Today marks the 155th anniversary of the Pony Express, a mail courier service started by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell back in April 1860. The Pony Express delivered messages, newspapers, mail, and also small packages in a route that started at St. Joseph, Missouri, and went across the Great Plains, passed over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada all the way to Sacramento, California in only 10 days.
To celebrate the anniversary of the Pony Express, Google has created a Pony Express Doodle game and has featured it as today’s Google Doodle. Below is an animated video created by Nate Swinehart that shares a little history of the Pony Express and the story behind the making of the Doodle game.
This game is very straight-forward. The player uses the Up and Down keys on the keyboard (or tapping on the Top or Bottom part of the screen if you’re on mobile) to move the rider and the objective of the game is to retrieve all the mail scattered across the map while avoiding obstacles such as cactus plants, rocks, falling snow, and bandits. You 1 point for each mail you retrieve and lose 3 points each time you hit an obstacle. The game is divided into three sections – 2 stations where the rider switches to a fresh horse and the final destination – a town where a crowd of people is cheering and waiting for him.
Click here to play the Google Doodle Pony Express Game.
Have you tried playing the Google Doodle Pony Express game? If you liked it, then you’d probably be interested in other Google Doodle games like Pac-Man and the Piñata Game.
