Doing its part to help celebrate a socially distant holiday
Halloween is right around the corner, and even if many of us won't celebrate the festivities the way we usually do, Google is trying to do its part to make the best of the situation with features that will help you have a socially distant Halloween. Like every year, the company has hidden a plethora of spooky surprises in its search engine and other products.
The 2020 Halloween Doodle sees a return of Momo the cat.
If you own a Pixel phone, you might have noticed the return of the 2016 Magic Cat Academy Doodle in the search bar on your launcher already. This year, Google has Momo the cat fight spooky ghosts and monsters in an underwater world. You can join Momo right here or over on Google's homepage for the next 48 hours.
Shake your bones.
On Google Search, you'll find a collection of new spooky AR Halloween characters, including a dancing skeleton, Jack-o'lanterns, a hot dog, a pirate dog, and a magic cat. Check our coverage to see them in action.
Google Assistant also has a few tricks up its sleeve. There's a search-themed Halloween song (as we already covered) about a werewolf, ghost, and vampire getting ready to haunt during the spooky season. You can also ask the Assistant to tell you an appropriately themed riddle. The former is available in Arabic, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Spanish, English across the globe, and Portuguese in Brazil, while the latter is only accessible in English in the US. On smart home devices, the Assistant is capable of haunting your house, and if you still don't know what to dress up for, you can ask it for help. The voice commands to try are:
- "Hey Google, tell me a riddle."
- "Hey Google, sing the Halloween song."
- "Hey Google, haunt my house."
- "Hey Google, what should I be for Halloween?"
Like last year, the Nest Hello doorbell is gearing up for a "spooky sounds" theme — you can listen to a selection of these seasonal ringtones right here. This time around, there are two new sounds to enjoy: Werewolf and Black Cat. The ringtones are available globally through November 1, so use them while you can.
And if you're looking for the best selection of haunted games for the occasion, we've got you covered: Here are 30 of the scariest Android games we found for plenty of spooky action for a socially distant Halloween.
