Google tricks you with a doodle this Halloween

It is Halloween, and Google has gone old-school with its themed doodle today. The Google Search home page now displays an interactive doodle – a haunted house for its virtual visitors.

The haunted house is complete with a crow perched on its roof, a wilted tree, and jack-o’-lanterns at the doorstep. A skeleton entices you into knocking on the door in front of you. The door opens and a white ghost pops up. You click on the ghost and it disappears. Move around a bit, click on the other two doors and spooky characters pop up from behind them. Almost all the key elements in the doodle are interactive, so there is never a dull moment. Once you have unearthed what is behind each of the closed doors, do not miss the alley cat hidden in the bin. Click on it, and it exits the scene, but not before giving out a spooky meow. You are then taken to Google’s search page, which displays results for the word ‘Halloween’. 

A haunted house awaits you this Halloween

Halloween or the ‘All Hallows’ Evening’ is an annual celebration across several countries held on October 31. It is observed on the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows (or All Saints). Halloween has been influenced by western European harvest festivals and festivals of the dead. It is also believed to have pagan roots, especially the Celtic Samhain ones. Some, however, believe it has independent origins. 

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While Google displays a doodle for every occasion, some of its best creations have been the interactive ones. This month, Google displayed a doodle with an entire motion picture comic strip, which commemorated 107 years of the first appearance of Winsor McCay’s comic strip series Little Nemo in Slumberland.

The doodle was magnificent, for it did not shy away from telling the tale. Users instantly knew that they were in for a surprise today. The screen opened up to a title, ‘Little Nemo in Google Land’, and soon enough there was Little Nemo taking his first ‘dream’ plunge. Google’s doodle was the recreation of McCay’s comic strip, wherein he captured the fantasy world of the dreams of his fictional characters.

Speaking of interactive doodles, one cannot leave out the one Google displayed on the 78th birth anniversary of the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, Robert Moog. The doodle featured a synthesizer which you could either play by clicking on the keys or by typing on your computer keyboard. The sharps and flats (black notes) could be played with the numbers on your keyboard and the regular notes with the letters. The sound that emanated was electronic and you had the option of adjusting the pitch by using the pitch wheel on the left. Users had the option of recording their composition by hitting the record button on the right and playing back composition.