Google Doodle Halloween game: How to play as a ghoul with your friends – and win

Google's newest, haunting doodle is also its first multiplayer game.

Players are instructed to catch ghouls as they wander around a haunted house in the game, which sits on the Google homepage. And for the first time people can play easily against each other, since it allows people to host their own games and team up to take on others.

The ghoul duel is accessed by heading to Google's homepage and clicking in the space where the doodle usually is. It will take you through a tutorial – which you can skip, if you've watched it before, though the game is quite complicated and it's not recommended – and then you'll have the option either to jump in to someone else's game or set up one of your own.

Once that happens, users are sorted into two teams of four. They each try to collect the most spirits they can and then carry them back to their base, in two minutes, at which point the round comes to an end and a winner is declared.

But it's also more complicated than that: the game offers a wide variety of different maps, as well as powerups that make it a little more varied. Players can get the ability to move around more quickly or to see in the dark, for instance.

As well as being able to play in teams – either with strangers or people you know – each player is given personal awards depending on how they've done.

Special technologies had to be built to allow for the first multiplayer version of the game, Google said. "The team built several systems to enable this multiplayer gaming, all running on the Google Cloud Platform, including integrating Open Match, a highly-scalable, open source matchmaking framework cofounded by Google Cloud and Unity," it wrote in a blog post announcing the new game.

The Doodle is showing around almost all of the world – though not in Africa and some specific countries – and will presumably stick around until Halloween is over.