Why is today's Google Doodle about the Magic Cat Academy Halloween Doodle game?

The Magic Cat Academy minigame has returned for a third Halloween outing as the Google Doodle, serving up another opportunity to spend five minutes playing games instead of actually using the search engine for work and stuff.

For those unfamiliar, we were first introduced to Momo the cat (actually a real-life feline owned by Juliana Chen, a Google Doodler) back in 2016, where players had to fend off ghosts by drawing lines and making other swiping gestures with our mouse (no, not that kind of mouse).

A webpage on the original doodle reads: “The original concept for the game involved a magic cat making a soup that was so good, it raised the dead. Connecting soup to Halloween proved too abstract, so the team shifted to the idea of a wizard school. This opened the door to a more robust world filled with interesting characters and paw-some themes.”

The game spanned five levels in different areas of the school, each with their own “resident foe”.

Google

But it didn’t end there, as in 2020 – that infamous year where we all had a bit more time on our hands – Momo went on a second outing in a “subaquatic shriek-quel” with an underwater theme, taking on enemies such as the immortal jellyfish, vampire squid and anglerfish.

And now, in 2024, Momo is reaching new heights – literally – by taking her broomstick to up into the atmosphere.

A description of the third minigame in the series reads: “We’re celebrating Halloween with a brand-new instalment of Magic Cat Academy!

“In previous years, Doodle hero, Momo the cat, has defeated ghouls in school and survived a commotion in the ocean. This year, she’s embarking on an out of this world adventure, battling her arch nemesis, Marshmallow the ghost, across the layers of the atmosphere!”

The five layers are the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere, with the last level involving the big boss Marshmallow which we struggled to beat ourselves when doing “research” for this article.

Hearts are also occasionally available if you need them, and you probably will as the ghosts move towards you at increasing speeds as you progress through the levels.

Of course, it’s not the first time Google has offered up an interactive minigame for us to play, as past iterations of the Doodle have seen users making their own bubble tea and taking on a Taylor Swift-themed challenge.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.