 Doodle makes use of the very same mechanic and gestures. Solely the setting has modified — after Momo defeated the magically enlarged boss-ghost in 2016, it fell into the ocean and is now possessing sea life, a volcano, and even seemingly the water. The brand new model presents a few minor twists — a jellyfish defend and a twig assault to exchange the lightning bolt you in all probability wouldn’t wish to use underwater. However largely, the one adjustments are the setting, and a cat-fish captain ally who sails you into darkish waters.
Nonetheless, for these of us who replayed the 2016 recreation, the 2020 sequel is a stunning little Halloween deal with. Google introduced Momo again in 2017 for a little short film a few lonely ghost in search of her friendship. However whereas 2018’s spirit-collector Doodle game was ridiculously addictive, and 2019’s trick-or-treat advent calendar was mildly informative, they deserted Momo. It’s good to have her again in motion.
For followers of those video games, it’s value trying out Google’s posts about the Doodles, which embody the dev workforce credit, early gameplay artwork, particulars about the true creatures that impressed this 12 months’s antagonists, and a few playful improvement notes:
The unique idea for the sport concerned a magic cat making a soup that was so good, it raised the lifeless. Connecting soup to Halloween proved too summary, so the workforce shifted to the concept of a wizard college. This opened the door to a extra sturdy world full of fascinating characters and paw-some themes.
