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We are all familiar with the Google doodles, which appear on the Google.com homepage and around the corner when using search and are usually related to specific events or holidays. Today Google announced a new one that some of us have probably seen nodding around with its pixel-art graphics, and it’s a little different. Sure, these doodles sometimes contain small games, but the new Doodle Champion Island Games is Google’s biggest and most ambitious doodle yet: it’s an RPG.
Doodle Champion Island Games is a tribute to the 16-bit games of (some of our) young people while offering an introduction to Japanese culture, created in collaboration with the Japanese animation studio STUDIO4 ° C. The game drops you, a ninja cat named Lucky, on an island where you must beat seven sports-themed mini-games on behalf of your team, which you join after you arrive. Clearly inspired by the Olympics, the mini-games cover a range from archery and table tennis to skateboarding and a DDR-like interpretation of “artistic swimming”.
Victory can be surprisingly easy to achieve.
While the minigames are fun, the core gameplay runs out pretty quickly, unless you’re aiming for higher challenges or trying to unlock more of the many things hidden on the island. Most minigames that you should be able to beat on your first try, although a few of them may take a few to get off – some mechanics can be trickier than others. The rugby mini-game took me at least seven or eight strokes to make, while things like artistic swimming are very, very forgiving.
If you’re up for the challenge or particularly like any of the mini-games, you can choose to unlock more difficult versions of them and earn extra points for your team, or simply explore the surprisingly deep vibe of the island, helping its locals with things like handcrafted spring concrete and birthday parties. The game has a surprisingly hidden depth.
If you choose to explore the island further, I also have an important hint: you can actually move to different areas right from the map menu. Click on it in the corner and click on the icons, and you will run away charges time later if you try to unlock all the secret stuff and fully explore the island – although I admit I haven’t fully completed the game yet.
If I have one criticism, it’s the music, which seems a bit out of place to me. Between the high-quality, seemingly hand-drawn cutscenes and the depth of the island, the music not only feels repetitive, but a bit amateurish in production value, and doesn’t quite match the vibe. As a free browser-based game, beggars can hardly choose.
If you want to waste some time over the next few days, just go to Google and click on the doodle to start playing – if you land on this page later, you can read it from the doodle archive here. Progress is saved if you need to part ways, so you can come back anytime to finish things up and bring victory to your team.
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