Draw spell symbols to fend off ghosts at a school for cats
21:47
TubeGames verdict
The Halloween Doodle where a cat draws spells at ghosts; short, sharp, and it holds up years later.
Reviewed by Max, TubeGames · Sep 18, 2026 · How we rate
Magic Cat Academy is the Halloween Doodle: Momo the cat, a school full of ghosts, and you drawing the symbol above each ghost's head to zap it before it reaches you. A simple idea gets busy fast. A line is easy. A line, a V and a lightning bolt on three ghosts closing from both sides is a different afternoon.
What keeps you playing is the reading. Ghosts come in waves, the symbols get longer, and the game becomes a test of seeing a shape and drawing it clean under pressure, which it teaches you in about three minutes. The rooms change as you push through the school, some ghosts carry more than one symbol, and it ends with a bigger fight that made me sit up. It's one sitting, and the rare Doodle you replay to do cleaner.
The complaints. It's short, built as a one-day novelty, so there's no score chase beyond your own finish. Drawing on a trackpad is worse than on a phone or with a mouse; my V kept registering as a line. Once you know the rooms, there's no second way through.
Play it if you missed it the first time or want it without digging through the archive. Skip it if you want more than one afternoon of game.
Good
- Draw-the-symbol combat gets tense fast
- One sitting, replayable for a clean run
- Works with a finger or a mouse
- Charming even if you don't like cats
Not so good
- Short; built as a one-day novelty
- Trackpad drawing is unreliable
- One route through, no score to chase
About Magic Cat Academy
Grab your wand and help fend off a ghostly catastrophe. Swipe spells, save your friends, and help restore the peace at the Magic Cat Academy.
Magic Cat Academy was published on YouTube Playables on 2023-10-31 by Google Doodles. In 1075 days it has reached about 2.5M plays.
Magic Cat Academy is the Google Doodle game where a cat defends her school from ghosts. Each ghost carries a symbol, and you cast by drawing that symbol on screen before it reaches you and your friends.
Waves press harder as you go, so it turns into a test of reading shapes quickly rather than aiming carefully. It is short, self-contained and finishes in a sitting, and it plays free inside YouTube with nothing to install.
How to play: Swipe to draw the symbol shown above each ghost to cast a spell at it.
Good for: quick sessions, Doodle game fans
How to play Magic Cat Academy
- Phone / tablet
- Draw the symbol shown above a ghost with your finger, anywhere on the screen; a clean stroke casts the spell.
- Desktop
- Hold the left mouse button and draw the symbol; a mouse is much better than a trackpad here.
- Levels
- A run through the school's rooms, with ghosts getting tougher and symbols longer as you go, and a bigger fight at the end.
- Progress
- It's one continuous run; finishing it is the goal, and you replay to finish cleaner.
The game reads the shape, not the size or the position, so a small, quick, tidy symbol beats a big dramatic one.
Tips for surviving the later waves
- Draw small. Big strokes take longer and wobble. A symbol the size of a coin registers just as well.
- Zap the closest, not the easiest. The V two steps away matters more than the line across the room.
- Multi-symbol ghosts, one stroke at a time. Drawing one of its symbols knocks that one off; you can deal with a nearer ghost and come back for the rest.
- Mouse or finger, never a trackpad. The trackpad turns a V into a line and a bolt into a mess. Plug something in or use your phone.
- Watch both sides. Ghosts come from left and right, and the one behind you is the one that gets you.
Which Magic Cat Academy is this one?
There are three Doodle games in the series, and people search for 2, 3 and beyond. The build on YouTube is the first one, set in the school where it all started: Momo, the ghosts, the symbols, the bigger fight at the end. The later two took the same drawing idea to new settings and added new mechanics, and they're in the Doodle archive rather than here. If you played the original the year it came out and want it back without hunting for it, this is exactly that. If you're looking for the sequels, this is the one to play first anyway; the drawing skill carries over.
Magic Cat Academy vs Fruit Ninja
They're both swipe games, and that's about where it ends, but the comparison tells you what kind of swipe game this is. Fruit Ninja rewards speed and mess: swipe everywhere, fast, and the score comes. Magic Cat Academy rewards accuracy and order: a sloppy symbol does nothing, and the wrong target first gets you hit from behind. So if Fruit Ninja is a stress-relief game, this is a concentration game that happens to use the same finger. Ten minutes of it and you'll notice your strokes have gotten smaller and neater, which is the whole skill.
How plays are counted
Public play counts for Magic Cat Academy are re-counted every day from the YouTube Playables catalog and shown the way YouTube shows them. The total and rankings above are as of 2026-10-10.
Ratings & reviews
No written reviews yet — tap the stars and tell other players what you think.
How we rate
The TubeGames rating is our estimate, not a vote. It combines how it holds up on YouTube Playables: how many people play it and whether they keep playing weeks after launch. Once 10 players rate Magic Cat Academy here, their average becomes the headline score.
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