Santa Tracker 2014
Open the game- Brand
- Year
- 2014
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Upperquad
- With
- Plan8
Objective
Google built Santa Tracker to keep families with young kids coming back to its site all December long, not just once on Christmas Eve. Each day's new activity gave Google a reason to show off its own platforms — Maps, Android, Chromecast, the Chrome browser, and even a basic coding lesson — in a format kids would actually want to open. It was also Google's answer to NORAD Tracks Santa and Microsoft's Bing-powered tracker, rivals it faced every holiday season.
Solution
Open the site and you land in an illustrated, snow-covered village, Santa's workshop at its center, ringed by houses and clearings that are really doors into individual activities. Only one door is unlocked at a time — today's — while past days stay open for replay and future ones stay locked until their date arrives. Behind them are quick arcade rounds (racing reindeer, skydiving with a sack of presents, wrapping gifts against the clock, a memory match against Santa himself) alongside short learning breaks: a geography quiz on Santa's delivery routes, a holiday-traditions trivia round, a beginner coding puzzle, and a run of Christmas greetings spoken in twenty languages, Elvish included. On December 24th the village itself steps aside for the main event — a live tracker showing Santa's sleigh crossing the globe in real time. The whole calendar carried over to phones and tablets through the Android app, to the TV over Chromecast, and to the browser via a Chrome extension.
- 1
The player opens santatracker.google.com and lands not on a map but in an illustrated Santa's Village: a snowy scene of houses, elves, and activity spots.
- 2
The village runs as an advent calendar: starting December 1st, one new spot unlocks each day while the rest stay locked until their date, giving players a reason to come back daily through December 24th.
- 3
Clicking an unlocked spot opens it to reveal a minigame, an interactive scene, or a video — the format isn't known in advance. Some spots are pure ambient scenes with no win condition: characters come alive and their eyes track the cursor as the player explores.
- 4
One activity is a memory-matching game where the player races Santa himself, flipping and pairing cards against the clock across several levels while a score is tallied.
- 5
Other activities are skill-based minigames: racing Santa's reindeer to the finish, parachuting presents down to a landing target, and helping elves pack gifts for delivery.
- 6
Other spots hold puzzle and knowledge content: reading a map of Santa's delivery route, answering trivia questions on how different countries celebrate Christmas, and working through a short in-browser coding lesson.
- 7
The village also offers social and language features — hearing a holiday greeting spoken aloud in any of 20 languages, including Elvish, and sending a friend a simulated "call from Santa."
- 8
On December 24th the village gives way to the main event: a live tracker map where players watch Santa fly around the world delivering gifts.
- 9
The same tracker experience carries over beyond the browser, through an Android app, a Chromecast TV broadcast, and a Chrome extension.
