Google Doodle games: Test your pH scale knowledge with this interactive Doodle about S.P.L Sørensen

To celebrate the achievements of Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen, the chemist who introduced the pH scale to the world, Google has designed a fun, interactive Doodle that tests your knowledge of his famous acid/alkaline test. 

An animated Sørensen will show you a picture of a fruit, vegetable, or substance, and you have to select what side of the pH scale it sits on. It’s not as detailed as previous interactive Doodles, but it is fun nonetheless. 

Doodles first released to mark the anniversary of French illusionist George Méliès’s 1912 silent film À la conquête du pôle (The Conquest of the Pole). That particular Doodle, called Back to the Moon, was the first Doodle of its kind and is an illustrated story starring an illusionist, the Queen of Hearts, and an evil green man. You can watch the 360-degree video with a headset or via the Google Spotlight Stories app, available on Google Play or in the App Store.

These playable Doodles are part of a long line of Google Doodle games the search giant has designed over the years. In fact, to celebrate its 19th birthday in 2017, Google collected some of its best Google Doodle games accessible via a birthday surprise spinner. The spinner is below, or you can scroll to the end of this article to see the full list (if you don’t want to take a gamble.)

Google birthday surprise spinner

Google recently released a Doodle which opened up the Google birthday surprise spinner. You can play the game it selects or spin again to play another. In addition to classics such as Pac-man, Solitaire, and Pony Express, the spinner additionally shows a new search Easter Egg in the form of the Snake Game.

 Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on a way to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” in 1997 after meeting at Stanford University, according to a blog post accompanying the spinner. Google didn’t officially form until a year later, and September 27 is now the accepted “date of birth.”

However, there haven’t always been birthday doodles. In fact, there are only 12 birthday Doodles, not the 19 there should be.

This is because Google has only celebrated its birthday officially in this way since 2006. The year before it was marked on 26 September, and when it turned six, it celebrated 20 days early on 7 September. This confusion was called out by Google’s own Ryan Germick, who admitted on Google’s 15th birthday that Google didn’t even know when the birthday is: “When’s Google’s birthday? I’m not sure even we know; we’ve celebrated on September 7th, 8th, 26th, and, most recently, the 27th.”

Google was officially incorporated in 1998 on 4 September, but September 27, 2002 was the first time a birthday Doodle was posted, and it seems this date has stuck.

To play all 19 Doodle games on the Google birthday surprise spinner, or play a specific title, you will need a little patience to repeatedly spin in the hope of getting something new. Once you’ve found a game you like (or once you’ve found them all) you can save the URLs as bookmarks to save you the trouble in the future!

Alternatively, we spun the birthday surprise spinner for almost half an hour to get you the full list:

Solitaire – this online version of the classic game can be played in your browser. 

Pac-man – To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the game in 2010 (yes, this Doodle was first released seven years ago), Google released a browser version of the game. It was the first game that really captured the imagination of users. 

DJ like a hip-hop star – A more recent Doodle, and not a game per se, this Doodle was released to celebrate the birth of hip-hop, and it lets you try your hand at DJing on a turntable. 

Earth day quiz – This rather random quiz asks you a series of questions to discover which animal you are, in honor of Earth Day. 

Battle against spicy peppers – To celebrate Wilbur Scoville’s 151st birthday, the person behind the Scoville scale that measures the spiciness of peppers, this game lets you attack peppers using ice cream.

Help pangolins find love – To highlight the plight of pangolins, Google created four days of animations and games in which two endangered pangolins find love. 

Hit the Pinata – This game involves hitting a Pinata with the letters of the word Google. It was released to celebrate the company’s 15th birthday. 

Halloween game – As the name suggests, this was created to celebrate Halloween last year. It was designed by the team behind Magic Cat Academy.

Arpeggios – In musical lingo, an arpeggio is a chord played one note at a time. Developer and musician Yotam Mann created this online experiment that lets you create patterns using arpeggios and teach you major and minor chords. 

Celebrate Clara Rockman’s Theramin – A theremin is an electronic instrument that you play using “air”, without ever touching the instrument itself. In this tutorial, you use the mouse or your finger to play notes. 

Pony Express – This fun cartoon game celebrates the 155th anniversary of the Pony Express. 

Explore the Galapagos Islands – This isn’t so much a Google Doodle game, but instead was a Street View collection special. As the name suggests, scientists and researchers used Street View imagery to study the land, coast, and sea of the Galápagos islands.

Animal sounds – One for young children, and animal fans, alike. This page will take to a row of animal pictures. Clicking each picture plays that particular animal’s sound.

Snake – You use your arrow keys to direct your snake around the 2D map and eat the fruit. As you eat more, your snake grows longer and longer. If you run into a wall or yourself, the game ends.

Create a Fischinger composition – Create your own musical score by clicking on the various dots on the screen, each representing a sound.

Play like Beethoven – Recreate various famous pieces by solving a series of puzzles where you have to place segments of sheet music in the correct order by carefully listening to the parts they contain.

Tic Tac Toe – Try to get 3 in a row against a computer.

Cricket Cricket – Hit the ball into the field and see how many times you can run back and forth along the track before the other team gets the ball back to the pitcher. How can you get before you miss the ball and get out?

Breathing exercise – Follow a guided breathing exercise to calm yourself and bring yourself focus.

See more interactive Google Doodles here