The Google Doodle for January 29, 2023, features a simplistic, relaxing game where players can make bubble tea. Bubble tea goes by many different names, such as pearl milk tea, boba, and tapioca milk tea, but it still remains the same popular drink that became a staple in many countries of the world. No matter what name fans call the drink by, its ingredients are the same even with its large variety of flavors. While the Google Doodle game keeps things simple, it allows players to make their own boba tea with many different flavors of tea and tapioca balls for five different animal customers.
As boba originally grew in popularity sometime in the '90s, some fans may be wondering the significance of January 29 is, as many Google Doodles celebrate dates like Jerry Lawson's birthday. For bubble tea, January 29, 2020, was the day that it was announced that the drink was so popular that it was getting its own emoji. Said emoji is now available on many emoji keyboards, including those found on Apple and Android devices.
The game, which can be started by hitting the play button on the main Google webpage and the Doodle's own personal page on the Google Doodle archive, sees players take on the role of a traveling boba tea-selling dog. When the rain makes the puppy need to halt their journey for a while, they decide to open up shop and make some drinks for any of the animals who walk by. The customers range from critters like a sheep, a muddy Chihuahua, and even the familiar faces of the cat and ghosts from the Halloween Google Doodle game stop by for some boba.
Mechanically, the game is fairly simple as all players need to do is tap and hold any place in the lime green square at the bottom in order to pour out the ingredients. Players will see a fill line that they need to reach in order to gain a star for progress, but it can be a bit challenging as it requires some timing to get perfect.
Still, there's no penalty from missing one, or even all three stars as every customer will walk away satisfied no matter how their boba turns out. While players can try to challenge themselves to get a complete run of all fifteen stars, they don't need to, and can relax and have fun making bubble tea to music that sounds like it belongs in an Animal Crossing game.
It seems that despite the tragic shutdown of the Stadia, the tech company still aims to make its users happy in any way it can with video games. Google has helped make its millions of users smile with a simplistic and fun game that can be played by all sorts of gamers that celebrates a fun aspect of day-to-day life.
Source: Google