From empty stadiums to (rightfully) fired composers and beyond, this year's Tokyo Olympics are already something of a disaster. Fortunately, Google's celebratory homepage doodle has given a surprisingly fun collection of arcade minigames in its place.
Appearing on the Google homepage this week, the Doodle Champion Island Games is an online sports RPG that sees you joining one of four teams to compete across seven events—archery, artistic swimming, table tennis, marathon, rugby, climbing and skateboarding. Red team, the best team, is currently winning by a long shot.
Each of these takes the form of a pretty solid little minigame. Artistic swimming is framed as a Dance Dance Revolution-style rhythm game, while skateboarding (new to the Olympics this year) is a top-down demake of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Each comes with its own, anime-inspired opening cinematic, following a plucky wee cat as they become a multidisciplinary sports master.
These sports are all hosted within a fairly dense overworld packed with characters, some of which even have a few side-quests to complete. One, for example, sees you running off to fetch water so a poor rhino can finish up their construction work and open up a whole new wing of the map.
Google has experimented with playable doodles in the past, from Jazz-swinging rhythm games to competitive ghoul duels. Champion Island feels like a whole new level of ambitious, though, and is definitely worth checking out while it's up. It's just a shame the event it's tied into has turned into such a mess.
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