Today’s Google Doodle Let’s You Design Your Own Video Game Levels

Everything you need to know about today’s Google Doodle.

Credit: Google

Today’s Google Doodle is a celebration of Jerry Lawson, the founder of VideoSoft and one of the engineers who helped design the Fairchild Channel F system (aka Fun system) which was the first video game console with interchangeable game cartridges.

That’s quite the historical feat when you think about it. Now we’ve moved on to an almost entirely digital age. The F system pre-dated the NES, which was my first experience with game cartridges and blowing into game cartridges to get rid of dusty and debris so they’d actually play the damn game.

Lawson turns 82 today, and was one of the pioneering members of the black video game developer community. He joined Fairchild Semiconductor in the early days of Silicon Valley, and his work on the F system paved the way for future consoles like Atari and the NES. Read more about Lawson’s contributions to the industry here.

Today’s Doodle takes us back in time to an age of pixelated 2D side-scrollers (or, well, okay those are still super popular today!) and is a bit of a Super Mario Maker clone. After you get through the tutorial, you’ll be able to play and edit a handful of pre-made levels to your heart’s content.

According to Google, “The Doodle features games designed by three American guest artists and game designers: Davionne Gooden, Lauren Brown, and Momo Pixel.”

It’s only on Google.com for one day, with tomorrow’s Doodle devoted to the World Cup. But you’ll still be able to play it in the archives. Still, may as well head over to Google and take it for a spin. It’s pretty fun!