Magic Cat Academy

Magic Cat Academy is a series of interactive browser games released by Google online as part of the temporary Google Doodle alterations of the website's logo to celebrate certain events; the three games debuted on October 30 of their respective years in celebration of Halloween on October 31. In each of the three games, the player controls a black cat and wizardry school student named Momo who fends off ghosts using her magic wand. The ghosts come with different lines and other shapes above them, and certain ghosts may have multiple symbols above them. In this case, Momo has to correctly draw the shapes from left to right to vanquish the spirits.

To do this, the player has to draw said symbol(s) on top of each of the ghosts using either their computer mouse or touch screen. Several of these symbols cause extra spell effects when drawn. For instance, a lightning symbol causes wide-ranging damage against ghosts, while the heart symbol effect heals Momo with one heart. Some, such as a circle that will apply a shield for her to absorb one hit from a ghost, have been added in later entries.

The player controls Momo, a sorcerer cat who goes to a magic academy. The academy is infiltrated and ruined by a group of ghosts led by their boss Marshmallow, who ravage the study room, take Momo's spell book away from her, and kidnap her anthropomorphic friends. Momo consequently decides to fight back against them using her magic wand throughout five levels, taking place in the school's library, a cafeteria, a classroom and a gymnasium. Marshmallow uses Momo's spell book to become gigantic, but Momo confronts him using a flying broomstick and defeats him from above the tower. She then retrieves her book back, and her friends congratulate her.

It is revealed that Marshmallow has plunged down into the ocean, taking a ship of an aquatic sailor cat named Captain Sugar with him; Sugar dives down in an attempt to rescue her ship. Marshmallow's band of ghosts are summoned into the ocean with him, and they proceed to possess various marine animals. Momo plunges into the ocean to confront Marshmallow again, and one of her friends provides her with an air bubble to help her breathe underwater. The objective and the development of the game are the same as the first, with the only difference being that only that the action takes place under the ocean.

The game development of the Magic Cat Academy series was organized under multiple specialized teams to cover different areas like art, engineering, and production. The fictional character Momo was directly inspired by a real life black cat, also named Momo, who was owned by the Google Doodle artist Juliana Chen. Chen herself was involved in the creation of art, animation, and gameplay concepts for the 2016 Halloween Doodle game. Furthermore, the selected winner of the 2015 Candy Cup Doodle game was the Yellow Witch and her black cat, which drove interest for a cat hero in the next Halloween Doodle.

The overall development team was involved in providing various story pitches, the one that was selected being about a cat wizard who defeats enemies using drawn spells. Chen pitched more specific story ideas for the cat wizard character, the first being where the cat brewed a "soup that was so good, it raised the dead," but the team scrapped it due to the story being too "abstract." Another story pitch involved a dog and cat duo dressed in wizard and witch costumes who fought against vacuums. The team later settled for a cat attending a wizardry school and rescuing it from ghosts, although they changed her motivation from getting her hat back from the ghosts to retrieving her book back from them.

Since the release of the first entry in 2016, the Magic Cat Academy series has been positively received by writers, with several of them describing the games as "addictive". Rafael Fariñas of The USB Port said that the 2016 Google Doodle was among the many "amazing Halloween reactions" from "Internet giants" and that it proved that Google "remains a place that encourages creativity above all." Polygon writer Owen S. Good expressed that Magic Cat Academy was an "enjoyable video game" because of its "cute cat animations," supernatural themes, and challenging gameplay.

Vox writer Aja Romano referred to it as an "exciting" game, expressing that it was difficult but that "there was something fun about seeing a cat take on all those scary ghosts." Alphi Chug of DesignAsia Magazine said that Magic Cat Academy stood out among its fellow Google Doodles as "one of the most engaging and fun experiences" because of the "engaging gameplay, adorable character design, and spooky atmosphere" that made the game unforgettable for people of all ages. Inverse editor Shannon Liao praised the 2024 entry for its "dramatic soundtrack and creatively designed bosses" along with the "epic" final cutscene. She reflected that the game experience somewhat reminded her of "playing Harry Potter on the GameCube in the early 2000s."