Google Letter Hunt is a mini-game disguised as a Google Doodle, built for National Video Games Day (September 12). The player navigates a 3D maze collecting the six letters that spell "Google," each one a character with its own personality and dialogue. The twist - the game secretly loops, and the letters remember you.
Before opening any software, I mapped out the full game flow by hand — nine frames covering the opening browser screen, the tutorial, each letter encounter, and the end state. This storyboard became the blueprint that kept the project on track even when the technical side fell apart multiple times.
I searched for references on what a simple, charming 3D game environment could look like. The low-poly, colourful worlds I found on Pinterest pointed me toward a playful aesthetic — soft shapes, bright flat colours, no realistic textures. That direction also matched the chibi character style I was already working with.
My playable character had a chibi style from the start, so I looked to Animal Crossing for visual guidance — its rounded proportions, warm palette, and approachable aesthetic were exactly the tone I wanted the game to carry.
Before moving to visual design, we created low-fidelity wireframes to map out the new user flows and information architecture.
Based on the wireframes, we moved into high-fidelity design. We explored several visual directions before converging on a clean aesthetic.
The final game is playable in Spline. It opens inside a simulated Google browser window, eases the player into the maze through a short tutorial, and loops back to the start after the sixth letter is collected. The coloured wall zones, character dialogues, animated letter collection, and hidden Easter egg are all live. A second version is planned that fixes the player alignment issues and improves the export so it can be embedded directly rather than shared as a workspace link.
