The doodle marking the 66th Anniversary of the Roswell Incident tells the story of an alien, who, despite having mastered interstellar space travel, appears less than adept at making a smooth landing on Earth. The team was inspired by classic point-and-click adventure games, and wanted to invite users to help an alien repair its spacecraft by exploring a 1940's New Mexican landscape, interacting with farm animals, and solving puzzles. When designing the game, we tried to think of things from an alien's point of view... chatting with a cow or chicken would be just as novel as meeting human beings for the first time; horseshoes and sacks of feed might be considered fascinating artifacts.

During the production period, this doodle underwent numerous changes, from a fully playable paper prototype, to the final homepage build:

 

Items and npcs are indicated by sticky notes in this version of the game 

 

First digital pass

 

The basic form of the game begins to emerge, but graphics are still wonderfully abstract

 

Final build, with finished art and sound.

 

Posted by Kevin Laughlin, Doodler