It’s a wonder how many things Google lets you do. While you may think of Google as nothing more than a search engine — far and away the most used search engine on the planet — it is so much more than that. Google’s search bar can serve as a calculator, a translator with Google Translate, an image archive with Google Images, and, as it turns out, a digital retro arcade where you can play various video games right there in the Chrome browser.
And we’re not talking about the Google Play Store, AKA “Google Play” and “Play Store,” for the record. You can download and play all sorts of games there, but there are also “secret” games hidden within Google itself, including Pac-Man, Quick Draw, Whirlybird, and more.
These games were originally released as part of the Google Doodle, which is the image that occasionally replaces the colorful Google logo atop the search bar on the search engine’s homepage. Google cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched the very first doodle in 1998 in honor of that year’s Burning Man festival.
Often animated, these games took the Google Doodle even further, making it fully interactive. And though all of these Google games have long since disappeared from the search engine’s home page, they can still be found if you know where to look.
How can I play old Google games?
Most hidden Google games can be found simply by Googling them. Type “Snake” into the search bar and hit enter and you will be taken to a page of search results with the game Snake perched at the top. Hit “Play” and the gaming commences.
Michelle Mark/Business Insider
Enter “Play Garden Gnomes” into the search engine, and you’ll get a link to an enjoyable game in which you use a trebuchet to throw garden gnomes. Type “Quick Draw” into the search engine, and you’ll be given a link to that game, and so on.
Once you know the names of the games you can play on Google, finding and playing them is not hard. Other games to search for and try include Soccer 2012, Tic Tac Toe, Minesweeper, Atari Breakout, Halloween 2018, and more.
The most popular games on Google
It’s little surprise that the most popular games on Google are classics that have stood the test of time. They include Pac-Man, created in 1980, and Snake, a game people of a certain age will recall playing on TI-82 graphing calculators in the 1990s. (In case you were wondering, the highest score possible for Google Snake is 252. It’s not easy to achieve.)
Other popular games include Solitaire — also a classic, of course — Whirlybird, Gnomes, and more. There is even a game you can play when you are not online: the T-Rex game, where you control a little cactus-jumping dinosaur. To play that game, turn off your internet connection, open Chrome, and press the Space key to begin.
How to download a game on Google Play
If you’re looking to play something a little more advanced or modern than the iconic Google games, you can head over to the Google Play Store and download games onto your Android devices.
Google Play was launched in 2012. It replaced the Android Market, Google Music, and Google eBookstore as the one-stop shop for downloading music, movies, books, apps, and, of course, games.
On Google Play, you can easily access millions of apps. To download a game, simply open the Google Play Store on your device (or visit play.google.com on an internet browser), search for your desired game, click “Install” or the price, and follow the directions to download.