Google’s elaborate Doodle on Saturday paid homage to the classic time traveling science-fiction British show Doctor Who for its 50th anniversary.

Google Designs 'Doctor Who' Doodle

After 4,000 fans of the series signed a petition to encourage Google to design a homepage graphic to commemorate its five decades on the air, the company got to work. Five people at the Internet giant toiled on the doodle, which features the most involved game Google has ever presented in a doodle. The work was headed by Britain-born doodler Matthew Cruickshank.

"It's the first game that I've designed," he told The Guardian. "But it's the technicians and programmers that actually make the game. I just art direct, create the assets, set the visual tone, design the characters, and then do pieces of animation."

"It was about four months ago that an employee here who's a massive Doctor Who fan added it to our list of potential doodles,” Cruickshank added. “We looked through it and realized that this was something special, a chance to really celebrate a national institution."

Included in the Google Doodle are the 11 Doctors, Daleks and Tardises. In the game, the player travels to different eras and different places, in keeping with the time and space traveling narrative of the TV show. The BBC was in complete support of Google’s endeavor and enthusiastically got behind the idea of the company creating a multi-level platform game.

The game itself allows the player to select which Doctor they would like to be. Then, they have to race against a clock to pick up “G-O-O-G-L-E,” and evade a Dalek so they can get to a phone booth.

Doctor Who, which began in 1963 with William Hartnell as the Doctor, is the longest-running show in the world.

– Chelsea Regan

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