Halloween 2019: Google Doodle Celebrates Spooky Holiday with Interactive Animal Game
Today's Google Doodle, on October 31, celebrates Halloween with an interactive animal-themed game. Google users can click on orange doors to reveal animals often associated with Halloween, such as an owl and a tarantula.
There are seven doors in total, each revealing either an owl, bat, tarantula, wolf, octopus or a jaguar. Once face to face with the animal, Google users choose either a trick or a treat, which will reveal a fun animation or a fun fact, respectively.
For example, choosing the door to the left of the screen reveals a wolf. If a user chooses a trick, the wolf will play basketball, but if the user chooses a treat, the animation will reveal the following fact: "Howling is just one way we wolves communicate. We're pros at body language and facial expression."
Once you meet the animal, the orange door will go dark and the light above the door will switch off. Additionally, there are lots of interactive features in the Halloween Google Doodle. Users can click on a pumpkin, a chimney, a weather vane and more, to produce various animated results. Today's Google Doodle also comes with appropriately spooky music.
Why did Google choose these animals? Each of the animals featured is linked to Halloween in some way. Owls are nocturnal and often associated with witches, bats are thought to transform into vampires, tarantulas are a common fear, wolves are associated with howling at the moon, an octopus can be linked to the legend of the Kraken, and a jaguar is a version of the black cat, often linked to witches.
The Google Doodle was created by a Trick or Treat team. The Art Lead was Lydia Nichols and the animation was done by Stan Cameron, Alyssa Winans, and Lydia Nichols. The music and sound was by Silas Hite.
The Halloween Google Doodle will be on screens across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the U.K., Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Czechia, Slovakia, Russia, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, and Peru.
Google often celebrates Halloween with a Google Doodle. In 2012, the Halloween Google Doodle was similar to today's in that it invited users to open a door to reveal a ghost or ghoul as if they were trick or treating. The 2001 Halloween Google Doodle was much simpler, with the Google logo decorated with a ghost, pumpkin and a cat, and no interactive features. In 1999, Google replaced the two "o"s in its name with pumpkins.
