On 27th April Google announced that over the next couple of weeks it will bring back its 10 most popular google doodle games from the past years. This is to help people de-stress during the coronavirus lockdown, and we really like the initiative. However, this also made us curious about what exactly Google doodles are and how did Google come up with this unique idea. So here’s a brief history of Google doodles, followed by our selection of the top 5 Google doodle games.
History of Google Doodles
In order to commemorate certain events, holidays, and birthdays of popular personalities, Google makes certain “doodles” on its home page, which includes either artwork or interactive games to generate curiosity and awareness among its users. I’m sure you must have seen Google doodles on Indian special occasions like Republic Day, Gandhi Jayanti, etc.
The first Google doodle, which you can see in the cover image on top, came out on 31st August 1998, to celebrate the annual Burning Man event in the US. It was designed by Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, to inform Google’s then nascent user base that the founders will be unavailable to tend to the servers if they crash as they’ll be off to Burning Man. Subsequent doodles were contracted out, till 2001 when Google started making the doodles themselves again. A dedicated team was set up just to create doodles, and they fondly came to be known as “doodlers”.
Initially the doodles were fairly simple, which were just images in which the word Google was creatively written. When you hovered your mouse on top of them then you saw a small pop-up text which showed what the doodle was commemorating. But since 2010 the Google doodles have become much more creative. In January 2010 Google launched its first animated doodle to commemorate Sir Isaac Newton’s birth anniversary. In May 2010 Google launched its first interactive doodle game in which users could play Pac-Man. In the past decade Google has focused more on regional doodles to celebrate the histories of various countries. Till now Google’s team of doodlers has made more than 4000 doodles.
Since 2008 Google has also set up an initiative known as “Doodle 4 Google”. This is an annual competition in which school students can make and submit doodles. If their entry wins then they get a college sponsorship of upto $30,000 along with some other unique gifts. Their doodle is also featured on the Google homepage. This is an annual event for which Google gives a specific theme and students from various countries can participate. Since 2009 this competition has also been organised in India. Hence if you know any creative school students you can ask them to submit their doodle entries to Google the next time the competition opens up.
